Yaraana Gay Writing from South Asia

by Merchant, Hoshang

• ISBN13: 9780143064947
• ISBN10: 0143064940
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-05
• Publisher: Penguin Global

Summary

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 andsensibilities. 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. All the pieces speak of the agony and the joy of being a man in love with other men. Extracts from the work of well-known writers including Bhupen Khakkar, Kamleshwar and Vishnu Khandekar provide a rare insight into the lives of homosexual men in India's small towns and villages. An extract from Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy details an account of growing up gay in war-torn Sri Lanka, while K.C. Ajay, an illiterate taxi driver, gives us an alternate glimpse of love and friendship in Nepal. Pieces such as these along with the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali and Iftikhar Naseem expand the scope of this collection to include writers from South Asia.With wit, passion and courage, these writings bring to the fore the true meaning of yaraana or male friendship and bonding, an often ignored facet of South Asian life and sexuality.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
Public Meeting and Parting as Private Acts	p. 1
The Contract of Silence	p. 2
Shivraj	p. 27
Pages from a Diary	p. 36
O Pomponia Mine!	p. 39
Epithalamium	p. 41
And So to Bed	p. 47
The Jungle	p. 49
The Slaves	p. 52
Poems from a Vacation	p. 59
Night Queen	p. 60
Gandu Bagicha	p. 77
Moonlight Tandoori	p. 81
A Mermaid Called Aida: A Review	p. 93
from Waiting for Winter	p. 96
Underground	p. 103
Opinions	p. 105
Bomgay	p. 106
Beta	p. 107
Sunshine Trilogy	p. 108
from Trying to Grow	p. 112
from The Golden Gate	p. 122
Six Inches	p. 138
Karate	p. 153
The Raising of Lazarus	p. 155
Song of a Hired Man	p. 156
'Never Take Candy from a Stranger!'	p. 160
from Sheltered Flame	p. 167
from Yayati	p. 170
Desire Brings Sorrow	p. 172
Under Water	p. 173
On the Road to Jata Shankar	p. 176
Apparently	p. 178
Rite of Passage	p. 179
The Sweetest of All	p. 189
Knowing Your Place	p. 198
Diary: Sharjah, 21 June 1993	p. 201
On Account of a Girl	p. 209
An Answer to the Female Liberationists	p. 216
Her/Man	p. 218
'Nath' of the Gay Prophet	p. 219
from Funny Boy	p. 221
'Aisa Bhi Hota Hai Kya?': A Story from Nepal	p. 229
The Country without a Post Office	p. 233
Story	p. 237
Zib-al-Abd	p. 247
Dirge	p. 249
Afterword	p. 251
Editor's Note	p. 254
Editor's Acknowledgements	p. 256
Biographical Notes	p. 257
Copyright Acknowledgements	p. 263
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