Igor G. Barber
New Delhi
A new generation of young artists want to talk openly about sex in India, the land of Kamasutra, where this type of literature slowly begins to carve a niche among the more liberal a society still very conservative.
In "Losing my Virginity" (Penguin, 2011), author and screenwriter Madhuri Banerjee says the adventures and misadventures of a girl who, after staying a virgin until age 30 without having found "true love", decides to radically change her life.
"In my book, basically I mean a woman has the right to explore their sexuality whenever and wherever you want, should not be restricted by the pressure of society," said Banerjee in an interview with Efe in Bombay.
The author deals with in its pages issues like infidelity, premarital sex or multiple relationships, and adds to a generation of writers and artists who do not blush when you delve into areas still held by many guardians of morality.
Raj Rao, considered the author of India's first gay novel ("The Boyfriend", 2003), or Dhanvat Siddarth Shanghvi, who in his short but prolific life has written of love, karma, or sexuality.
Many of these pens are based on the most liberal Mumbai, a metropolis in constant turmoil and sharp contrasts, which in turn is the seat of the powerful film industry Bollywood.
According to Banerjee, the situation has begun to change, especially in the last five years, in line with the emergence of social communication virtual networks or more movies that revolve around women, but admitted that the youth still has ideas "very wrong "and are misinformed.
Annual surveys like the India Today weekly magazine show that nearly 70 percent of Indians are virgins at marriage and only 18 percent confessed infidelity, according to a study last year.
In a more recent issue of Outlook, released in January, 46.4 percent of young respondents said that having sex is just physical need for culture negative.
"There is hypocrisy. On the one hand, we are the land of Kamasutra and secondly we have a society that is telling you that sex is bad, we are the country of religiosity. For many, the Kamasutra happened long ago and did not come today in depth unless it is done in jest, "said Banerjee.
A twist occurred in 2008 when a British-Indian entrepreneur Puneet Agarwal caused great controversy when it launched the first online pornographic comic Asian giant, which, as the operator said in several interviews, was used to facilitate the sexual revolution in the country.
"Savita bhabhi, housewife india is embroiled in all sorts of games and sexual fantasies, soon became a mass success and thousands of web sites to reproduce the cartoons, until the summer of 2009 the government of India-where pornography is illegal, closed the page.
According to the sociologist Sudhir and Katharina Kakar, authors of "The Indians" (2007), although ironically the Kamasutra is one of the few books in Sanskrit that many people are able to mention, among the country that coined this work and contemporary India "many centuries in which the company managed to enter the dark times of sexuality."
According to Kakar marriage, some blame it to the Muslim invasions, others Victorian morality in the British Empire, but if there is a major cause must look at Indian culture in itself and its commitment to the ascetic ideal and the virtues of celibacy preached by Gandhi.
For Banerjee, who in her novel, the protagonist Kaveri is unike her more promiscuous friend, Aditi. Women in India might have gone to bed with 40 men but will never proclaim it. "Some will (a link) say that they are still virgins," she said.
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