Electric Feather
The Tranqebar Book of Erotic Stories
Edited by Ruchir Joshi
Rs395
Tranquebar
201 pages
When a book claims to be an ‘unadulterated, edgy look at sex and passion’, you could be apprehensive or excited. Apprehensive because describing sex can impede even a masterful writer (Rushdie, Marquez, Updike have all been nominated for The Literary Review’s Bad Sex Award); and exciting because, well, fans of Mills & Boons and Harold Robbins thrillers know why.
Electric Feather: The Tranquebar Book Of Erotic Stories falls somewhere in between. Edited by writer-filmmaker Ruchir Joshi, it is a collection of 13 short stories by ‘younger’ writers (mostly a book or two old) with roots in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, plus one from London. The stories are varied: a fantastical journey involving a Bollywood film star (‘Tourists’ by Paromita Vohra), spite playing out between lovers in Amsterdam (‘The Cat’ by Niven Govinden), a 27-year-old losing his virginity (‘The First Time’ by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan), two women deconstructing Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaf between realms of pleasure (‘The Quilt’ by Parvati Sharma), and more.
None of the writers are bashful about sex: ‘God, I could just f*** your t***,’ he said, burrowing his face deeper into Eunice’s magnificent mounds (‘The Delicate Predicament Of Eunice de Silva’ by Tishani Joshi). And they all certainly know their anatomy: ‘... before she realises what he’s doing he’s working the thin magical wall between her vagina and her anal passage...’ (Ruchir Joshi’s ‘Arles’). If it’s a question of portraying sex, in all its permutations, the writers have risen to the challenge.
But ‘erotic’ implies something sexy and passionate, stewing in desire and emotion, which is missing from most of the stories in this book, though the women seem to have done a better job at capturing this. Samit Basu’s description of a threesome (in ‘The Wedding Night Or, Bachelor’s Boudoir’) with words like ‘banging’ and ‘bushy’ and ‘pussy’, reduce a potentially sensual scene into a teenager’s favourite porn film.
Nevertheless, the book signals a start — maybe not of a passionate, long-lasting affair — but a tentative exploration.
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