Changing/Unchanging Realities: Mapping Experiences of Same-Sex Love vis-à-vis Section 377 Indian Penal Code Through Hostel Room 131 (2010) and Badhaai Do (2022)

Abstract

This article examines experiences of same-sex love in India from the perspective of two narratives located on either side of the historic 2018 Supreme Court of India verdict decriminalizing homosexuality. Although the verdict has led to increased visibility and acceptance of gay individuals in popular culture, this situation remains debatable. To examine the realities of this anticipated transition in the social attitude in India, this article performs a comparative analysis of R. Raj Rao's novel Hostel Room 131 (2010) and Harshavardhan Kulkarni's film Badhaai Do (2022) and maps the inherent tensions between a gay subculture and homophobia temporally located in the pre- and post-2018 Indian society. Being the cultural products of their times, these two works reflect Indian social attitudes and are the best resources to understand the changing/unchanging realities concerning same-sex love in India. The analysis reveals that despite the legal recognition of same-sex love and a paradigm shift in their representations in popular culture, gay people still encounter renewed forms of the same social stigma they were subjected to before the 2018 verdict. © 2025 Policy Studies Organization.