Under the Night Jasmine

Manav Kaul (Author)
Born in Baramulla, Kashmir, Manav Kaul has been an integral part of the film world, acting, directing and writing for the past twenty years. With each of his new plays, Manav has made people sit up and take notice, and he has created an equally valuable body of work as a writer. His books Theek Tumhare Peeche (Right Behind You) and Prem Kabootar (Love Pigeon) have been dominating the Neilson bestseller list.

Vaibhav Sharma (Translator)
VAIBHAV SHARMA is a translator and poet from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. He was the 2023 Hindi Translation mentee under the NCW
Saroj Lal mentorship programme, mentored by International Booker Prize winning translator, Daisy Rockwell. His work has been published
in Out Of Print, Words Without Borders, Hans and Modern Poetry in Translation. He was shortlisted for the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation, 2023. This is his debut book in translation. He is currently working on a translation of Anil Yadav’s story collection, Nagarvadhuein Akhbar Nahin Padhti.

How complex are relationships between men and women? How corrupted is a man’s thinking for women he interacts with? Even though a woman gives birth to a man, how little a man understands her!
When the pandemic strikes and the lockdown happens, the usually, always travelling Rohit is forced travel within himself and explore his relationships thus far: with his mother, his teacher, his lovers—relationships that affect his current thought process, his relationships now. With the first stirrings of sexual attraction for his teacher and her lover came the shame of desire. His relationship with his lost girlfriend, with Dushyant, brings in guilt and remorse. What could he have done differently? What kind of a shameless person was he, using people to fulfil himself?
Fluctuating between poetry and prose, questioning even the method of writing Under the Night Jasmine is a world that is layered and many-splendored. It’s a coming-of-age novel — A micro look at a man’s world that both pushes back and fascinates.