Introduction

In Chapter 3, I suggested that the urban informality that characterises the lives of immigrants to the city produces an anxious masculinity that seeks to salvage a sense of the self through strategies of hybrid consumerism. The informality of work, residence, options for well-being, among others, engenders erratic relationships with the world of goods: magical potions and those for sexual potency co-mingle with the ‘Lion Zorro automatic folding revolver’ as men of limited means seek to recuperate masculinity through the putative power of consumption; to consume a multiplicity of goods and services is to seek dominion over different realms in the hope of gaining a measure of control over an environment where hardly anything appears to be controllable. The strategies of subaltern masculinity are distinct. This chapter continues the discussion of the previous one, building upon one of its themes, that of the desire for a safal jiwan– a ‘happy married life’ – and the ways in which cultures of subaltern masculinity attach to that of a ‘traditional’ family. In the pell-mell of consumerist modernity and its seductions of the world, where does the home and the family fit in? This chapter explores the ways in which ideas of family life anchor masculine identity simultaneously as men seek to be of the world. How to take part in the affairs of the world and yet keep at bay the instability that it might introduce – possibly diluting manhood – has been an important theme in Indian life (Chatterjee 1993a). This discussion expands upon this theme at the level of the city. This also prepares the ground for the material of Chapter 7, which will return to this aspect through an exploration of the public appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As in the previous chapter, I proceed from the understanding that masculinity and sexuality are intertwined topics. And further that, in order to talk about their relationship in the present times, we need to move beyond the stereotypical understanding of ‘Indian sexuality’ that is frequently framed by perspectives that assume a fixed cultural template. Within this, it is common to suggest a direct link between contemporary Indian sexual cultures and ‘classical Indian love texts’ such as Vatsayayana's Kama Sutra and Kalyanamalla's Ananga Ranga (Roy 2000).