Erotic Appetites: Food, Caste, and "Lesbian" Desire in Neeraj Ghaywan's "Geeli Pucchi".

Abstract

This article examines the dual signification of food a as tool of both intersectional oppression and queer resistance in Neeraj Ghaywan's short film "Geeli Pucchi," anthologized in the Netflix web series Ajeeb Dastaans (2021). The politics of food is central to the film, which shows how it can constitute a powerful axis for the marginalization of the Dalit, queer protagonist. "Geeli Pucchi" works as a critique of the Savarna discourse on caste purity and its use of food to reinforce the subaltern position of the Dalit subject. At the same time, the film foregrounds how food can work as a materialization of queer desire that can make caste boundaries fluid. My analysis of the subversive role of food in the film demonstrates how food can become a language that can queer the heterosexual spaces and imagine alternative modes of being and connecting. Caste taboos around food, however, undermine its transgressive potential, and continue to reify Dalit alterity. In the article, I also examine the film's place in the genealogy of Dalit and queer cinema in India and consider how the film's avoidance of the word "lesbian" speaks to alternative homosocial frameworks that foster both same-gender desire and culinary intimacies in the South Asian context.