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My Friend Sancho
My first book, My Friend Sancho, was published in May 2009, and went on to become the biggest selling debut novel released that year in India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and had earlier been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
My posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
I have three hypothetical questions for you guys. Humour me and try and read all the way through. One.…
I was on a CNN-IBN show earlier this evening, where the topic under discussion was the arrest of two…
I suppose I should display some empathy here, but I can’t help but be a little amused by the…
’Before anyone else was interested in the ornithology of terror he saw the gathering birds,’ Salman Rushdie writes about…
Check out this TED Talk by Tony Porter on how men get trapped in a ‘Manbox’—and women bear the…
19 September, 2009
Potency, Fertility and Marriage
While on the subject of treating people like cattle, CNN-IBN reports:
Veteran Tamil Actor Manorama says that couples should be made to take potency tests before getting married.
Manorama says it should be made compulsory for both men and women to produce medical certificates before getting married and in the case of the groom the certificate should prove that he is sexually potent.
“There should be a certification that he is potent and he doesn’t have HIV. In case of women… she is a woman and she’s fertile and does not have AIDS. And if the doctor gives a fake certificate, then he should be jailed,” said Manorama.
If two people choose to get married, it is surely a business of those two alone, and not of the state—or of Manorama. People get married for various reasons, including companionship, and a couple may choose to hitch up even if the guy isn’t potent or the girl isn’t fertile. So what? That’s their business alone, as long as they’re honest with each other.
And in any case, how is a doctor supposed to ascertain that a guy is potent? Will an issue of Playboy do the trick? What if images don’t do it for him? What if self-consciousness about getting aroused prevents him from getting aroused? Procedural problems abound—as anyone who’s ever been an awkward young man could tell you!
(Link via email from Meera.)
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