These books are dirty no more

When Ruchir Joshi first tried to persuade popular authors to write erotica, some rejected the idea outright. “Me write porn? No way,” was one reaction. Others simply didn’t respond to his emails.

But some who did respond were more than enthusiastic about it. One of them, Samit Basu, says: “It was an opportunity for me. I just jumped at it.”

Basu, in fact, wanted to write hard-core pornography but gave in to Joshi’s insistence that he stick to erotica. (The line between erotica and pornography is thin, and it can shift from person to person. It’s generally accepted that erotica is sexually stimulating as well as artistic or literary.)

Joshi’s compilation of erotic stories by Indian writers in English, titled Electric Feather, finally came out late last year, its cover a suggestive image of the hardbound book placed delicately between a pillow and a soft-looking bed. The book’s reception exceeded expectations; in fact, so happy is the publisher Tranquebar that a second volume is in the works.

Women writers
Another publishing house, Zubaan, is now planning an anthology of erotic stories in 2011. This one will feature stories by women writers from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

“Erotica is a taboo subject, and even less known is the woman’s perspective," says Anita Roy, editor, Zubaan. "We plan to get female writers from both urban and rural backgrounds, both English as well as regional, for this book. This will give readers a wide variety of stories."

But would readers pick up a book like this openly?

“I did not mind reading this book in public,” asserts Kiran Manral, a freelance journalist. But it helped that “it has a very tastefully done cover which doesn’t scream erotica.”

About the stories in the book, she was more ambivalent: “There were some good stories. Kamila Shamsie’s Love’s Sunset, where a primal woman is seduced by the Sun, was one. Sheba Karim’s gentle story of a girl down on vacation and infatuated with her aunt is another.

"But several others were a letdown. There is a thin line between erotica and porn. And many of the stories crossed that line.”

Authors who venture into erotica also worry about being rejected as serious writers. But Sheba Karim, who will be launching her young adult novel Skunk Girl, says sex is one of the toughest themes to handle. So, when the opportunity came her way, she grabbed it eagerly.

The stories in Electric Feather cover an array of erotic themes. Samit Basu’s story has two sex scenes. The first, softly erotic, is about two friends who never come to terms with their feelings for each other. But the second, about a threesome in bed, is riotous — “pure porn in its body-parts thumping form”, as Basu puts it.

But even Basu says he would not want to be identified as only a writer of erotic novels. “It’s simply too risky,” he says. “Sex and comedy appeal to readers at a very personal level. Every reader will compare his experiences to those in the book. So he will either love it or hate it. What is more, people will always think that the experiences in the book are those of the author!”

Morality issues
Not that it put Basu off from describing some really raunchy stuff in his stories. In one story, which claims that every guest at a wedding is essentially horny, his protagonist wakes up to find his friend, whom he has fancied for years, kissing him furiously, while another watches.

But there is some social comment in his works too. There is the story of a young girl falling in love with her beautiful aunt in Karachi. She also discovers a book called Heavenly Ornaments in which a maulana talks of sexual rights and wrongs. It is replete with hypocritical instructions. A man who has intercourse with a virgin, for instance, has to bathe after the act to cleanse himself.

Deepthi Talwar, commissioning editor of Tranquebar, says she always knew a market existed for erotica. But the question was if people were more willing to buy and read such books openly, or whether they still thought of them as immoral.

Saumya Gupta, a 21-year-old engineering student in Ahmedabad, says there is a generation gap in attitude, which also varies from place to place: “I come from a conservative family background in Jaipur. And I would never read such a book in public there, let alone read it near my parents. They would be shocked to see me read such a book.

"But in college, it’s different. People here are fairly liberal; so much so that I have lent a copy of the book to one of my male friends.”

Talwar feels Indian society is often painted as being more conservative than it is. “Those who go about policing morality issues are a small number. They often have their way. All this we misconstrue to be reflective of a conservative society,” she says.

Anita Roy, however, believes society has become more liberal and it is the publishing industry that is hesitant about producing books on erotica. “They do not want to embarrass anyone or expose themselves to legal problems. But since sex is now being discussed more openly, in the media and amongst people — as we saw in the recent Supreme Court judgments on homosexual intercourse and Khushboo’s remarks on pre-marital sex — publishers, too, see an opening for such writings.”