“…Another strand of criticism has highlighted the complex relationship between the city, modernism and the subject (Nayar, 2016;Nambiar, 2013;Davies, 2019) and interrogated the ways in which city and urban spaces are re-appropriated within these narratives, often through the critical gazes of their protagonists (Nambiar, 2013). Broadly, then, criticism in this area has formulated the ways in which these texts have enabled a new mode of visuality, of seeing, vis-à-vis modern Indian experiences and national identity (Nair, 2017;Nayar, 2016;Varughese, 2017;Varughese, 2018). Kari (2008), published during the first wave of production, alongside Sarnath Bannerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh's works, stands out despite its common theme of engagement with the city through its focus on the 'unusual […] deeply introverted, asocial and queer' protagonist.…”