He travelled to India in 1971 after a chance meeting with Mexican diplomat and writer Octavio Paz. “He visited Varanasi, Khajuraho, Agra and Ajanta and even tried to learn Hindi. It’s quite surprising that a writer who loved India so much is not well-known in India. With this exhibition, we hope to bring him closer to the Indian audience,” says Venezuelan writer Gustavo Guerrero.

Guerrero, who has curated the exhibition with Latin American literature expert Catalina Quesada from Paris, chaired a press conference where he shed light on the Cuban writer, a closet homosexual who spent the better part of his life roaming Parisian cafes with his close friend and author Roland Barthes. Until he died in Paris in the summer of 1993, Sarduy remained a bold figure in the literary circuit.

The images culled from Sarduy’s family archives show a series of self-portraits — Sarduy, his head wrapped in a topi, standing in a lush Indian field, posing with shy villagers, and outside the Khajuraho temple. His work on Varanasi is a picture postcard drowned in the vermillion of sunset with devotees praying on the banks. There are five paintings on display in Chinese ink as well.

English translations of Sarduy’s books, such as Cobra (1972), which recounts the tale of an eponymous transvestite, has a chapter on India, titled Indian Diary. The next stop for the travelling exhibition is the Philippines.