Sandip Roy - Becoming the Other: Chapal Rani and a Life Beyond Labels

Author Sandip Roy uses his biography of Chapal Rani, the last great female impersonator of Bengali stage to examine the intersections of performance, gender, memory, and cultural transformation. The talk highlights how Chapal Bhaduri's artistry challenged conventional ideas of gender long before contemporary LGBTQ+ discourse emerged in India. Blending biography, memoir, oral history and fiction it seeks to understand the disappearance of a unique artistic tradition, the resilience of marginalised artists and the power of storytelling in preserving identities and histories that have shaped who we are but might otherwise be forgotten. About the Speaker: Sandip Roy is a writer, columnist and podcaster currently living in Kolkata. He is a columnist for Mint Lounge, the Hindu and the host of the Sandip Roy Show on Indian Express. His weekly audio dispatches from Kolkata have been airing on public radio KALW in San Francisco since 2012. His work has appeared in publications like the New York Times, BBC, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Huffington Post, Conde Nast Traveller and other publications. He has been part of anthologies like Out! Stories from the New Queer India, The Phobic and the Erotic, Q&A: Queer in Asian America and others. For more than a decade, Roy was editor of Trikone, the world’s oldest magazine on LGBTQ+ South Asian issues. His first novel is Don’t Let Him Know. His latest book is Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal - The Life and Times of a Female Impersonator.