“I am animated to a state of pity and fear, I stepped off the train, purged.”
For years, Dr. R. Raj Rao has been the public face of gay Indian literature. The author of "Slide Show" and his searing collection of short stories, "One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City" (1995), contains several angst-ridden gay-themed pieces. In 1996, six of Rao's poems from his still-in-progress "BomGay" were filmed as India's first gay film. Rao released his first novel, "The Boyfriend", which was widely publicized as India's first gay novel in English. It is bleak, hard-hitting and darkly funny.