On March 20, 2014, The New York Review of Books published this poem with the article “India: You’re Criminal if Gay,”. The article was written by the poet’s mother, retired High Court Chief Justice Leila Seth. The trigger was the Indian Supreme Court’s killjoy re-instatement of a colonial anti-sodomy law that had been revoked in 2009. Vikram calls this “to undo justice.” His mother affirmed her love for her bisexual son and wrote: “The Supreme Court judgment means that he would have to be celibate for the rest of his life or else leave the country where he was born, to which he belongs, and which he loves more than any other.” Thus Seth divides his time between Delhi and a home in England that belonged to Metaphysical poet George Herbert, whose 17th century language echoes in this poem.
I kindly ask my readers go please read the full article http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/03/20/india-youre-criminal-if-gay/
The moment I saw her standing there surrounded by the usual coryphées I knew this wouldn’t be fun. My haughty biological mother in all her splendour wearing gloves in black; of course, this was after all the terminal patient’s wing. She paid a social visit and left hastily not without first having footed the bill. I spent the night at the hospital taking care of her eldest sister, the lonely, gay, unmarried woman who brought me up.
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