35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘THERE’S FAR TOO MUCH MUCK TO RAKE HERE!’
Bhargava & Bhargava Printers (P) Ltd, Allahabad, arrived in the
middle of February.
Fantasy was not the only sign of changing attitudes toward sex in India.
Rahul Singh and his father, Khushwant, were also not the only
contributors listed on the magazine’s cover I knew personally. David
Davidar, the young and brilliant publisher of Penguin Books in India,
a writer of considerable talent himself, was also an acquaintance. Fast
becoming something of a legend in Indian publishing, Davidar had
heard a new voice in ‘Indlish’ – Indian writing in English – and was
busy discovering and promoting the best of it. Singlehandedly
responsible for overseeing the publication of some hundred titles a
year, he had managed to acquire the cream of India’s literary talent
as well as launch new authors by the score. The greatest compliment
paid to Davidar’s achievements on behalf of a nation’s literature so
far was when Vikram Seth took the unprecedented step of insisting
that his epic novel A Suitable Boy be typeset, printed, and published
first in India, by Penguin. This was a statement of faith as much as
anything else. Seth wanted to show the world that India could produce
books whose quality matched that of any other country. Davidar had
proved that Indian books did not have to be poorly designed and
bound, and did not have to contain any typographical errors, let alone
a dozen per page.
But Davidar’s major commercial coup had been publishing a
first novel by a woman dealing with the lifestyles of Bombay’s rich
and famous – in graphic detail. Shobha Dé’s Socialite Evenings received
probably the first American-style promotion campaign in the history
of Indian publishing. Advance propaganda hinted at the truth thinly
veiled by the fiction; gossip columnists speculated about which jetset
fast-trackers would recognise themselves in the novel. And a
frenzy of prurient interest was generated by rumours of the raw sex
that this book, written by a woman (an Indian woman!) allegedly
contained in superabundance.
Davidar had spent enough time in the West to know that sex sells
and sells anything – but it was a gamble all the same to invest megarupees
in duplicating the process in India. Sex certainly sold Bombay
films, but would it sell books written in a language only a small
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