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If you can’t wait for the Fifty Shades movie… try the boldest debut of the year,” read the press note for Ananth’s Play with Me (Penguin Books India, Rs 250).
Hmph. More than two years since E.L. James undid our reading inhibitions by tying up her heroine, the likeness to Fifty Shades continues to be a sales pitch.
Well, the “sales” bit cannot be ignored here, for Play with Me is being billed as the first erotic fiction novel penned by an Indian male and the Indian male in question is the senior vice-president, sales, of Penguin Books India.
So, how did a sales VP become a writer of erotica?
“In an editorial meeting at Penguin, we were talking about the E.L. James market and about Sylvia Day [Bared to You etc] and how India has not produced a really good book on erotica or pleasure. Somebody mentioned I had written a short story — it was about a guy who goes to New York and visits a strip club where he thinks he recognises the girl who dances for him — and when the publisher asked if I would like to give writing a shot, I said yes,” says Ananth, adding, “But I didn’t tell myself that I’m a sales guy who’s writing a novel. I looked at it as something that I was doing creatively. I’m also a photographer, so having a creative pursuit is something I like.”
He’s dropped his surname on the book cover, not because he is hiding for cover but because “Ananth Padmanabhan is too long and clunky for the front cover. People call me Ananth and that’s what I put. I don’t know why authors have surnames on the cover, by the way.”
Sid, his protagonist, is a photographer too. He can be found training his lenses on old Goan school buildings, when he’s not training his thoughts (and more) on the sexy new intern in his office that is.
Intern alert!
But Cara is no Anastasia Steele. And we mean that in a good way. Cara is very young, an “astonishing beauty” and with a smile that lights up everything around her. But unlike Ana, this is no whimpering virgin — Cara knows her body and what her body wants. And at the moment her body wants Sid. On the terrace, in the swimming pool, in the office chair…. Well, she also wants Rhea and she wants Sid and Rhea to want each other too. She models sexy underwear for Sid. And spouts Vikram Seth poetry after a wild night together. If a film is made, Ananth wants Nargis Fakhri to play her.
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Isn’t Cara like the ultimate male fantasy?
Ananth laughs. “Like there is a fantasy man — handsome, rich, sensitive, caring, who loves somebody until his death… it’s a good thing, isn’t it?” he asks. But Cara, he insists, isn’t just a man’s fantasy. There are flaws. She does not rush to the hospital to see Sid after he meets with an accident. She doesn’t stand around and make sure he makes breakfast for her, she’s not expecting exclusivity of him. And she has a girlfriend, she’s bisexual.
These are, er, flaws?
Play with Me also has real people. Like the confused Sid or his married colleague Natasha or Nat, a warm, loving, caring, confident character that you can’t help but adore.
“Because it’s a man writing the story, my women had to be strong, independent. The relationships had to be real and respectful. The sex had to be enjoyable. I wanted to keep the book real. But even while keeping the book real, I wanted to push the bar,” explains Ananth.
But erotica has mostly been written by women, didn’t he feel he’d be the odd one out?
(Laughs) “It’s not their forte! Like they say in Delhi, unhone theka nahin le rakhha hai! See, it’s cultural that in Indian writing in English we don’t address sex, we don’t write it well, may be. It’s largely by women writers, about married women having revenge sex or going after something they don’t usually have in their life…. I told myself, it has to be light, enjoyable... keep it simple.”
Simple yes, but there’s seduction, adultery, love, confusion, bisexuality, threesomes, more adultery… is all of this common in India today?
Ananth laughs again. “Do all of these happen in this country? Yes. Why India, any country. When you have two sets of people who are physically attractive and attracted to each other, and interacting with each other, the probability of this happening to them is very high,” he says, a tad defensively.
Which is why when we mention that these are probably fairly common, just not spoken out loud, he seems very happy. “Exactly! That is it! You hit the nail on the head. When I said I was going to push the bar, I said if people are honest to themselves, and people did what they wanted to do…”
Being a sales guy, how would he sell his new book, in one line? “If there ever was a very good book about pleasure, this is it. Actually the extended line would be, the heart of this novel is a story about pleasure and what pleasure can do to love,” pat comes the reply.
So, do Indians want to read more erotica?
“Absolutely! E.L. James alone has sold more than half a million copies. We’ve sold a 100,000 copies of Sylvia Day. It’s a genre as important as any. I don’t think there should be any reticence about reading about sex or erotica. See, the thing is this. The moment we use the word erotica, it has connotations. If you can read dystopia, if you can read fantasy, if you can read misery memoirs — about cancer and cancer-surviving — it’s ironic that people say they don’t want to read books that are pleasurable and enjoyable and are about one of the basic needs. There should be nothing wrong. As long as it’s good writing.”
