In the film My Brother… Nikhil (2005), based loosely on the events surrounding Dominic D’souza’s HIV diagnosis in Goa in the 1980s, the late AIDS activist’s life story is purposefully retold to the point where he disappears. Not only was D’souza allegedly India’s “patient zero,” but My Brother… Nikhil is also purportedly India’s inaugural “gay film.” Dr. Ferrão argues that these two firsts cohere to represent the traumas of gay identity for the purposes of national and global recognition, where Indian gay subjectivity is distinctly rendered as middle class, male, and upper caste. Simultaneously, the film participates in the ongoing colonial relationship between India and Goa, as epitomized by the obscuring of D’souza’s life and legacy. R. Benedito Ferrão is the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Mellon Faculty Fellow at the College of William and Mary. Apart from research and teaching interests in the representation of Goan characters in diasporic and postcolonial literature, he is also an op-ed columnist and writer of fiction and non-fiction.
This event is co-presented by Scripps College Core Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Studies, Office of Public Events and Community Programs, Department of Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures, Department of History, Intercollegiate Feminist Center for Research, Teaching, and Engagement, and the Scripps Communities Of Resources & Empowerment (SCORE).