Dark Room

Language: English
Pages: 224(11 B/W Illustrations)














Back
of the Book

Adults tend to feel a certain
discomfort in thinking of childhood and sex in the same breath. We think of
childhood as innocent and free of sexual taint. Any discussion on the subject
is taboo, and if at all it comes up, it is swept under the carpet.

Why we insist on believing this
in the face of much evidence to the contrary is a mystery. Creating taboo
around sex only drives it further underground and makes it impossible for a
child to broach the subject with an adult. This has repercussions on the sexual
curiosity of a child and can also increase the damage done by abuse.

In Dark Room, the first book of
its kind that speaks directly to the general reader, Pankaj Butalia us moving,
compelling, real-Life stories of eleven people cutting across class and gender.
From young rag pickers in Delhi to the daughter of an army officer in Pune,
from a young girl in an old Kolkata mansion to a boy in an elite north Indian
school, the protagonists vividly recall their childhood sexual experiences,

Honest and unflinching, the
book is an attempt to start a much-needed conversation about child sexuality in
the Indian context.
About the Author
Pankaj Butalia is a former table tenniis player who also taught Economics at Shri Ram College of Commerce, Univeristy of Delhi, for twenty years. He now makes films. Butalia lives in Delhi with his wife Nilofer and son firdaus. This is his first book

Preface

Irrespective of
what I may thought I would do in life, writing this book certainly wasn't on
the cards. Yet, over the past two years, despite many obstacles, my desire to
see the book through has only grown. The setbacks were pr