A collection of essays, poems and confessions Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India is a pioneering work in the field
of queer studies in India. While ancient and medieval India characteristically documented and represented alternative sexualities, modern India is strangely silent about it. Why is this hypocrisy about sex? Giving instances from literature, history and personal lives the introductory chapter of this text examines the queer literary canon in India. A
question regarding one’s sexual preference in India is
ignorance, then a question and a silence. Facing the Mirror claims that homosexuality, lesbianism in particular, is neither an import from the West nor a haphazard life of the “Western Indians.” Sukthankar writes in her introduction to the book: “Our status as myth means that many people truly believe we don’t exist, and it means inhabiting the domain of their ignorance, which is neither acceptance nor condemnation…” The nonexistence is a repressed hypothesis that is well articulated in Facing the Mirror.