| Sumario: | This photo essay argues that Rituparno Ghosh’s phenomenal stardom as a queer icon in Bengal can be appreciated by analysing his influence on the Bengali stage in terms of queering it. It examines a few plays produced in the years following Ghosh’s sudden demise in May 2013 and tries to trace in them Ghosh’s politics and aesthetics, particularly the influence of two of his celebrated queer films,Arekti Premer Golpo(2010) andChitrangada: a crowning wish(2012). Both these films had extensively deployed theatrical techniques and tropes, which, as I argue, in turn inspired several plays that followed, underlining an exchange between two popular art forms and their engagement with same-sex desires and divergent sexual identities. Based on interviews with playwrights, actors, filmmakers, theatre critics, and images, sourced from persons and organizations who had been associated with the filmmaker, the article seeks to establish the uniqueness of Ghosh’s iconism which has shaped and inspired queer lives and art in Bengal.
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