The 77th Republic Day celebrations get a bold cultural addition this year with Westland Books announcing the release of Love, Sex and India: The Agents of Ishq Anthology on January 26. Edited by writer and filmmaker Paromita Vohra, the much-anticipated collection brings together real-life stories that explore how Indians across identities, regions and generations experience love, desire and intimacy—on their own terms.

Emerging from the influential digital platform Agents of Ishq, the anthology challenges the long-held idea of sex as a social taboo. Instead, it presents intimacy as a democratic expression of selfhood, shaped by age, gender, caste, class, geography, language and access. The stories speak candidly about sex, heartbreak, pleasure, power and agency, reframing desire not as something hidden or sensational, but as deeply human and everyday.

At its core, the book examines what might be called the “demographics of love”—how social realities and inequalities shape intimate lives in a deeply divided society. Each narrative captures a distinct experience, revealing how choice and identity are negotiated in a country where desire is often policed or silenced. Raw, funny, aching and unapologetic, the voices in the anthology resist easy categorisation and refuse moral simplification.

Speaking about the collection, Paromita Vohra said the stories submitted to Agents of Ishq over the years were consistently surprising. “We tend to talk about sexual life in extremes—either shame or loud liberation. But real life exists in between, where people are tentatively or boldly figuring out who they are,” she said. Vohra added that the honesty of these narratives invites reflection, courage and a sense of playful freedom—what she calls living in a “republic of love.”

She also highlighted the decision to preserve the writers’ linguistic textures. The anthology retains regional inflections of English, where Malayalam or Marathi phrases naturally mingle with angrezi. “There’s an intimacy in that too,” she noted, “a sheer exuberance of tongues intertwined.”

Westland Books editor and publisher Karthika V.K. said the collaboration felt instinctive from the start. “We recognised how closely our values aligned with Agents of Ishq—intersectionality, freedom balanced with responsibility, and care for others,” she said. While the platform’s work carries humour and warmth, she emphasised its critical importance in reclaiming intimacy as both personal and political.

A timely and necessary intervention in India’s cultural discourse, Love, Sex and India: The Agents of Ishq Anthology opens up space for honest, expansive conversations around love, erotica and agency. Told by Indians, rooted in lived experience and free of apology, the book celebrates the messy, magical realities of desire—made in India, and spoken in many voices.