DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2024.2.9| GUHA: QUEERING CALCUTTA_ INSIGHTOUT 2(2024) 66 an filmmaker. He is considered an icon of the LGBTQ+ community of India. He explored the transgender lifestyle during the last years of his life. He himself un­derwent breast implant surgery for one of his acting roles in the movie Arekti Premer Golpo(Another Love Story) in 2010. In his later films he explored sexual liminalities and himself became the central point of his explorations in films such as Memories in March (2010) where he played the role of a gay character. Rituparno was probably the first openly gay male film-maker in India who broke cinematic barriers with his subtle depiction of relationships. At the height of his film-making prowess, Rituparno was sought out by mainstream Bollywood actors who wanted to work with him. Some of his finest films, such as Raincoat(2004) and Antarmahal(2005), featured celebrity Bollywood actors who came to Kolkata to work with him in his low-budget films. An avid Satyajit Ray fan himself, Rituparno was an heir to the Bengali cinematic masters such as Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. Rituparna’s area of influence crossed over to television and print where he hosted chat shows and also edited the famous film maga­zine Anandalok for some time. Ghosh sadly passed away in 2013 at the age of just 49, leaving behind a rich yet incomplete cinematic legacy. rian-era conceptions of appropriate sexual behavi­our. As the British Empire consolidated its control on the Indian subcontinent in the nineteenth century, its ideas about culture, society and law began to ma­nifest themselves in Indian society. These included Western Judeo-Christian sexual norms that viewed local notions of sexuality as barbaric. It is now high time to recognise that these ideas and norms were imported and imposed by the coloniser and not only have no roots in but actually fly in the face of tra­ditional Indian culture. Given all these complexities, all efforts at queering Kolkata are to be welcomed as they will pave the way for more placemaking and infrastructural support. Conclusion Considering all these case studies, one may conclu­de that though progress is being made, there is still room for more, especially with respect to fostering wider societal acceptance of both gay and trans communities. This can only be accelerated by ack­nowledging colonialism’s impact on LGBTQ+ com­munities in the region and the ways in which coloni­al-era laws marked a stark departure from the fluid conceptions of gender and sexuality once prevalent in precolonial India. The subcontinent’s fluid gender and sexual norms did not conform to Britain’s Victo-