This volume makes available for the first time in English the work
of a significant Indian nationalist author, Pandey Bechan Sharma,
better known in India as "Ugra," meaning "extreme." His book
"Chocolate," a 1927 collection of eight stories, was the first work
of Hindi fiction to focus on male same-sex relations, and its
publication sparked India's first public debates about
homosexuality. Many prominent figures, including Gandhi, weighed in
on the debates, which lasted into the 1950s. This edition,
translated and with an introduction by Ruth Vanita, includes the
full text of "Chocolate" along with an excerpt from Ugra's novel
"Letters of Some Beautiful Ones" (also published in 1927). In her
introduction, Vanita situates Ugra and his writings in relation to
Indian nationalist struggles and Hindi literary movements and
feuds, and she analyzes the controversies that surrounded
"Chocolate." Those outraged by its titillating portrayal of
homosexuality labeled the collection obscene. On the other side,
although no one explicitly defended homosexuality in public, some
justified Ugra's work by arguing that it was the artist's job to
educate through provocation.
The stories depict male homoeroticism in quotidian situations: a
man brings a lover to his disapproving friend's house; a
good-looking young man becomes the object of desire at his school.
The love never ends well, but the depictions are not always
unsympathetic. Although Ugra claimed that the stories were aimed at
suppressing homosexuality by exposing it, Vanita highlights the
ambivalence of his characterizations. Cosmopolitan, educated, and
hedonistic, the Hindu and Muslim men he portrayed quote Hindi and
Urdu poetry to express their love, and they justify same-sex desire
by drawing on literature, philosophy, and world history. Vanita's
introduction includes anecdotal evidence that "Chocolate" was
enthusiastically received by India's homosexual communities.
General
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