It is hard to tell whether Bengali author Krishnagopal Mallick (1936-2003) wrote to celebrate homosexuality, shock bhadralok sensibilities, titillate those in need of erotic entertainment, or give free rein to his creative expression without caring about the reception. Rather than analysing his motivations, it might be more useful to examine what his writing stirs up in us. His fiction is now available in English translation, thanks to Niladri R Chatterjee, professor of English at Kalyani University, West Bengal.

Entering the Maze: Queer Fiction of Krishnagopal Mallick includes Chatterjee’s translations of two short stories by Mallick – (The Difficult Path and Senior Citizen) – and one novella (Entering the Maze). All of them unfold in Calcutta, which is not just a setting but also a salient character. The author’s familiarity with the geographical spread of the city and his enchantment with public spaces allow the reader to explore neighbourhoods, bylanes, tram lines, cinema halls, bookshops, parks and public squares like a flaneur would.

It is hard to tell whether Bengali author Krishnagopal Mallick (1936-2003) wrote to celebrate homosexuality, shock bhadralok sensibilities, titillate those in need of erotic entertainment, or give free rein to his creative expression without caring about the reception. Rather than analysing his motivations, it might be more useful to examine what his writing stirs up in us. His fiction is now available in English translation, thanks to Niladri R Chatterjee, professor of English at Kalyani University, West Bengal.

Entering the Maze: Queer Fiction of Krishnagopal Mallick includes Chatterjee’s translations of two short stories by Mallick – (The Difficult Path and Senior Citizen) – and one novella (Entering the Maze). All of them unfold in Calcutta, which is not just a setting but also a salient character. The author’s familiarity with the geographical spread of the city and his enchantment with public spaces allow the reader to explore neighbourhoods, bylanes, tram lines, cinema halls, bookshops, parks and public squares like a flaneur would.

Mallick uses the 19th century term “homosexual” to talk about the forbidden intimacies that men seek and find. He evokes a time much before Indian men started using apps like Planet Romeo, Grindr, Scruff, Blued, Tinder and Bumble to hook up with each other; before terms like “daddy”, “twink”, “bear” and “otter” for various body types found wide circulation.

The 59-year-old narrator in The Difficult Path (Bandhur Pantha in the original Bengali) is believed to be modelled on Mallick himself. This narrator says, “Homosexuality is the one and only driving force of my life.” What makes Mallick’s work unusual and refreshing is that he does not hesitate to name his protagonists after himself. Neither Mallick nor his protagonists are embarrassed by the pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Here, a public space – College Square in Calcutta – transform into a cruising site as males between the ages of 15 and 65 occupy “secluded, shaded, dark benches”. The narrator delights in their lovemaking, and playfully refers to it as “manual labour”. He calls himself “a confirmed homosexual whose adventures at this place might constitute a full novel” but also confesses that “the thirst for coitus has gone; the thirst for company has grown”. Having fulfilled most of his desires before 59, he walks past these men in the park, hoping to annoy them and interrupt their furtive public exploration of each other’s bodies.

He says, “To the group of twenty-twenty-one-year-olds, I am grandpa, ditto for the twenty-six-twenty-seven group; I am uncle to the group of thirty-thirty-five-year-olds; and elder brother to the fifty-sixty-year-olds. I am ‘chacha’ to a group of Bihari men.” There is a feeling of belonging to a wider group but the bonding between these people is never framed as an act of collective resistance to oppression at the hands of a patriarchal, heteronormative society.

The people who gather at this place are not depicted as desperate creatures hungry for sexual release with anyone they can lay their hands on. Instead, they are shown bantering, talking about studies and examinations, reading poems by Rabindranath Tagore and Jibanananda Das, and singing songs of Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar and Nachiketa Chakraborty.

In Entering the Maze (translated from the Bengali Byuhaprabesh), from which this collection takes its title, a schoolboy is fascinated by the changes occurring in his own body and is keen to know more. He browses adult magazines that he is barred from reading, and enjoys watching dogs mating in the streets. He approaches boys as well as girls when he is curious about their bodies. The writing is raw and unsentimental. The moral dimension pops in only when the boy’s mother catches him masturbating, and makes him feel that he has done something dirty.

The author does not reduce the protagonist to his desires, however transgressive they might seem. The boy’s sexuality is only one aspect of who he is. He is a stamp collector, a hilsa fish enthusiast, a voracious reader, and a writer of detective stories. This protagonist is named Gopal after the author. As the novella proceeds, he falls in love with a boy named Manoj. While none of the adults discover that they are sexually involved, Manoj’s uncle becomes an obstacle to their friendship. He tells Gopal, “You are from a wealthy family of this neighbourhood. Our Buro (Manoj’s nickname) is a refugee (from East Pakistan) under my care. Will water and oil mix?” The boys are not bothered by these concerns. Apart from the affection and attraction they feel for each other, they are bound by a love of reading and writing. Manoj is not well-off but he has been published in a children’s magazine. This achievement increases his stature in Gopal’s eyes.

Chatterjee’s introductory essay clarifies that Mallick pursued sexual relationships with men even as he was married to a woman. However, he did not identify himself as gay, bisexual, queer, or sex-positive. These are terms that contemporary readers might choose to describe him as they look for people from the past to seek validation for their own lives, identities and choices. But the metaphor of being closeted as well as the idea of coming out seem quite alien to Mallick’s way of thinking. As Chatterjee points out, “Mallick never considered his homosexual activities as being in opposition to, or in conflict, with his identity as a married man”. He was interested in the practice of homosexuality, not the theory and the politics of it.

“The frank and unapologetic expression of his homosexuality confounds the patronising, liberal view of queer individuals as continually suffering, permanently traumatised, and ashamed of their identity,” remarks Chatterjee, wondering how Mallick, born during the British Raj, “did not imbibe any of the homophobia, especially internalised homophobia”.

When Chatterjee decided to translate Mallick’s work from Bengali to English, he got “unstinting help and support” from the author’s son Durjoy and daughter-in-law Susama. One of the biggest challenges that translators face is interference from estates of deceased authors. It is, therefore, remarkable that Chatterjee did not have to deal with family members trying to stifle his freedom as a translator. Perhaps this was possible because Mallick’s family respected his creative output, and were not squeamish about its content.

Chatterjee’s translation shows that Mallick was not pretending to write in a vacuum. His fiction includes references to the bombing of Calcutta during the Second World War, the communal riots between the Muslims and Hindus in the city on Direct Action Day on 16th August 1946, the Partition of 1947, and the influx of refugees following the Partition. Interestingly, he does not refer to any historical events that are seen as landmarks in India’s queer history, especially the first pride walk in India that took place in Calcutta in 1999.

Contemporary readers might find this book problematic because Mallick seems unconcerned with the question of consent. There are scenes depicting sex between adults and minors. Though power dynamics are clearly established, the acts are never framed as violence because the person who is younger reacts with a mixture of pleasure as well as disgust. Activists trying to counter the homophobic notion that all gay men are paedophiles and predators would find it challenging to stomach this book. In the short story Senior Citizen, we meet a narrator who travels on crowded buses so that he can touch other men’s genitals. This narrator often finds “the other party” appreciating it but, once, a man grabs his wrist with one hand and throat with another before saying, “It’s not as though you have long to live. And you are still up to this stuff… I’m letting you off because you are a senior citizen.”

The narrator is aware that readers might judge him, so he quickly holds up a mirror: “Should the average reader cry ‘Shame! Shame!’ …I will beat them up with my sandals.” He justifies his actions by pointing out that young lads often “cop a feel” when they see women on buses. This is not the equality that people advocating for rights of LGBTQIA+ folks have in mind.

That said, Chatterjee’s labour as a translator is worthy of appreciation. He seems eager to secure a place for Mallick in the canon of global queer literature with the introductory essay locating Mallick in relation to Marcel Proust, EM Forster, Andrew Tobias, Edmund White, Christopher Isherwood, André Gide, Bhupen Khakhar, Audre Lorde and Jacob Israël de Haan. Whether that happens depends largely on what academics deem worthy of teaching, but a book like this certainly expands our understanding of how people live, feel, and think outside organized, affluent, English-speaking queer spaces.

Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist and book reviewer.