In this session, we will look at two very different examples of same-sex love in Hindi literature. The first example consists of two rekhtī verses by the Urdu poet Sadat Yar Khan ‘Rangin’ (1756-1835). Rekhtī (the feminine form of rekhta) refers to poetry composed in the voice of women and that often depicts same-sex love among females– although the extant examples of such poetry were all composed by men. The second example comes from the well-known Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha (1926-2013); his short story Doharī Zindagī (A Double Life) is a fable that raises questions about the very nature of sex and gender. Read more →

In this session, we will take a look at two very different examples of writing about आधुनिक प्रेम, i.e. ‘modern love’. The first is a collection of ‘micro-fiction’ (very short stories, each only a few sentences long) by the prominent Hindi television journalist Ravish Kumar, इश्क़ में शहर होना  (To Be a City in Love). The second is a poem by a famous Urdu poet of Pakistan, Fahmida Riaz, called लाओ, हाथ अपना लोओ ज़रा (Bring, Please Bring Your Hand). Read more →

In this session, we will be reading two ghazals by Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan ‘Ghalib’, thought by many to be the best poet of Urdu that ever lived. We will spend some time familiarizing ourselves with the formal conventions of the genre, as well as with the conventions of love and romance as they appear in the world of Persianate poetry, including Urdu.  Read more →

In this session, we will look at the phenomenon of love in the hymns of three saints associated with the bhakti devotional movement: Mirabai (16th century?), Kabir (15th-16th century?), and Surdas (16th century).  Of note will be how they adapt tropes of romantic love with which we have become familiar in the course to articulating a notion of the soul’s relationship with the Divine.  Read more →

The Sufi and court poet Malik Muhammad ‘Jayasi’ composed the Padmāvat in 1540 in the milieu of the Afghan Sher Shah Suri’s north Indian sultanate. He drew on the tradition of the prem-akhyān or epic romance in northeastern Hindi that began with Maulana Daud’s Candāyan in 1379. Read more →