Romantic love in literature is bound up in many vexatious matters, including history, context, society, politics, and value systems. It cannot be contained in genre or form, and it is always more ambiguous and diverse than fixed. Here are a few love stories that have made me learn or think.
Lihaaf (The Quilt), Ismat Chughtai
Upon its publication in 1942, this short story was called “blasphemous”, and its author, Ismat Chughtai, was charged in court in the years following. Rather than apologise, Chughtai fought the case, and won it.
The viewpoint is that of an young narrator, who has been sent to spend her holidays at the home of her mother's friend, Begum Jaan. Begum Jaan is in purdah, neglected by her husband, her movements restricted. But Begum can't be fixed into any easy stereotypes. She's got desires of her own, which she fulfils through liaisons with her house-help, Rabbu.
Chughtai vehemently denied the labels for her story, and that was one of the things that ultimately protected her against the court case, but her literary act of queering the private realm continues to inspire.
The Guide, R.K. Narayanan
Speaking of wives, The Guide's Rosie/Nalini is quite something. This tenacious character abandons her husband Marco for Raju the guide, and their romance leads to a live-in relationship. As Rosie, she is Raju's lover, but as Nalini, she's a professional dancer. Her hereditary profession as a devadasi, sneered at by guardians of morality, becomes "respectable" again as it is appropriated and transformed into classical Indian dance – Bharatanatyam. But this gaining of respectability and upward mobility is the juncture at which Raju exploits her. Rosie catches Raju siphoning funds off her earnings, and leaves him. The story was adapted into the classic Hindi film starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rahman.
Seahorse, Janice Pariat
This first novel is, among other things, a re-telling of a mythological love story: between sea-god Poseidon and the younger Pelops. InSeahorse, the protagonist Nem, a literature student, struggles with heartbreak and loss over his disappeared lover Nicholas, the professor.
Like any great story well-told, there are many things to learn from this novel about love, romance, sex, time, art, and identity. One of them could be the way in which romantic love is one of the greatest teachers, especially when it is one's first great love, and when this love abandons one, as it inevitably does.
Sita's Ramayana, Moyna Chitrakar and Samhita Arni
This is based on a telling of the Ramayana by the Patua artists of Medinipur in West Bengal. Illustrated by Patua painter Moyna Chitrakar, and written by Samhita Arni, it re-tells Ram and Sita's relationship from the latter's perspective. Here's an assertive Sita, who makes her own decisions after her love has worn thin.
When finally asked by Ram to come back to Ayodhya years after being banished, not because he loves her, but to fulfil her roles as mother and queen, she responds, "I have been doubted once, twice, and I do not wish to be doubted again." And, as daughter of the earth, she returns to her mother, exhorting Ram to be both mother and father to their twins.
The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh
There is more than one romance in this story, but the one that concerns me now is the connection between Piya, the Indian-origin marine biologist from Seattle, and Fokir, the Sunderbans fisherman.
Not a word is directly exchanged between them, for neither can speak a word of the other's language. The gulf between them is much wider than language, merely a symptom of the problem, which is that Piya is infinitely more privileged than Fokir.
In the end, as if to show how impossible it is to have a romance between the two characters, Fokir is killed. The story fails to give him a voice, and it is only Piya's gaze that is directly accessible to us. Despite this massive problem, years after I first read the novel, it is the powerful attraction between them that lingers.
Kocharethi, the Araya Woman, Narayan
Set in the early 20th century, among the Malai Arayan adivasi community in the Western Ghats, this novel is about the lives of Kunjipennu and the man she marries out of her own choice, Kochuraman. Impoverished and constantly betrayed by the state, the police, and the so-called “upper” classes and castes, the community loses much of its livelihood, and eventually, its land. Kochuraman is affected by this and the death of his son with Kunjipennu, and suffers from alcoholism. Their daughter, Parvathy, moves away, marries for love, and cuts off ties with the community.
Madhorubhagan (One Part Woman), Perumal Murugan
Important for its use of historical fiction to write a complex love story, the novel, of course, has become relevant to the question of freedom of literary expression in India. Kali and Ponna's marital happiness is marred by their childlessness. Together in friendship and in love, they endure relentless taunting by the people around them. It is this pressure to have a child that ultimately tears them apart.
Ponna contemplates attending a temple festival during which she would be permitted to have sex outside of marriage with any man, and if she got pregnant, keep the baby, with no questions asked. Through this love story, Murugan asks difficult questions about the institution of marriage, the imperative to procreate, and monogamy.
My Lover Speaks of Rape, Meena Kandasamy
The poet meditates on a conversation between lovers, presumably an unmarried heterosexual couple, where the woman relates the whole spectrum of violence that is carried out against women on an everyday basis (and not just rape): "She chatters/Away telling her own, every woman’s story." This story is about marital rape, dowry-related and domestic violence - and the man listens, "like for the first time."
Through this process of sharing she wishes for empathy from him, to forge a romantic relationship together, as equals, where he will not harm her. The ending is an open question. The poem is an act of reaching out and bridging a gap, but we have no idea if the woman has succeeded in getting through to her lover, and whether she can trust him: "Open eyes, open hands, his open all-clear soul . . ./Has he learnt to live my life? Has he learnt never to harm?"
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Lihaaf (The Quilt), Ismat Chughtai
Upon its publication in 1942, this short story was called “blasphemous”, and its author, Ismat Chughtai, was charged in court in the years following. Rather than apologise, Chughtai fought the case, and won it.
The viewpoint is that of an young narrator, who has been sent to spend her holidays at the home of her mother's friend, Begum Jaan. Begum Jaan is in purdah, neglected by her husband, her movements restricted. But Begum can't be fixed into any easy stereotypes. She's got desires of her own, which she fulfils through liaisons with her house-help, Rabbu.
Chughtai vehemently denied the labels for her story, and that was one of the things that ultimately protected her against the court case, but her literary act of queering the private realm continues to inspire.
The Guide, R.K. Narayanan
Speaking of wives, The Guide's Rosie/Nalini is quite something. This tenacious character abandons her husband Marco for Raju the guide, and their romance leads to a live-in relationship. As Rosie, she is Raju's lover, but as Nalini, she's a professional dancer. Her hereditary profession as a devadasi, sneered at by guardians of morality, becomes "respectable" again as it is appropriated and transformed into classical Indian dance – Bharatanatyam. But this gaining of respectability and upward mobility is the juncture at which Raju exploits her. Rosie catches Raju siphoning funds off her earnings, and leaves him. The story was adapted into the classic Hindi film starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rahman.
Seahorse, Janice Pariat
This first novel is, among other things, a re-telling of a mythological love story: between sea-god Poseidon and the younger Pelops. InSeahorse, the protagonist Nem, a literature student, struggles with heartbreak and loss over his disappeared lover Nicholas, the professor.
Like any great story well-told, there are many things to learn from this novel about love, romance, sex, time, art, and identity. One of them could be the way in which romantic love is one of the greatest teachers, especially when it is one's first great love, and when this love abandons one, as it inevitably does.
Sita's Ramayana, Moyna Chitrakar and Samhita Arni
This is based on a telling of the Ramayana by the Patua artists of Medinipur in West Bengal. Illustrated by Patua painter Moyna Chitrakar, and written by Samhita Arni, it re-tells Ram and Sita's relationship from the latter's perspective. Here's an assertive Sita, who makes her own decisions after her love has worn thin.
When finally asked by Ram to come back to Ayodhya years after being banished, not because he loves her, but to fulfil her roles as mother and queen, she responds, "I have been doubted once, twice, and I do not wish to be doubted again." And, as daughter of the earth, she returns to her mother, exhorting Ram to be both mother and father to their twins.
The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh
There is more than one romance in this story, but the one that concerns me now is the connection between Piya, the Indian-origin marine biologist from Seattle, and Fokir, the Sunderbans fisherman.
Not a word is directly exchanged between them, for neither can speak a word of the other's language. The gulf between them is much wider than language, merely a symptom of the problem, which is that Piya is infinitely more privileged than Fokir.
In the end, as if to show how impossible it is to have a romance between the two characters, Fokir is killed. The story fails to give him a voice, and it is only Piya's gaze that is directly accessible to us. Despite this massive problem, years after I first read the novel, it is the powerful attraction between them that lingers.
Kocharethi, the Araya Woman, Narayan
Set in the early 20th century, among the Malai Arayan adivasi community in the Western Ghats, this novel is about the lives of Kunjipennu and the man she marries out of her own choice, Kochuraman. Impoverished and constantly betrayed by the state, the police, and the so-called “upper” classes and castes, the community loses much of its livelihood, and eventually, its land. Kochuraman is affected by this and the death of his son with Kunjipennu, and suffers from alcoholism. Their daughter, Parvathy, moves away, marries for love, and cuts off ties with the community.
Madhorubhagan (One Part Woman), Perumal Murugan
Important for its use of historical fiction to write a complex love story, the novel, of course, has become relevant to the question of freedom of literary expression in India. Kali and Ponna's marital happiness is marred by their childlessness. Together in friendship and in love, they endure relentless taunting by the people around them. It is this pressure to have a child that ultimately tears them apart.
Ponna contemplates attending a temple festival during which she would be permitted to have sex outside of marriage with any man, and if she got pregnant, keep the baby, with no questions asked. Through this love story, Murugan asks difficult questions about the institution of marriage, the imperative to procreate, and monogamy.
My Lover Speaks of Rape, Meena Kandasamy
The poet meditates on a conversation between lovers, presumably an unmarried heterosexual couple, where the woman relates the whole spectrum of violence that is carried out against women on an everyday basis (and not just rape): "She chatters/Away telling her own, every woman’s story." This story is about marital rape, dowry-related and domestic violence - and the man listens, "like for the first time."
Through this process of sharing she wishes for empathy from him, to forge a romantic relationship together, as equals, where he will not harm her. The ending is an open question. The poem is an act of reaching out and bridging a gap, but we have no idea if the woman has succeeded in getting through to her lover, and whether she can trust him: "Open eyes, open hands, his open all-clear soul . . ./Has he learnt to live my life? Has he learnt never to harm?"
