Literature
All these works have made me acutely aware of how gender, sexuality, and religion, are so deeply intertwined in the social fabric. Also, how conditioning can significantly influence one’s understanding of literature, or the lack of it.
Fiction is often relegated to a secondary stow because fact-based forms of knowledge are becoming more and more valued. To be informed is to stay with the facts. Yet I think fiction allows us to stay just about as informed.
You held my hand, we hugged each other / I was lost in your love, wanting to go further
Considering how sexuality was a running (and selling) theme in pulp fiction stories, and female sexuality was employed as a means to titillate and attract readers, the covers often reflected this.
Much like any good erotic encounter, Balli Kaur Jaswals’ 2017 novel, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, is a delightful romp that comes to a satisfying, sweet climax and an urge to fall back on the pillows.
Kiran Bhat is an author and polyglot who speaks 12 languages, and has written in English, Kannada, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. His recently published book, We Of the Forsaken World, has been described as “the tales of not just sixteen strangers, but many different lives, who live on this planet, at every second, everywhere”.
Standing behind the camera, with a microphone in one hand, I have felt this power imbalance first hand. The camera may humanise the person in front of it more than a text analysis would, but the modes of production remain in someone else’s hands.
मर्दानगी के निर्माण में शर्मिंदगी की भूमिका, और नायक के खुद के विकास के लिए आत्मविश्वास और क्षमता पर इसका प्रभाव, विशेष रूप से उनके प्रारंभिक वर्षों में, खूबसूरती से सामने लाया गया है।
While we’ve grown used to hearing porn blamed for society’s ills, it’s now the medium’s comparatively matronly cousin – romance novels – that have come under scrutiny.
Every contemporary debate, from homophobia and intolerance, finds an echo in the Rajasthani writer’s stories. Vijaydan Detha’s Dohri Zindagi starts…