Published Paper Details:

The rainbow is the symbol of pride, signifying not only the SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity), but also telling the stories behind each colour that attaches to the psychological existence of each group within the queer community. When the rubric of masculinity within this queer spectrum is probed, it is noted that bisexual man takes the advantage of power dynamics over the gay men, while the transmen are almost existing in the periphery. But when these two masculinities of gay and bisexual men encounter each other, a sheer colour of power dynamics operates, along with emotional narrative structure of queer performativity. The adaptation of Kundalkar's own novel Cobalt Blue into a film propagates the morphology of queer masculinity and semiotics of colours conglomerating to create an aesthetic exuberance of phenomenological cartography of queer performativity. The story is set up in 1996 Kochi, in Kerala, and is about a paying guest and the Maharashtrian Brahmin family he stays with. Although it convolutes beyond the loci of interactions with the family members, especially with Tanay, who is a young adult and is exploring his own sexuality, it becomes more interesting for the audience that in the entire film no name has been given to this character of paying guest, played by Prateik Babbar. The Dixit family doesn't even probe to find out his background, while the film professed his rebellious characteristics in terms of social norms and normativity, and challenges the characteristics of masculinity. The purposive unnaming of the paying guest almost juxtaposes the alter ego that Tanay, played by Neelay Mehendale, creates amidst the staunch traditional structure of his family. He deciphers his own cocooned liberty amidst a different colour that semblances with the paying guest. The significance of blue in the title of the film depicting not only a masculine symbol but also the psychological depiction of loneliness and freedom attached to queer masculinity will be evaluated in details. This paper will probe into this colour psychology of queer masculinity in the semiotic narratological structure of the film. The narrative frame of the film moves at different levels: one at the physical reality, the other at psychological reality, and the third level is at the metaphysical reality. Kuldalkar's creativity not only deals with this metaphysics of reality but also the phenomenological structure of psychological existence of queer masculinity, that he portrays that with the semiotics of colour. This paper will also discuss the theoretical understanding of adaptation while justifying the psychological mapping of colours with the protagonists in the film. The gap between the novel of 2013 in the neo-liberalised society and the film releasing in 2022 in the post-neo liberalized society deal with the whole paradigmatic shift of psychological frames of the Indian cinematic audience. The politics of releasing the film in Netflix will also be addressed.