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Indian Love Stories
SHORT STORIES.
- GenresPsychology
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
9 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Sudhir Kakar
56 books84 followersSudhir Kakar is a psychoanalyst and writer who lives in Goa, India.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 6, 2016
What does the word ‘love’ bring to your mind? A red colored heart, lovers with clasped hands, gleeful smiles of youthful faces and flowers in bunches? If so, you must read this book. Not because it will augment your idea about love, but because it will make you see how large and different an emotion love is, different from what we have been taught about love repeatedly, in mundane, movie-type depictions.
‘Indian Love Stories’ is an anthology, a collection of 10 short stories, by contemporary Indian authors and compiled by Sudhir Kakar. Each of these 10 stories brings out the 10 different hues of love – some blue, some green, and some, grey. But each hue by itself will definitely paint a vivid picture for your mind’s eyes. A compilation of works by some of the eminent names in Indian literature scenario, like Amrita Pritam and Kamala Das, these stories are sure to tickle some nerves, lacerate some hearts and unleash some repressed emotions.
With no intention of spoiling the show for the willing readers, and with the intention of giving a glimpse into the vast array of emotions and relationships that go by the name of love, here I’d like to offer a line or two about each of these stories.
1. The Empty Chest, Indira Goswami – Deals about the unfulfilled love between a poor woman, who is left to fend for herself in the absence of her errant husband, and her previous, upper-caste employer. What will be her emotions like, if she gets to know about his death, a decade after their separation?
2. The House Combustible, Subodh Ghosh – Translated from Bengali, this story tells about a chance encounter between an estranged couple. A divorced couple get to meet by destiny at a railway station, on a lonely night. What will be the flow of emotions like? Especially when they are both married to some other persons and are headed in different directions now?
3. Stains, Manjula Padmanabhan – Set in a foreign background, this story depicts the relationship between a rich NRI and his African-American girlfriend. The clash of cultures and the conservative mindset of the NRI’s mother form the theme of this story. A little raw and a bit shocking with the way the story revolves around what we Indians don’t even want to talk about – menstruation troubles of a woman.
4. A New Triangle, Ratanlal Shant – What will be the relationship like between a husband and wife that have grown cold by the commitment, the feeling of security and the resultant ennui? What will it be like for a husband and wife, who have nothing to fear about losing the other person? Well, this story deals with it.
5. Chastity Belt, Damodar Mauzo – If you are a person who works away from home for a major part of the year and stays home only for about a month or two, will you trust your wife to remain chaste and loyal to you? Especially, if you were a person who has had an affair with a married woman under similar circumstances, in the past? Well, this story deals with that dark side of love.
6. The Game of Chess, Kamala Das – Written by one of the prominent Indian female authors, this story deals about a woman’s infatuation and attraction for her elderly mentor/family-friend. Not sure whether it can be called ‘love’, but Sudhir has made it clear in the foreword itself that he will be including all shades of love, so you can accept this story.
7. The Bed of Arrows, Gopinath Mohanty – A bedridden middle-aged wife, physically withered but emotionally very much alive, a husband who has been loving and caring nevertheless, the arrival of a female colleague that seemingly fills the husband’s life with a bit of joy and happiness, the resulting emotional turmoil in the mind of the wife, these form the basis for this story. Intense is the word.
8. Housewife, Ismat Chughtai – Deals with the many strings that bring together a woman who sells herself for a living and a pious shopkeeper who is averse to such people. Destiny makes her end up at his house, which she soon makes her own. Their resultant union in marriage and the travails thereof are humorously portrayed here. You’ll love this for sure.
9. Weekend, Nirmal Verma – A man separated from his wife, but committed to be a good father to his daughter, and a woman who shares his life and bed during weekends. What will their relationship be like? Will she ever go back to him even after she learns about his abundant love and care for his daughter? I simply loved the style of writing, though averse to the mind of that woman. A lot intense, brilliant and breathtaking. You often need to stop and catch your breath so that you can understand the innumerable emotions that are packed in these words.
10. The Weed, Amrita Pritam – What will happen if a poor rural girl, married to a man much older than her, brought up with the idea that love is a sin and a sort of allure caused by eating a certain type of weed, falls in love some day? Amrita Pritam, enchants with her simple way of writing in this story.
For someone who had never indulged much in contemporary Indian writing, this book opened up a world of new reading possibilities and introduced some brilliant Indian writers to pick from, in future. If you are a person who believes in love and its many facets, you will love reading this book for sure. For, each story will end up tugging a string from some part of your heart.
‘Indian Love Stories’ is an anthology, a collection of 10 short stories, by contemporary Indian authors and compiled by Sudhir Kakar. Each of these 10 stories brings out the 10 different hues of love – some blue, some green, and some, grey. But each hue by itself will definitely paint a vivid picture for your mind’s eyes. A compilation of works by some of the eminent names in Indian literature scenario, like Amrita Pritam and Kamala Das, these stories are sure to tickle some nerves, lacerate some hearts and unleash some repressed emotions.
With no intention of spoiling the show for the willing readers, and with the intention of giving a glimpse into the vast array of emotions and relationships that go by the name of love, here I’d like to offer a line or two about each of these stories.
1. The Empty Chest, Indira Goswami – Deals about the unfulfilled love between a poor woman, who is left to fend for herself in the absence of her errant husband, and her previous, upper-caste employer. What will be her emotions like, if she gets to know about his death, a decade after their separation?
2. The House Combustible, Subodh Ghosh – Translated from Bengali, this story tells about a chance encounter between an estranged couple. A divorced couple get to meet by destiny at a railway station, on a lonely night. What will be the flow of emotions like? Especially when they are both married to some other persons and are headed in different directions now?
3. Stains, Manjula Padmanabhan – Set in a foreign background, this story depicts the relationship between a rich NRI and his African-American girlfriend. The clash of cultures and the conservative mindset of the NRI’s mother form the theme of this story. A little raw and a bit shocking with the way the story revolves around what we Indians don’t even want to talk about – menstruation troubles of a woman.
4. A New Triangle, Ratanlal Shant – What will be the relationship like between a husband and wife that have grown cold by the commitment, the feeling of security and the resultant ennui? What will it be like for a husband and wife, who have nothing to fear about losing the other person? Well, this story deals with it.
5. Chastity Belt, Damodar Mauzo – If you are a person who works away from home for a major part of the year and stays home only for about a month or two, will you trust your wife to remain chaste and loyal to you? Especially, if you were a person who has had an affair with a married woman under similar circumstances, in the past? Well, this story deals with that dark side of love.
6. The Game of Chess, Kamala Das – Written by one of the prominent Indian female authors, this story deals about a woman’s infatuation and attraction for her elderly mentor/family-friend. Not sure whether it can be called ‘love’, but Sudhir has made it clear in the foreword itself that he will be including all shades of love, so you can accept this story.
7. The Bed of Arrows, Gopinath Mohanty – A bedridden middle-aged wife, physically withered but emotionally very much alive, a husband who has been loving and caring nevertheless, the arrival of a female colleague that seemingly fills the husband’s life with a bit of joy and happiness, the resulting emotional turmoil in the mind of the wife, these form the basis for this story. Intense is the word.
8. Housewife, Ismat Chughtai – Deals with the many strings that bring together a woman who sells herself for a living and a pious shopkeeper who is averse to such people. Destiny makes her end up at his house, which she soon makes her own. Their resultant union in marriage and the travails thereof are humorously portrayed here. You’ll love this for sure.
9. Weekend, Nirmal Verma – A man separated from his wife, but committed to be a good father to his daughter, and a woman who shares his life and bed during weekends. What will their relationship be like? Will she ever go back to him even after she learns about his abundant love and care for his daughter? I simply loved the style of writing, though averse to the mind of that woman. A lot intense, brilliant and breathtaking. You often need to stop and catch your breath so that you can understand the innumerable emotions that are packed in these words.
10. The Weed, Amrita Pritam – What will happen if a poor rural girl, married to a man much older than her, brought up with the idea that love is a sin and a sort of allure caused by eating a certain type of weed, falls in love some day? Amrita Pritam, enchants with her simple way of writing in this story.
For someone who had never indulged much in contemporary Indian writing, this book opened up a world of new reading possibilities and introduced some brilliant Indian writers to pick from, in future. If you are a person who believes in love and its many facets, you will love reading this book for sure. For, each story will end up tugging a string from some part of your heart.
May 3, 2018
Exquisite collection of stories.
August 28, 2017
Great collection of short stories centred on love, loss, femininity, masculinity, sexuality in the Indian context. This book introduced me to some splendid writers from Indian contemporary times. Loved Chughtai's "The Housewife", Amrita Pritam's "The Weed", "Stains" by Manjula Padmanabhan and Damodar Mazo's "Chastity Belt".
February 20, 2024
Every story begin with or ending in the pain, and in this short stories everyone had lost something in their life some can retrieve that other can't at all. So it can make you remember love is precious life on this earth also destructive in many ways..
May 16, 2023
Sudhir Kakar is a distinguished psychoanalyst and writer. Winner of numerous honours including the Goethe Medal, his books have been translated into several languages. I hadn’t heard of him before reading this book. So, all of that in the first sentence of this paragraph is from the back of this book I am reviewing.
I had read Indian Love Stories about seven years ago and had completely forgotten about it. Probably because this didn’t mean much back then. Now that I have grown older, I can understand what each story is actually talking about between the lines.
The Empty Chest written by Indira Goswami in Assamese/Asamiya and translated to English by Pradipta Borgohain: talks about clinging on to past love until realizing that the other person has moved on. Indira has used cruel metaphors to convey the meaning of her story.
The House Combustible written by Subodh Ghosh in Bengali/Bangla and translated to English by Dipen Mitra: talks about why it is better for everyone to not rake the dried layers of past relationships and move on, even if you cross paths again, by not saying out loud what is going on in your mind to avoid embarrassment and retain self-respect.
Stains written by Manjula Padmanabhan: is not only a suffocating love story but is also about feminism, culture contrast, superiority-inferiority complex, taboo, standing up for self, and patriarchy. I had never come across any piece of writing that addressed all these topics at one go. My favourite quote from the short story is “The bleeding woman is penalized for being in that ‘state’: the correct condition, of course, is to be pregnant or nursing.” To me, this quote not only talks about women facing untouchability during periods in certain cultures, but also about situation of rape victims.
A New Triangle written by Ratanlal Shant in Kashmiri and translated to English by Neerja Mattoo: is a short story about a toxic marital relationship between two individuals. Towards the end of the story, it feels like they didn’t want to get married, but wanted to just live together and hadn’t realized it sooner. There is a mention of Harmukh peak, which apparently, has been attempted by only one non-Indian so far and hasn’t returned from his expedition. I had been on a trek on which I could see Harmukh peak from far and seeing its mention in this story brought back the memories. It also gave an authenticity to the story, a nod to the nativity.
Chastity Belt written by Damodar Mauzo in Konkani and translated by Xavier Cota: is not a love story but is a crap-load of male chauvinism and patriarchy’s whims and fancies made to look like love. This story just made me want to spit on it.
The Game of Chess written by Kamala Das in Malayalam and translated to English by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan: is about the dilemma of mental infidelity and unrequited love. Each emotion-led action and each action-led emotion is beautifully described in this short story. So much so that reading it begins to give a feeling of you undergoing each of those emotions and actions. Isn’t that the purpose of good narration?
The Bed of Arrows written by Gopinath Mohanty in Oriya and translated to English by Sitakant Mahapatra: is a pain to read. The protagonist of the story is in pain and is on death bed and reading about her emotions and day-to-day ordeal inflicts pain on the readers.
Housewife written by Ismat Chughtai in Urdu and translated to English by Fatima Ahmad: is an erstwhile version of a rom-com; is a total laughter riot. However, it subtly yet heavily hints at patriarchy.
Weekend written by Nirmal Verma in Hindi and translated to English by Kuldip Singh: is either an aimless story or a bad translation. I neither liked it when I read it first nor now. Even if I try to make sense of this short story, at the maximum, I could say it is about insecurities. But, I still cannot make much sense of it.
The Weed written by Amrita Pritam in Punjabi and translated to English by Raj Gill: talks about the cock and bull stories people tell innocent girls about what love is and how it happens or what it looks like. It is also about experienced lives and their inexperienced sides.
Indian Love Stories is a book that offers something for everyone. But it all depends on you how you interpret the emotions evoked by each short story. Read at your own risk.
I had read Indian Love Stories about seven years ago and had completely forgotten about it. Probably because this didn’t mean much back then. Now that I have grown older, I can understand what each story is actually talking about between the lines.
The Empty Chest written by Indira Goswami in Assamese/Asamiya and translated to English by Pradipta Borgohain: talks about clinging on to past love until realizing that the other person has moved on. Indira has used cruel metaphors to convey the meaning of her story.
The House Combustible written by Subodh Ghosh in Bengali/Bangla and translated to English by Dipen Mitra: talks about why it is better for everyone to not rake the dried layers of past relationships and move on, even if you cross paths again, by not saying out loud what is going on in your mind to avoid embarrassment and retain self-respect.
Stains written by Manjula Padmanabhan: is not only a suffocating love story but is also about feminism, culture contrast, superiority-inferiority complex, taboo, standing up for self, and patriarchy. I had never come across any piece of writing that addressed all these topics at one go. My favourite quote from the short story is “The bleeding woman is penalized for being in that ‘state’: the correct condition, of course, is to be pregnant or nursing.” To me, this quote not only talks about women facing untouchability during periods in certain cultures, but also about situation of rape victims.
A New Triangle written by Ratanlal Shant in Kashmiri and translated to English by Neerja Mattoo: is a short story about a toxic marital relationship between two individuals. Towards the end of the story, it feels like they didn’t want to get married, but wanted to just live together and hadn’t realized it sooner. There is a mention of Harmukh peak, which apparently, has been attempted by only one non-Indian so far and hasn’t returned from his expedition. I had been on a trek on which I could see Harmukh peak from far and seeing its mention in this story brought back the memories. It also gave an authenticity to the story, a nod to the nativity.
Chastity Belt written by Damodar Mauzo in Konkani and translated by Xavier Cota: is not a love story but is a crap-load of male chauvinism and patriarchy’s whims and fancies made to look like love. This story just made me want to spit on it.
The Game of Chess written by Kamala Das in Malayalam and translated to English by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan: is about the dilemma of mental infidelity and unrequited love. Each emotion-led action and each action-led emotion is beautifully described in this short story. So much so that reading it begins to give a feeling of you undergoing each of those emotions and actions. Isn’t that the purpose of good narration?
The Bed of Arrows written by Gopinath Mohanty in Oriya and translated to English by Sitakant Mahapatra: is a pain to read. The protagonist of the story is in pain and is on death bed and reading about her emotions and day-to-day ordeal inflicts pain on the readers.
Housewife written by Ismat Chughtai in Urdu and translated to English by Fatima Ahmad: is an erstwhile version of a rom-com; is a total laughter riot. However, it subtly yet heavily hints at patriarchy.
Weekend written by Nirmal Verma in Hindi and translated to English by Kuldip Singh: is either an aimless story or a bad translation. I neither liked it when I read it first nor now. Even if I try to make sense of this short story, at the maximum, I could say it is about insecurities. But, I still cannot make much sense of it.
The Weed written by Amrita Pritam in Punjabi and translated to English by Raj Gill: talks about the cock and bull stories people tell innocent girls about what love is and how it happens or what it looks like. It is also about experienced lives and their inexperienced sides.
Indian Love Stories is a book that offers something for everyone. But it all depends on you how you interpret the emotions evoked by each short story. Read at your own risk.
August 10, 2014
This is a nice collection of short love stories depicting various psychological aspects of human relationships in the Indian context. Most of the stories resonate very well with real-life dynamics of gender relationship in India and have some concrete message to think and relate to...Recommended for anyone interested in understanding cultural aspects of human behavior...Shdhir Kakar is anyway known for his socio-psychological analysis of Indians from his many other writings including "The Indians: Portrait of a People".
August 3, 2012
A beautiful collection, some of the stories are really unusual. An enjoyable read!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews