In India queer existence is still relegated to the margins; it is precarious, ephemeral, endangered. It was only in 2018 that the Indian Supreme Court struck down a British colonial-era law that criminalized homosexuality. As of this writing, Indian law does not recognize samesex marriage or civil unions. While there is a rich, storied tradition of queerness in South Asian art, culture, and mythology, queer literature is still a relatively sparse canon. This makes Akella's novel, and his voice, all the more important-an infusion to a collective oeuvre that deserves much more far-reaching attention than it has received so far, both on the Indian subcontinent and abroad.
I was struck by an exchange between the narrator, Shagun, and his father at the start of the novel, in which his father asks Shagun about his favorite god. Can you talk a bit about the role Hindu mythology plays in the novel as well as in the framing of traditional ideas of masculinity?
Hindu mythology, in both oral and written forms, abounds with queer and trans characters. However, a fleet of political invasions on the subcontinent triggered the age-old fear of "the great replacement." These original texts were supplanted with rigidly structured heteronormative versions: stories where straight uppercaste couples are at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the ruling and the agrarian, landowning caste. A celebration of the "masculine" cis man led to a reframing of Hanuman only as a fierce, masculine god-the version that Shagun's father wants him to imbibe. The Sea Elephants presents myths in original and censored versions but without being didactic.
Shastri Akella whose debut novel, The Sea Elephants, will be published by Flatiron Books in July
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Literary MagNet
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