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Contents
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Introduction vii

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Sexboy 1
Taslima Nasrin

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The Baker of Milna 15

Kristen Cosby
Harsingar 37
Amitava Kumar

Naked Cleaning Lady 49

Jaishree Misra
The Degradation of Erasmo S. 65
Cyrus Mistry
The Middle-East Position 89
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli
Insomnia 105
Mitali Saran

The Last House 115

Rupa Bajwa
Thy Will Be Done 127
Shinie Antony

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Graveyard Shift 151

Kankana Basu

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The Holy Sex Tape Project 137

Meena Kandasamy

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First Kiss 163

Vikram Kapur

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The House Help 179

Tabish Khair

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Chunni Lal 189

Aditya Sharma

The Real Sex 217

Amrita Chatterjee

About the Contributors 225

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Introduction

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It gives me great pleasure to introduce this collection of erotic

stories. I never thought that one day my name would appear
on the cover of a book thats primarily about people having sex.
Neither did my mother. She still doesnt know.
You might be wondering what qualifies me to edit an
anthology such as this. Am I a writer of erotica? No. Am I a
professional editor of fiction anthologies? No. Perhaps I am an
extremely erotic person? Er well, my wife may not agree.
To be sure, like most men of my age, I have had my share
of erotic experiences. But I wouldnt say they are in the Lady
Chatterley league. Or in any league that counts. In fact, my
most distinctive erotic memory is a fairly innocuous one.
I was quite young then, late teens. Sexual experience zero.
I was in a garment shop, looking to buy a shirt. Helping me
pick one was a young Tibetan saleswoman. Slim-waisted, high
cheekbones, white shirt, blue jeans.
I finally settled on a dark grey semi-formal. I was in a T-shirt.
They did not have a trial room. I was wondering if I should
risk buying without trying it on when she said, Come here.

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Before I knew it she was behind me, guiding my arms,

manhandling me gently, until I found myself inside the shirt.
I wasnt expecting this. But she surprised me again. She came
close, so close that I could feel her breath, and ran her hands
down my chest, smoothening the folds of the fabric. I suddenly
felt hot.
She began to fasten the buttons, one by one, starting under
my chin. Her hair, lustrous, black, and fragrant, fluttered inches
from my lips. I was taller than she was. The top two buttons of
her shirt were open. I looked down, and then away in panic.
Her soft hands hovered over my shirt front, now alighting on
my chest, only to take flight and come to rest a few centimetres
lower, to thrust a rounded hardness into a tiny hole. She had no
idea what she was doing doing to me, that is. Or maybe she
did. As her fingers glided down my body, my nerves thrummed
in a sweet tingle I had not known before. It was all new to me,
and too pleasant to understand.
Once she was done with the buttons, she stepped back to
look at me. Then she came up close again, to straighten the
collar. I felt her fingers graze my neck, then brush away a thread
or a speck of dust from my shoulder. At that moment, had
she asked, I would have bought every single shirt in the shop.
In the end, I bought three. I couldnt get her off my mind. I
went back the next day, and several times in the subsequent weeks
and months. But I never saw her again. I dont remember her
face anymore, nor even the name of the shop. But I remember
the flowery lightness of her fingers on my body, my chest, my
belly. Technically, her touch would not even qualify as touch
for it was through two layers of fabric. And yet, it is to this
stranger that I owe my initiation into the erotic.

Introduction

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To be honest, it wasnt until I began writing this Introduction

that I even framed that experience as erotic. It doesnt make
sense in any other way I wasnt in love with her. Nor was I
sexually attracted. And for the record, she was dressing me and
not undressing me. It was simply two random bodies coming in
momentary contact to produce a spark of pleasure. A pleasure
that is pure gift. An unasked for, unexplained, unexpected giving.
Why did this salesgirl act as she did? Was she having some
fun? Was it a desperate tactic to make a sale? Or was she oblivious
to the effects she was causing in me? It is all a mystery to me
as it should be. It is my contention that the erotic is the only
realm of the mysterious that remains unconquered. Everything
else has been analysed, explained, and converted into data. But
the erotic is still pure subjectivity. A belt can turn someone
mad with lust while for another, its just a piece of leather to
keep the pants up.
Erotic subjectivity typically expresses itself through play. Role
play and fantasy are what imbue the ordinary with mystery,
inducing the defamiliarisation that is integral to the erotic as
well as to literature. If literature originated in day-dreaming and
fantasy, it stands to reason that the earliest literature would be
of the erotic kind. And so it is. For instance, the first novels
in English by Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry
Fielding had a good deal of prurient content. Today these
men are considered, individually and collectively, the father of
the English novel. Their novels are classics taught in respectable
university departments.
So I have always been puzzled by people who consider erotica
to be lowbrow, something serious writers wouldnt have time
for. The pseudo-snobs who say, let the EL Jameses of the world

The Pleasure Principle

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do erotic fiction I want to slap them with this anthology.

For this very reason, there are no erotic specialists in this
collection. All are writers with a serious amount of literary work
behind them. A couple had written erotic fiction before; most
hadnt until I contacted them. And I wanted it that way.
Many of the writers I approached had a problem writing a
made-to-order erotic story. Its one thing for a story to organically
develop into an erotic narrative, and quite another to set out to
write an avowedly erotic story. While the skill and imagination
involved might be the same, the latter is infinitely more difficult.
Its like meeting a comedian at a party and asking him to be
funny it doesnt quite work like that.
But the alternative to commissioning erotic stories is to take
whats already been written, either stories or novel excerpts. But
this book wasnt about collecting existing literature it was about
putting together fresh writing. And thats what you will find here.
Typically, anthology editors are driven by a pre-ordained set
of concerns, such as diversity of themes and voices, gender parity
in representation of writers, and so on. But I have attempted
nothing of the sort. I think The Pleasure Principle is fairly diverse
without my having had to make an effort to make it so.
On the gender front, if anything, we have surpassed the
benchmark by some margin the book has six male writers and
nine female. That we reached this ratio without a self-conscious
balancing act is revealing. It suggests that the erotic is primarily,
though not exclusively, the realm of the female. Im not the only
one to think so. In her classic essay, The Uses of the Erotic,
Audre Lorde writes, The erotic is a resource within each of us
that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in
the power of our unexpressed or unrecognised feeling.

Introduction

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Lorde, of course, is interested in the political expression of

the erotic. My focus, as the editor of this anthology, has been
the literary expression of the erotic. But whichever way one
looks at it, there is no getting away from the fundamentally
destabilising power of eroticism. As Lorde says of our erotic
selves, We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified,
abused, and devalued within Western society. Here the we
refers to women. But one could say the same for men, and her
judgment applies to semi-Westernised societies like India as well.
So if the erotic has been suppressed in our lives, what
has taken its place? The pornographic. From the internet to
Bollywood to the kind of graphics that accompany news stories,
the pornographic is one of the defining elements of popular
culture today. It would be no exaggeration to say that for
millions of people, pornography mediates their sexuality, and
their relationship to their own bodies and the bodies of their
lovers. For Lorde, pornography is a direct denial of the power
of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling.
Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.
This distinction between the erotic and the pornographic
has been a guiding principle in the curation of the stories for
this book. My brief to the writers was simple: etch out the
emotional landscape of sex in a fictional narrative. They liked
it for the obvious reason that it offered a broad canvas for the
imagination. It partly explains the rich diversity of approach,
style, voice, theme, setting, and characters in these stories.
For instance, I did not plan to have a lesbian-themed
story, nor did I plan for a homo-erotic one, or a transgender
narrative all of which my friends told me I must specifically
commission in order to make the book suitably inclusive. While

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inclusiveness defined in political terms is important, it is not as

if the erotic realm of heterosexuality has been exhausted.
Quite a few of the stories in The Pleasure Principle cover new
ground even in straight territory. The unexpected transmutations
of online lust when it goes offline, the sex tapes of our ancient
gods, the yearnings of an elderly widower, the forbidden desires
of a middle-aged school teacher are some of the erotic subthemes explored in the following narratives.
One question that pops up in the context of an erotic
fiction anthology is that of political correctness. My answer to
this question: No. In this, I take my inspiration from one of my
favourite essayists, Siri Hustvedt. In A Plea for Eros, Hustvedt
states an obvious truth that a political correctness gone rogue
makes us deny: Of course women are sexual objects; so are men.
And if this is so, its because desire is always between a subject
and an object. This doesnt mean a free pass for sexual abuse or
harassment. But in a context of intimacy between two people,
erotic pleasure thrives on the paradox that only by keeping
alive the strangeness of that other person can eroticism last.
Keeping alive this strangeness requires not only objectification,
but also imagination, and here we come full circle back to
literature via fantasy as the treasure house, refuge, and
training ground for the imagination.
So, as I have already said, and dont mind saying it again:
leave your shoes of political correctness at the door before you
enter the portals of literature, especially erotic literature.
Some of the authors in this volume would be familiar to
you, some others not so familiar. Thats by design. I dont see
the point of an anthology that does not make an effort to
discover and introduce fresh voices to a wider readership. So

Introduction

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Ive aimed for a reasonable mix of established and upcoming

talents.
Being by nature allergic to rules or expectations of any kind,
I have broken even the easiest and most obvious expectation to
fulfil of picking only Indian (or Indian-origin) writers for an
Indian anthology being brought out by an Indian publisher for
an Indian readership. I have included a white American writer
from San Francisco for no reason or logic whatsoever other than
the fact that I loved her story.
Before I conclude my ramblings, I feel obliged to answer
one final query: the why question. Why an anthology of erotic
stories? Why now? Arent there enough of them already?
I believe what India needs right now, more than anything
else more than foreign investment, more than good governance,
and more than nine percent economic growth or a half-decent
football team is a new volume of erotic stories. And more
and more of them. India needs an erotic revolution. Indians
need to give up both TV channel spirituality and Redtube
pornography which sort of nicely complement each other
and get back in tune with the physicality of their bodies, with
the geography of their feelings.
Lordes definition of the erotic is most relevant in this
context. The erotic, she writes, is a measure between the
beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest
feelings. Pornography reigns supreme today because nobody
neither the powers that circumscribe our life choices, nor we as
individuals are ready to engage with the chaos of our feelings.
Those of you who work in offices would be familiar with the
managerial injunction to keep feelings out of it, or to decide
rationally and not emotionally. The erotic is all about putting

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emotions and feelings back where they belong in our lives.

And what better place to begin than the domain where feelings
are being vacuumed out by pornography: the bedroom?
So yes, I might as well come out and say it: for me, this
anthology of erotic fiction is not only a literary but also a
political project. It is my claim that bringing out a collection
of erotic stories today, especially in todays India I dont need
to explain what I mean here is an act of moral responsibility.
I, therefore, wish to thank all the writers who took the
trouble to ration the time and energy for contributing a story.
A big thank you also to the publisher Amaryllis for being eversupportive and patient, and giving me a free hand as an editor
a rarity in these times.
Putting this volume together has been a great journey of
discovery for me, one that began last March, and is ending
nearly a year later. Yours as a reader will begin now, as you
turn the page. Or maybe you are one of those who reads the
Introduction last after having read the stories, which is not
a bad idea I must say. Either way, I hope you will love the
stories, not just with your mind, but your body too. Welcome to
The Pleasure Principle.
G. Sampath
April, 2016
New Delhi

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Sexboy
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Translated from Bangla by Arunava Sinha

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for Sexboy. As evening lands in

Calcutta, so will Sexboy. Holding hands with the darkness,
Sexboys taxi from Dum Dum Airport will enter this south
Calcutta lane. Hes coming from Bombay. Hes going to stay
with Chaitali. The two of them have done almost everything over
the past six months, just not met face to face. They had spoken
for the first time on Facebook, primarily about sex. Chaitali had
been attracted by the name Sexboy. The profile picture was of a
naked mans. What else could the conversation be about except
sex! It was to talk about sex that Chaitali had added him. Her
own barren existence, devoid of sex, was becoming unbearable. So
many young men in the city, and yet a beautiful, accomplished
woman like Chaitali couldnt find herself a lover. But then how
would she, for she did none of the things required to get one.
Chaitali couldnt stand the city these days. She was invited
to parties, but she didnt go. Seeing the same faces, listening to
the same stories a hundred times, saying hello with an artificial
smile dangling from her lips Chaitali had had enough of all
this. Social networks threw up fresh faces, new conversations.
Chaitalis father had chosen the man she used to be married
to. Several years had passed since she had divorced Subrata. It
wasnt as though nothing had developed between her and other

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HAITALI IS WAITING