Reimagining Gender and Selfhood: An Analysis of Fluid Identities in Rituparno Ghosh’s Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish

Rituparno Ghosh’s Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish (2012) offers a subversive reimagining of Rabindranath Tagore’s original dance drama through a queer and gender-fluid lens. This paper interrogates the film’s complex negotiation of identity, embodiment, and societal conformity, positioning Ghosh’s work within broader discourses of gender performativity, as articulated by theorists such as Judith Butler. Through a nuanced interweaving of autobiographical resonances and mythic narrative structures, Chitrangada destabilizes the rigid binaries of masculine and feminine, advocating for an understanding of gender as a fluid, mutable construct. The protagonist’s quest for bodily and existential transformation emerges as both an act of resistance and self-affirmation within a heteronormative socio-cultural milieu. By foregrounding the lived realities of gender non-conforming individuals, Ghosh expands the representational possibilities of Indian cinema, challenging dominant heteropatriarchal frameworks. This study argues that Chitrangada ultimately envisions identity as a performative, evolving articulation of personal truth, offering a critical site for reimagining the politics of body, desire, and selfhood in contemporary India.