The 15 stories in this volume, from Assamese to Urdu, are-to put it crudely-about the relationship between the sexes. But this is a complete inversion of the genre of the love story, or of the accepted tenets of the emotion itself. The book details men and women-mostly the latter-trying to come to terms with the complexity of relationships, individuals grappling with the violence inherent in negotiations between the self and the discourses of 'love'. There's no exultation here, no prettified sentiment, but a look at love's slimy underbelly, a visit to the stinking sewers beneath the edifice. The book is permeated with the nausea of death and bodily secretions, savage pain and brooding violence, desperate longing and loneliness.