Thursday 2 February 2017

Mastram Mystery Lives On

While surfing through the views website 'Daily O' I came across a link for an article on the right quad titled 'How Mastram Saved Me and My Generation'. For anyone who grew up in the country’s cow belt during late 60s and in 70s Mastram would definitely ring a bell.

In those days of licence permit raj era, when everything was either rationed or in short supply, erotica and porn were no exception. For coming of age teens, the prevailing uptight society offered little to satiate their newly acquired hormonal surge.

Any mingling with opposite sex was frowned upon and any conversation with them beyond 2-3 sentences (and that too on any topic other than class work and home work) would invite the attention of prying eyes (often of friendly neighbourhood auntyjis) and tongues would wag about a ‘chakkar’ in offing.

Those were pre-television days and the word 'internet' was probably not even coined. Hence, as visual entertainment we had to make do with a monthly or fortnightly visit to the theatres to watch Hindi movies, which of course were laden with the social mores of the 70s (which would make Victorian era prudery appear Bohemian). Coy heroines used to snub their restless, lovelorn heroes, raring to get intimate, with a standard gag ‘Abhi nahin shaadi ke baad’. 

Amidst this yawning demand-supply gap functioned some Hindi erotica magazines printed at some underground press and among them novellas (not running to more that 50-60 pages) penned under the pseudonym Mastram enjoyed a best-seller status.

The print and paper quality was very basic. However the paperback size and soft cover proved convenient as they could be snugly rolled into pockets, or even tucked inside socks.

In our godforsaken PSU industrial township, almost 60 km away from nearest full fledged town, they were not available. They were shipped in by those touring cities like Delhi, Agra, Jaipur etc or those pursuing college education in distant towns and staying in hostels. These books were treated like contraband and moved around stealthily to avoid detection of teachers, parents, sisters and younger siblings. 

During school intervals or free periods we often used to sit huddled in the remote corners of play ground to have ‘reading sessions’. One guy would read discreetly and others would listen with amusement and suppressed giggles. The plots were contrived and trespass into all possible taboo relationships (mostly of devar-bhabi and jija-saali liaisons) in the society.

The erotica laden prose helped us improve our Hindi vocabulary (at least we got to know various synonyms of private parts in both Sanskritized and Urduized Hindi) and often functioned as a de facto sex educator, though of dubious authenticity.

During conversations with friends one of the topics used to be regarding the authorship and we used to wonder whether it was one person or more. Hence was surprised to hear that there was a movie in 2014 by the name Mastram, but even that was a ‘fictional biography’. So the mystery around the writer/writers lives on.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat