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Orgy at Bengali wedding, incest in conservative Pakistani family. Electric Feather, an anthology of erotic short stories, raises the standard of subcontinental sex writing... and much else

Orgy atu00a0Bengali wedding, incest in conservative Pakistani family. Electric Feather, an anthology of erotic short stories, raises the standard of subcontinental sex writing... and much else

Ghomtar tolay khamta naach. That's a Bengali proverb. Crass, but compelling, what it means is essentially this: behind the veil there's vice. That Indians and their neighbours are prudish about sex, is known. What is also known through myriad sex surveys in city tabloids and magazines, is that though we don't talk about it, we can't have enough of it. Nothing is taboo, if you keep it under wraps. What Ruchir Joshi, the editor of the book, has tried to do, is remove the wraps. And voila, what do we have!

In the introduction, Joshi says he wants to repair Brindavan. There is a dearth of good erotic writing in the Indian subcontinent and he has set out to change that. My verdict is he has been largely successful. Not that all stories are compelling reads, some leave the reader semi-aroused, others cold, but the collection as a whole works.

My favorite is Samit Basu's The Wedding Night Or, Bachelor's Boudoir 9. "I don't know if this is a common phenomenon," Basu writes, "but I'm always slightly horny at weddings." For good reason. The wedding turns into an elaborate game of entrapment. The hero gets laid by a "good friend" he always desired even as one of the chief conspirators, "Sreemoyee, Future Mother-in-Law's Pride and Joy, Pearl of Bengali Youth, is making squeaky little noises from one end and big squelchy noises from the other." For those that lack imagination, Sreemoyee is getting down and dirty with two men even as they get down and dirty with each other. From wedding bell to bedding well.

Paromita Vohra does a Murakami in her short story, Tourists. As superstar Sartaj Khan licks chocolate off the the fingers of snooty, self-conscious Paolomi, the rather odd couple are teleported to a different place, different time, where they make mindless love.

With gay and lesbian love, incest, sex for money, sex for revenge and sex for simply sex thrown in good measure, the stories leave us perked up. Brindavan is indeed repaired. And revitalised.

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