An unlikely friendship is forged between two boys in pre-Partition Punjab. A ghost mediates an act of intimacy between two men separated by the Kashmir border. A temple singer in small-town Gujarat experiences the miracle of love and thinks: 'So this is what it feels like to have someone diminish, not amplify, your shame by bearing witness.'

A Queer Shade of Saffron - a collection of sensuous and devastatingly wise short stories - plunges into the heart of desire and explores the endless possibilities of gender, sex and longing across India. It claims 'queering' as a daring act of destabilizing old, rigid hierarchies. So, in a small Andhra village, when two women lean into each other and find the strength to defy the iron-hold of caste and patriarchy; and elsewhere, by the Garhwal mountains, as two abused, lonely boys turn into mythic avengers, we see the makings of a world where love and challenging power imbalances go hand in hand.

Steeped in cinematic detail and written with a delicate economy of language, A Queer Shade of Saffron explores South Asian experiences of queerness and queering with empathy. It establishes Shastri Akella as one of the bravest young writers in India today.

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