Yaraana

'These are not pieces written out of literary ambition or to simply explore an appealing idea or concept; these are pieces that had to be written, that demanded to be created, that leaped up and caught their authors by the throats and said "write me" over and over again until it was done'-Ashok Banker 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.