PVLF 2025

Interview with Santanu Bhattacharya, Author of “Deviants”

Deviants traces queer male lives across generations in India, exploring identity, love, and silence with honesty, depth, and intergenerational resonance.
on Jun 06, 2025

Frontlist: Deviants traces the lives of three generations of gay men in India. What inspired you to explore queerness across such different time periods and social contexts?

Santanu: Since there has been very little deep storytelling about queer lives in India, any meaningful engagement with the subject wouldn't have been possible without reflecting on our histories and our present times. I wanted to honor the legacy of those who came before us and also understand what it's like for someone who is very young today.

Frontlist: Pride Month is a celebration of identity and resilience. How does Deviants contribute to the ongoing conversation about LGBTQ+ visibility in Indian literature?

Santanu: Simply by existing, Deviants are doing their part. Everything that engages with the subject—whether books, films, stories, or people—is a valuable contribution to our visibility and resilience.

Frontlist: Vivaan lives in a more open, digital world, while Sukumar’s love had to remain hidden. How did you approach writing these contrasting emotional landscapes?

Santanu: I wanted to tell each generation’s story in the way they would say to it—or wouldn’t. So, Vivaan’s story is told in the first person, as if he’s narrating it himself, which reflects how today’s youth are—they don’t want to be spoken for; they want to own their stories. On the other hand, Sukumar wouldn’t have had the words or the vocabulary, so his story is told in the classical third person, as though it took someone else, years later, to bring his story to the world. And that’s true for so many queer people from that time.

Frontlist: You’ve lived in both India and the UK. How did your own journey across cultures influence the themes of identity, repression, and liberation in Deviants?

Santanu: For Deviants, I was very clear from the beginning—it had to be set entirely in India. I didn’t want to incorporate influences from elsewhere. There’s so much queer art and so many references we draw from the West simply because we haven’t had the space or platform to build our narratives. I didn’t want that for Deviants. I wanted the book to be truly homegrown, so my focus remained solely on India throughout the writing process.

Frontlist: Mambro’s story unfolds during the era of Section 377. What kind of emotional or historical research went into portraying the fear and intimacy of that time?

Santanu: Mambro’s story resonates most with my generation, so I had a lot of personal experiences and observations to draw from. The 1990s and 2000s were marked by confusion and upheaval. On one hand, conversations around sexuality and queer rights had begun to emerge. On the other, the rise of the internet made it dangerously easy to out queer individuals, and there was a noticeable increase in the enforcement of Section 377. We were constantly caught between the urge to speak out and the fear for our safety.

Frontlist: Despite being centered on queer male experiences, Deviants is also about family, silence, and inheritance. What do you think South Asian families can learn from this story?

Santanu: Novels aren’t meant to teach; they’re meant to be experienced. So, I’m not expecting anyone to learn anything from Deviants. What I do hope is that readers will journey through that time alongside the characters and that a world—previously unknown or only faintly familiar—will unfold before them. That experience will resonate differently for everyone, which is truly the most potent thing art can do: to ignite a spark within us.

Frontlist: As a writer, how do you balance portraying queer pain with queer joy—especially in a story as layered and intergenerational as Deviants?

Santanu: I was cautious not to let the characters come across as victims. The intention was never to evoke sympathy. The characters are complete individuals – they are both good and flawed, possess agency yet show vulnerability, and undergo a range of experiences that reveal different facets of themselves – joy, tenderness, rivalry, despair…

Frontlist: What do you hope young queer readers in India take away from Deviants, especially during Pride Month?

Santanu: I hope they find it an engaging read and feel that their voices and experiences have, in some way, found a place in the world.