narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

It is significant to note that stories of failed masculinity were always stories told of some
‘other’ man. The storyteller’s sympathy with the other’s failure to live upto the
hegemonic performance of maleness can be read as the storyteller’s attempt at
recovering his hurt self-male ego. This indirectly reconfirmed the importance of
hegemonic masculine performances in the construction of heterosexual masculine
identities. For instance, when asked to narrate some fun-filled moments of boyhood,
third generation Arjun and Raj in reminiscing their school days, could not stop laughing
at how they derived fun by playing pranks on their “really good natured, ‘cute’, and
‘dumb friend’, Shouro. Arjun narrates,
“It’s really a ‘pity’ how Shouro always became the ‘target of our fun!’ ‘Actually’ he
was slightly meyeli (girly, effeminate). We always teased him that he would
become ‘gay’ as he could hardly do ‘boy’s stuffs’ like play outdoors and was
more interested in ‘girlie stuffs’ like ‘sit and have intimate discussions, cry at silly
things’ and be a part of dance groups (tries to hide laughter).”
Raj shares the laughter with Arjun about Shouro but sympathizes with Arjun’s failed
masculinity this time. Despite Arjun’s casual objection, Raj tells me Arjun’s bhetorer
golpo (inside story),
“Arjun is acting the ‘big man’ now in a woman’s (referring to me) presence. Do
you know how my ‘poor little sissy brother’ never went to play outdoors as he
feared burning his fair complexion? (laughs)”
Arjun gets back at Raj accusing him,
“You guys always ‘bullied’ Shouro. I too followed you all but sometimes stayed
back with him, only to give him ‘company’. ‘Poor guy’, often told me how we had
‘pressurized’ him to do ‘our men’s stuffs’ (smiles mischievously). I realized during
138