• Mayuri Dutta

ABSTRACT Representation of the lived reality of diverse human experiences through literature is one of the most powerful methods of communication. One of such multitudinous experiences can be located in the realm of sexual orientation and sexual identity. In fact queer approaches to literature accommodate various plural possibilities with regard to sexual identity categories, sexual relations and sexual politics. Queer literature provides the platform to address the issues and concerns of the non-heteronormative people. Rekhti poetry which originated in the city of Lucknow provided a fertile ground for the flourishing of cultural diversity and thereby facilitated the registering of queer voices in the early 18th and 19th century in India. Rekhti poetry refers to Urdu poetry written mostly by men disguising female personae during those times. Rekhti poetry foregrounds the marginalized female voices including within its ambit female-female romantic relations in 18th and 19th century India. A close reading of Rekhti poetry lays bare the lives of women during that period and vividly projects their everyday realities. This paper is an attempt to examine the queer world of Rekhti poetry where the well-established binary categories of gender and sexuality namely, male/masculine, female/feminine are systematically deconstructed. This paper further seeks to analyze Rekhti poetry’s celebration of female sexuality which was controlled and regulated by the male poets who wrote them mostly for the purpose of titillation.

KEYWORDS : Sexual identity, non-heteronormative, queer, female personae, marginalized, cultural diversity, deconstructed.

"QUEER VOICES IN URDU REKHTI POETRY IN INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.332-335, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908051.pdf

"QUEER VOICES IN URDU REKHTI POETRY IN INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp332-335, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908051.pdf