Love Is Not A Word The Culture And Politics Of Desire

Insightful informative and entertaining this is a book that gives a true picture of love and relationships as they exist in India today and have done over the centuries from the Kama Sutra to the time of Tinder. A collection of twelve keen and insightful essays on love and desire. The book gives historical and cultural perspectives on Indian love (swayamvara arranged marriages and desi romance); the immortal love of Radha and Krishna that transcends theology; the story of a powerful sexually desiring and desired courtesan/nagarvadhu. The politics of love is discussed and debated from a variety of angles: from the love jihad campaign against inter-religious marriage to a critique of the savarna gaze in Indian cultural iconography and its meaning for Dalit women's bodies and inter-caste love to India's legal battle to decriminalize same-sex love to the subversive threat in single womens self-love. The book includes intriguing and exquisite portrayals of love in literature from Urdu shayari and bhasha writing to the city fictions of love through Rome Sydney Buenos Aires Istanbul and back to Delhi the ancient echoing through the modern. With essays from some of the best writers of our times including Makarand Paranjpe Alka Pande Malashri Lal Rakshanda Jalil Mehr Farooqi and Zafar Anjum this delightful volume certainly suggests that love is not just a word.