On a hot sunny afternoon in March 2008, in a tiny hostel room of my undergraduate college, my room-mate banged the door open and exclaimed excitedly, “Bhai, you’ve got to watch this shit!” As I showed an obvious lack of interest, he continued, “Savita Bhabhi is a new animated porn comic series launched online. Come, let’s read Savita Bhabhi. It’s slutty and how....” His voice brimmed with the myriad hormonally surcharged emotions that young students across India commonly resonate with.

Given the current climate in India, it may not be sanskari to further delve into more fetching details of Savita Bhabhi, a promiscuous, married woman set in conservative north India, that used to be promoted through a popular comic strip. Some critics labelled it as the face of new India’s ultra-liberal section. In staid, sexually prudish and morally high-handed India, chastity is often celebrated as a virtue, but the truth remains far from it. Most Indian men happen to dig older married women, and the proof of the pudding probably...