Parikshit Rawat

Madhavi Menon writes a highly readable text (5 on 5 on readability), devoid of jargon. Linguistically, she lacks the Indian desire to suffuse the text with vocabulary and overflow the information. Her primary focus is consistently her chosen subject: the very strong birds' eye view of the history and the present of desire in India which eludes definition, like its geo-political porous self. Delhi-esque, peppered with the details from Medieval Indian History, the book is must-read for the Netflix Indian generation that religiously read the NCERTs back in the day. It combines the mythopoeic of the Moebius Trip by Giti Thadani with the finesse and historical accuracy of Saleem Kidwai and Ruth Vanita. It's like a Routledge to the Infinite Variety of the desiring India: "for age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety".