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Same-sex love has existed in various forms previously within the Indian context. In this chapter, the need to break free from societal bonds, as well as the desire to gain legitimacy for queer relationships, will be explored. This will be done through close readings of the essays “We Will Always Be Who We Are” by Keshav Suri, “I Am a Chef Who Happens to Be a Lesbian” by Ritu Dalmia, and “From Margins to the Mainstream” by Zainab Patel. These essays will be analysed against the backdrop of Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India by Madhavi Menon and Queer Studies: Texts, Contexts, and Praxis by Kaustav Bakshi and Rohit K. Dasgupta. This chapter will examine the oppression that queer people endure due to their non-heteronormative identity. It will also explore the silenced voices and histories and their effect on queer individuals through the medium of the select essays.

Yenugula Veeraswamaiyya's Kasi Yatra Charitra( 1838) is considered the first book written in the genre of travel writing in Telugu. A seminal work, it faithfully reflects and records the social, religious, political and economic life of people in those times, along with aspects of tradition and culture. A well-recognised scholar of his times, Veeraswamaiyya embarked on his journey to Kasi (Varanasi) in May 1830 from Chennapatnam (Chennai). He travelled for 15 months and 15 days and returned to Chennapatnam on September 3rd, 1831. He wrote about his experiences of travelling through Tirupati, Kadapa, Kurnool, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Jabalpur and Allahabad to reach Kasi. On his return journey, he travelled across Patna,

Societies present gender norms as “natural” to enforce an uneven power hierarchy. This “naturalness” often generates a desire within the gendered body to conform to their assigned identity within particular spaces. This chapter aims to explore gender identity and relations within the domestic space of home in South Asian context through an examination of Vijay Tendulkar's play Kamala, translated by Priya Adarkar. To this end, the study benefits from Nivedita Menon's Seeing Like a Feminist. More specifically, the chapter focuses on the characters Kamala, Kamalabai, and Sarita to analyze the protections offered to the “good” women but denied to the “bad/fallen” ones. It is hoped that the analysis highlights the different workings of gendered identity and roles within particular spatial settings.

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