This third and final part of poet, novelist and art critic Vinod Bhardwaj's trilogy (which began with Seppuku and was followed by A True Lie, the latter a depiction of the decline of journalism) looks at the massive downturn faced by the Indian art market post-2008 and the negative impact of notebandi from an unusual, almost surreal viewpoint. The novel's protagonist, Jai Kumar, is the son of a postman born in the middle of the blood-soaked times of Delhi's notorious Sikh massacre of 1984. The fleeting taste of the fruits of the sudden spurt in the Indian art market during 2004-2007 leaves Jai Kumar's creative instincts stunted. He now begins to look upon himself as a sex addict while the new surrealist grammar of the art bazaar strengthens this illusion of his sex life being a mark of sickness.Delhi's art world also has an underground stream and as an art critic Vinod Bhardwaj has known it from close quarters. Artists have often related to him anecdotes about someone harbouring the illusion of being a sex addict and these have come handy in weaving the episodes in this novel. Sometimes the real is far more surreal than the imaginary. The bitter truth about India's changing political landscape also forms the background of the novel. And central to it are characters who tend to interpret the dramatic decline in the art market in 2008 in the light of the decline in the fortunes of the Congress. They had pinned their hopes on Narendra Modi's economic policies but became disillusioned in no time. Is Jai Kumar able to save his true passion for art in this scenario? Is he sick or the society and the politics around him?܀܀܀This excellent gothic narrative reminds me of the 'Tower of Sins' by Lord Byron, written in the early 19th century yet lustrously telling the hidden realities of our own time. It is the unique porn related to the degenerating art market and artists trapped in all imaginable insanities inflicted by the invincible market forces. Here, like Manfred, the narrator is tortured by his own sense of guilt for several unmentionable, offenses, to be autobiographical, or even confessional often. Vinod Bhardwaj is a renowned art critic and an acclaimed poet. He has used all tools of the magic of poetry and ruthless critical observations.Diary of a Sex Addict is a sublime erotica of the contemporary underworld of the Indian art market.-Uday Prakash Internationally acclaimed Hindi author
Vinod Bhardwaj was born in Lucknow in 1948 and completed his M.A. in Psychology from Lucknow University in 1971. From 1967 to 1969 he was an editor of the acclaimed literary journal Aarambh and during 1973-98 was associated with Hindi publications of the Times of India group as a journalist. After initial training in Dharmayug, then edited by Dharmvir Bharati, for a number of years he worked with Dinaman, regularly writing on contemporary life, ideas, cinema and art under the editorship of Raghuvir Sahay. For three years in the 1990s he was the features editor of Navbharat Times. He now works as an independent journalist, filmmaker and art curator.In 1989 he was on the jury of Leningrad's first International Festival of Non-Feature Films. In 1981 he received the Bharat Bhushan Agrawal Award for the best poem of the year (chosen by Vishnu Khare) and in 1982 a jury presided over by Namvar Singh gave him the Sanskriti Award for the best creative writing.He has published three collections of poetry (Jalta Makan, Hoshiyarpur and Hoshiyarpur Aur Anya Kavitayen), one collection of short stories (Facebukiya Love) and three novels (Seppuku, Sachcha Jhooth and Ek Sex Mareez ka Rognamcha). The English translations of the first two novels by Brij Sharma have been published by HarperCollins. He has also written many acclaimed works on art and cinema. Recently He has published five books-Yaadnama-1, Yaadnama-2, Duniya Mere Aage, A. Ramachandran and Pardesnama. His documentaries on eminent Modern Indian artists J. Swaminathan, Krishen Khanna, A. Ramachandran, Bhavesh Sanyal and Sailoz Mookherjea have been well appreciated in the Art World.܀܀܀Brij Sharma was born in 1949 in Laksar, Uttarakhand, where his father was a railway guard. After a desultory education in Dehra Dun in schools for the underprivileged, he joined the Times of India as a trainee journalist in 1973 as a batchmate of Vinod Bhardwaj. Six years later, soon after his return from a fellowship in West Germany, he left for the Gulf to waste 11 years with Khaleej Times in Dubai. He has also translated Vinod Bhardwaj's first two parts of this trilogy into English, co- edited with him two F N Souza exhibition catalogues, and edited the autobiography of Jack Gibson, the last English principal of Mayo College in Ajmer, which was published from the US. He has also translated into English Indian artist Ram Kumar's Europe Ke Sketch published in his youth which is forthcoming from Pundole Gallery in Mumbai.He was Editor of Indian Express in Gujarat in the early 1990s and subsequently worked as a journalist in Bahrain until his return to India in 2019. He now lives between Goa and Dehradun.
