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37. The petitioner herein also pleads that there is no scientific basis for what is alleged, i.e. a barren woman conceiving at once by participating in the sexual orgy that takes place on the 14th day of the car festival. The aspect of conception cannot be reduced to mere copulation. Infertility, it is stated, could be due to either of the couple and therefore, the claim of the author is against science and at the most, absurd. It is stated that the novel is nothing but scandalous and is written with a bad intention to discredit the honour of women of Tiruchengode and that the author has committed intellectual fraud. It is stated that the Tamil publication of the novel is stated to be by the second respondent-Kalachuchuvadu Publications Pvt. Ltd., while the English translation is published by the third respondent-Penguin Books India. The State Government and Home Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India have also been impleaded as parties. It is stated that the English version of the novel is stated to be available in Kindle format and both the versions are on sale online, e.g., Amazon, Flipkart etc., which also carry reviews by readers of the novel. It is alleged that any negative review of the novel would generate a wrong opinion about Tamil culture as lascivious and prurient.

82. The translation of the novel is also stated to be a piece of art and received much acclaim. The Tamil Literary Guardian based at Toronto, Canada conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award, to the translator of the novel Madhorubagan by issuing a Citation, observing that it dealt with the family and social relationships and was written in a regional idiom that is still accessible to a wide readership: The English translation has finally retained the spread, richness and beauty of the Tamil novel.

Madhorubagan  The Novel

116. We now turn to the novel Mathorubagan and its English translation One Part Woman. The English version carries on its cover, the comments An evocative novelA superb writer by Indian Express.

117. The praise for the novel and the author through various reviews forms part of the first two pages, reflecting the current mores. We consider it appropriate to reproduce the reviews as under :-

 Praise for One Part Woman A superb book in which tenderness, love and desire kindle each Other into a conflagration of sexual rapture BAPSI SIDHWA Perumal Murugan opens up the layers of desire, longing, loss and fulfillment in a relationship with extraordinary sensitivity and surgical precision AMBAI A fable about sexual passion and social norms, pleasure and the Conventions of family and motherhood . . . A lovely rendering of the Tamil BIBLIO Perumal Murugan turns an intimate and crystalline gaze on a married couple in interior Tamil Nadu. It is a gaze that lays bare the intricacies of their story, culminating in a heart-

147. We have extracted various portions of the novel so that someone reading our judgment can get a flavor of what the novel is all about. But then, it is only a flavor and the full absorption is only possible by reading the novel from cover to cover. The novel shakes you, but not in the manner its opponents seek to profess. It jolts you, because it succinctly sets forth the pain and sufferance depicted through the words of this childless couple. That is the take away from the novel. Of course, one of us (Sanjay Kishan Kaul, C.J.) could only have the benefit of reading the English translation of the novel because of the linguistic handicap, but in consultation, both of us do believe that the English version truly reflects the heart of the story and it is not merely a transliteration. In fact, two other sequels of the novel have also been published, which have not evoked, as yet at least, any reaction.