While working as sexologist at the KEM hospital, Bombay, a lot of dignitaries from abroad, including John Money (renowned psychologist and sexologist, from John Hopkins University) visited the hospital.

They came and sat with me at the hospital OPED (outpatient department) to see how I treated patients for various sexual difficulties like the way other doctors treated common illnesses like diarrhoea and stomach ache.

In 1980, I was nominated as the president of the World Congress of Sexology. Two people who favoured my nomination were
Dr William Masters, influential sex researcher, and Money.

One of the preconditions for becoming the president was that I had to organise an erotic art exhibition, along with a proposed five-day international conference on sexology, scheduled to be held in New Delhi, five years later.

The problem was I had no idea about art.
So on a whim, I looked up the telephone directory and dialled Mulk (Mulk Raj Anand, noted Indian writer and art connoisseur). I told him about the conference and sought and appointment. He not only agreed to organise the entire exhibition but also gifted me three Kangra paintings from the 18th and 19th century as a gesture of appreciation.

The show was titled “Erotic sights, sounds and dances of traditional India.”

Thanks to Mulk, a lot of influential artists including MF Hussain, SH Raza, FN Souza and Manu Parekh shared their creations for the exhibition. There was also a musical programme led by Pandit ji (sitar mastero Pandit Ravi Shankar), where Protima Bedi (model turned Odissi exponent) danced.


(Continues)

(In conversation with Sangeeth Sebastian, writer and founder of Vvox, a sextech platform. The biography is a part of an AKADialog initiative to capture the lives of newsmakers.)