Anosh Irani’s The Parcel: A Study of Ostracization, Exile and Marginalized Sex

Abstract

In an effort “to bring the marginalized to the forefront”, on 18th July, 2018, the Sahitya Akademi hosted India’s first “Third Gender Poetry Meet”. The event has been seen as an inaugurating a dialogue that had long been pending between the ‘marginalized’ and the ‘mainstream’ as far as gender-representations in the literary world are concerned. (Sankalita) This emphasis on greater equality and acceptance of the third gender opens the door for writers and scholars to pursue previously unexplored avenues. The Parcel by Anosh Irani can be analysed as part of this multicultural and broadened viewpoint on a sex that has long been marginalised in culture, literature, and academia. The aim of this paper is to look at Irani's contribution to the portrayal of trans characters in Indian literature, as well as the different forms of rejection that his hijra protagonist in The Parcel has to deal with.