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One Saturday morning in late 1992, Yudi, a forty something gay journalist, picks up a nineteen-year-old Dalit boy in the Churchgate loo. After hurried sex, he gets rid of the boy, afraid that he may be a hustler. There is nothing to set this brief encounter apart from numerous others, and Yudi returns to his bachelor's flat and sex with strangers. Months pass. But when riots break out in Mumbai, Yudi finds himself worrying about the boy from Churchgate station. He is in love. Chance brings the two together again, and this time they spend a week as a married couple in Yudi's flat, take a holiday, and meet for beer every Friday, till the boy, Milind Mahadik, disappears (he has been hired by a ...
Criminal Love? takes up the challenge of studying the wide gamut of lived reality of the Indian queer, against the backdrop of a set of theories. Written by a man who has been openly gay for the last 40 years, this book picks up issues, concepts, and theories within the realm of queer studies and dissects them against the day-to-day experiences of Indian queers. Digging deep into his own experiences and those of the people with whom he has come into contact, Rao highlights the sites of transgression within a seemingly monosexual society and analyzes all the aspects of the struggle of being queer in a repressive atmosphere.
Nissim Ezekiel is regarded as the father of modern Indian English poetry, and the founder of the Bombay school of poetry. In this meticulously researched biography, R. Raj Rao traces the development of Ezekiel's poetry and life against the background of the intellectual, cultural and political climate in India-from the 1930s to the end of the 20th century. The last section of the book deals with Ezekiel's increasing loneliness and his inability to recognize old friends, and finally being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1998. Drawing on previously unpublished letters, poems and essays, as well as discussions with the poet and interviews with friends and peers, Rao examines the desires and realities of Ezekiel's life. Rao also provides detailed analyses of Ezekiel's poems. Scholarly, exhaustive and provocative, this is the definitive biography of one of India's foremost poets.
In the winter of 1978; Siddharth; twenty-three; meets Sudhir; twenty; in a friend’s friend’s room in Pune’s Engineering College Hostel. He falls instantly in love. A man of unconventional views—he believes; for instance; that the two heroes in Sholay have the hots for each other rather than for the heroines—Siddharth becomes a full-time lover over the next seven years and stubbornly pursues the object of his lust and affection; despite his job as a college lecturer in Bombay. There are many obstacles along the way; including Sudhir’s family; against whom Siddharth files a police complaint; and Sudhir’s classmates from Belgaum; led by the homophobic Ravi Humbe; who start an anti-Siddharth association. But Siddharth gets support from Gaurav and Vivek; a militant gay pair keen to ambush the enemy. The author of Boyfriend returns with another irreverent look at India’s gay subculture.Deadpan humour and farce come together in this entertaining love story; giving us a glimpse of what really goes on in a boys’ hostel.
R. Raj Rao brings into play all the senses in focusing on an India which makes no concessions to the travel agent's romance or the aid agencies' image of defeated despair. "Images of India, convincingly realistic, proliferate in these poems. We confront a variety of attitudes and values, which add up to a distinct personality and voice. There is no compromise with romantic urges. The inner search and its poetic expression are appropriately related; rough, sharp, ironic sometimes, and always serious." Nissim Ezekiel "This is finely crafted poetry which yet astonishes with its fierce scatological energy." David Dabydeen Raj Rao teaches at the University of Poona. He is also a playwright, short story writer and critic.
Following the Bombay Communal Riots of 1992 which saw neighbour pitched against neighbour in fierce bouts of internecine violence, came the retaliatory bomb blasts of 1993 and the name change to Mumbai in 1995. Mumbai Noir captures the essence of a city dominated by wealth and the lack of it, where the shadowy aspects of life are never far from the ordinary person. Psychopath Romeos stalk ordinary women, men flirt with death in dance bars and families fall through the cracks of communal living in this phenomenal collection of noir literature.
When Sandesh, a fifteen-year-old runaway working at a video store in Bombay, is seduced by a wealthy married woman named Lolita, he has no idea how life-altering his sexual awakening will be. Lolita's husband learns of her infidelity, and Sandesh finds himself subjected to assault and battery. And that's how he meets Jeevan Reddy, a high-profile criminal lawyer who takes his case, accuses Lolita of paedophilia . . . and enters into a relationship with Sandesh.From the mean streets of Bombay to the serene beaches of Goa, Lady Lolita's Lover moves towards its tranquil denouement in the hills of Kodaikanal. Through strongly delineated characters and deftly woven dialogues, it unravels a world ignored and dismissed by many.
An exploration of gay identity in South Asia. From Ashok Row Kavi's autobiographical piece on growing up gay in Bombay to Vikram Seth's brilliantly etched account of a homosexual relationship in The Golden Gate, the stories, poems, plays and prose extracts in this collection cover a range of literary styles, themes and sensibilities. Mahesh Dattani's play Night Queen is significant as one of the first serious attempts at dramatizing homosexuality on the Indian stage; the poems by R. Raj Rao included here are part of a series that formed the basis for the Bollywood film Bomgay; and the poetry of Dinyar Godrej, Adil Jussawalla and Sultan Padamsee is searing in its intensity. Apart from the pie...
He was born a boy, but never felt like one. What was he then? He felt attracted to boys. What did this make him? He loved to dance. But why did others make fun of him? Battling such emotional turmoil from a very young age, Laxminarayan Tripathi, born in a high-caste Brahman household, felt confused, trapped, and lonely. Slowly, he began wearing women's clothes. Over time, he became bold and assertive about his real sexual identity. Finally, he found his true self-she was Laxmi, a hijra. From numerous love affairs to finding solace by dancing in Mumbai's bars; from being taunted as a homo to being the first Indian hijra to attend the World AIDS Conference in Toronto; from mental and physical abuse to finding a life of grace, dignity, and fame, this autobiography is an extraordinary journey of a hijra who fought against tremendous odds for the recognition of hijras and their rights.