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

of sexual sobriety still reigns strong in the imagination of the bhadrasamaj in the
postcolonial times. Sex and sexuality is therefore a ‘social taboo’ and its expressions in
language, literature and arts; an obscene anathema for the conservative.
As a third generation woman researcher I confirm Basu’s argument through the sociocultural
reservations and barriers that exists in terms of posing questions related to
issues of sexuality to most of my first and second generation subjects. The few
questions that were asked to some who seemed to be relatively more comfortable with
such discussions were also heavily under-toned and insinuated rather than direct, and
subtle rather than candid. The relatively more relaxed rapport with some third
generation friends helped me pose questions of such sorts only, however, to get the
general view of the subject rather than very personal stories unless they willingly
decided to tell. Subjects expressed reserved, apprehensive and hesitant modes of
expressing sexuality and often referred to the actual sexual act as ‘kora’ or ‘doing’ or in
English as ‘doing it’ or just ‘it’ and hinted this ‘it’ by non-verbal cues, in the formal
context of discussions where slang was not invoked. Taking cue from such cultural
expressions of sexuality, I asked my subjects how they would verbally and linguistically
express the meaning of sexual intercourse. This question that was hypothetical in
nature elicited interestingly similar responses from all the subjects. Most said they would
not express it at all as it is very private. Then I asked how they would describe it if they
had to hypothetically express it. Subjects indirectly hinted at it through expressions like
‘prem korchilam’ (did love) or ‘ota hoyechhe’ (that happened) and metaphorically
described it as ‘ekshathe shuyechhi’ (slept together). I probed deeper to ask how they
would express it without indirect insinuations. To this almost everyone, except for one
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