Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part F (2025)

This paper examines the gendered aspects of queer identification in R. Raj Rao's Hostel Room 131, emphasizing how intersections of gender, class, space, and social repression in metropolitan India influence male queer narratives. Hostel Room 131 sets queerness in the hyper-masculine, hierarchical, and institutionally constrained context of a boys' hostel, providing a clearly gendered depiction of male homoerotic desire and fragility in contrast to traditional queer depictions that frequently universalize same-sex want. The story emphasizes male gay experiences as being both defiant and severely limited by class worries, caste privilege, and performative demands of masculinity. The paper contends that Rao's portrayal of male queerness is a critical analysis of how Indian masculinity simultaneously permits and polices queer expressions in secret settings, in addition to serving as a counter-narrative to heteronormativity. The study examines how queer male identities are negotiated, frequently at significant personal cost, and draws attention to the differences between visibility and secrecy, desire and discipline, by examining the story through the perspective of gendered queerness. Finally, by providing a multi-layered, embodied, and context-specific depiction of male same-sex desire that defies both Westernized queer tropes and sanitized local depictions, Hostel Room 131 broadens the conversation on gay literature in India.