Are Indians traditionally unromantic?(Satire + Literary Criticism)
Finishing Pearl S. Buck’s heart-wrenching novel The Good Earth, I flipped over to the student notes. It provided, along with glossary and character sketches, excerpts from various reviews of the novel over the decades. A rare critical one caught my eye:
“Romantic love is a false center of psychology to ascribe to the typical Oriental man or woman, reared in the traditional bondage to quite different ideals…it would not even be understood by an old fashioned Chinese wife.”^
I was dumbfounded by this disregard of eastern romantic culture and the haughtiness of the reviewer. Solemnly, perception of family oriented cultures to lack individual emotions and desires is not of the West alone, but ours too.
Having read works from the Indian subcontinent, Middle East and South East Asia, I couldn’t dismiss the vague similarity of cultures and traditions.
Thus, feeling resented by the perception of westerners and the stern beliefs of my relatives, I felt it needs to be asserted otherwise and citing India’s romantic culture(with which I am most acquainted) seemed the correct way to do so.
Is romance, in its origins, unique to the Occidental (the west)?
Yes, is the answer our conservative aunt or uncle might give you, to caution against indulgence in teenage romance.
Any person even slightly acquainted with the thousands of romantic plays, proses, poem, songs and novels of the Indian subcontinent would argue otherwise.
One cannot indulge in the rich Sanskrit literature without reading its greatest dramatist, Kalidasa. His magnum opus Abhijnanashakuntalam(The recognition of Shakuntala)is a play which tells of the legendary love and fidelity existing between the King Dusyanta and his hermit wife Shakuntala.
Meghaduta is a lyric poem about a banished Yaksha (nature spirit) who asks a storm cloud to carry a message of love to his wife. The cloud traverses the length of the entire country, starting at Rama’s hill (where the Yaksha resides) traveling north to the Vindhya hill ranges, a detour to Ujjain (where Kalidasa resided in king Vikramaditya’s court). At Kurukshetra, the cloud was advised to visit the battlegrounds of Mahabharata, finally crossing mount Kailasa(where Kalidasa’s patron god Shiva is believed to reside)to reach the Yaksha’s love-sick wife at Alaka hills. The signature of Kalidasa is visible in the sensuous description of the route, even romanticizing the scientific process of evaporation of water as “tasting Vetravti’s [the river] sweet waters as a lover his beloved’s lips”*. All beings, from distinctly beautiful and voluptuous women of city and countryside to egrets and elephants, are subject to engaging in dallying.
The ambiguous relation between Krishna and Radha(his chief consort)or the Gopi’s(Literally: Female cowherds)emotion for Krishna can be understood as either romantic love or Bhakti for God, even both(Gopis are believed to be reincarnation of sages who had suffered penances in order to ‘meet’ God.)
Amir Khusrau, Tuti-e-Hind (Parrot of India), sought to express his devotion to God as lamentations of a separated lover. His poems gave birth to a new form of music, Qawwali. Nowadays, the popularity of Sufi poems and music has given them an explicitly romantic identity.
खुसरो दरिया प्रेम का, उल्टी वा की धार।
जो उतरा सो डूब गया, जो डूबा सो पार।
Oh Khusrau, the river of love
Runs in strange directions.
One who jumps into it drowns,
And one who drowns, gets across.-Amir Khusrau
Arguably, the arguable homosexual relationship between Allaudin Khilji and his most trusted General, Malik Kafur too was emotional. Allaudin had long fancied Malik. A deep emotional bond had developed between the two as Malik proved his merit as a practical and strategic General, successfully leading several conquests and acquiring significant territories for the empire. In his final years, ‘infatuated’ with love for Malik, Allaudin indirectly made Malik the ruler, Na’ib (Viceroy) and entrusted the entire government to Malik.
The rhetoric imagery presented is of a Romeo-Juliet of aristocratic circle taking a leap To be together or not to be separated, taking oaths in European tongue (preferably French, “the language of love”, I personally consider Urdu more appropriate for the title).The same, though less assertive, emotion cannot exist between a Chinese peasant and his wife? (referring here to The Good Earth)Watching American high school romances and then reflecting on your own… meagre memories does make you doubt. But such as in both cases a teenager is a teenager, the emotions behind the cheesy notes remain the same (perhaps even more dramatic in our case, given the Romeo-Juliet level of secrecy required).
Don’t consider such emotions to be shunned forever in our society, for the newly-weds are awkwardly forced to ‘have’ a chemistry during the wedding photo-shoot. But unfortunately, the affection in those orbs won’t fill as quickly as the dowry in groom’s account did.
To conclude, like other societies ours too is humane, we too experience and deal with emotions rassa (Hindi for ‘emotions’), perhaps except cultural haughtiness (eyeing the historic colonizers), but let’s leave that for any other article.
^ Kang, Younghi. New Republic. July 1, 1931
*KALIDASA: The Loom of Time, trans. and ed. Chandra Rajan, Penguin Book India 1989
