Love Is Not a Word

Description- 'Love: more than pursuit, less than perfection,' writes Debotri Dhar in herintroduction to this book, and reminds us that love/desire is as much art asaccident, and as full of light and clarity as it is of darkness and confusion. Inthe twelve essays that comprise this thoroughly engaging, eclectic collection,scholars, critics, storytellers and journalists examine some of the myriad aspectsof this emotion-its 'complexities, in-betweenness'; its 'being and becoming'.In the opening essays, we get a historical and cultural perspective on'traditional love' through discussions of 'swayamvara, arranged marriages, anddesi romance'; ruminations on the immortal love of Radha and Krishna; andthe story of a sexually desiring and desired courtesan or nagarvadhu. In theessays that follow, the politics of love is discussed and debated from a varietyof angles: from the love jihad campaign against inter-religious marriage, to acritique of the savarna gaze in Indian cultural iconography and its meaning forinter-caste love; from India's legal battle to decriminalize same-sex love, tothe subversive threat in single women's self-love.The book also includes intriguing and exquisite portrayals of love inliterature-from Urdu shayari and the barahmasa (songs of longing for thetwelve months of the year), to the city fictions of love through Rome, Sydney,Buenos Aires, Istanbul and Delhi.With essays by some of the most distinctive writers of our time, thisdelightful, wide-ranging volume certainly suggests that love is not just a word.