What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space.
—Italo Calvino
This is how Sudeep Sen introduces his book Ero Text to us. He brings together texts set in five sections—‘desire, disease, delusion, dream and downpour’. These pieces cross genres and boundaries of short prose, experimental fiction and poetry. Apart from the bulk of his micro-fiction—like a musician improvising on the same raga, Sudeep reworks a few of his old poems into prose as well. It is a collection rich with influences and allusions.
The section ‘Disease’ deals with private and uncomfortable areas of pain, illness and disease. From scientific and medical imagery that proliferates in this section, he recreates pain and suffering. He writes, ‘My body is a terrain that defies the contour of safe plotting—indices like Celsius, Fahrenheit, torque are all inadequate—just as bone marrow count, triglyceride, HDL, LDL do not form pretty, explainable equations.’
The ‘Desire’ section deals with the unfolding of shringara rasa. Explicating the title of the book Ero Text, it exemplifies the tradition of erotic literature found in India since ancient times, as seen both in the Kama Sutra and in Khajuraho sculptures. This section is rich with metaphors, connotations and allusions. In the piece ‘Heather’, he writes: ‘I feel parched like the sea-salt gauze. My tongue is parched in spite of your lavender saliva, saliva which has changed from the bouquet to the taste of heather, wild weather-ravaged heather.’