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Indian Love Poems

Part of Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series

Edited by Meena Alexander

Hardcover

$20.00 US

Knopf | Everyman's Library

4.38"W x 6.46"H x 0.71"D | 8 oz | 24 per carton

On sale Jan 25, 2005 | 256 Pages | 9781400042258

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According to the Kama Sutra, the erotic handbook written two thousand years ago, when the wheel of ecstasy is in motion “there is no textbook at all, and no order.” Indian Love Poems is a unique gathering of poems from across more than two and a half millennia that attempts to catalog the disordered ecstasies of love, ranging from the Kama Sutra and earlier works up to present-day India and the poets of the Indian diaspora.

Indian Love Poems features works from the classical languages of Sanskrit and Tamil and such later languages as Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Bengali, and English. Emerging from many Indian cultures and eras, the poems collected here reflect a variety of erotic and spiritual passions, and celebrate the powerful role of desire–both male and female–in the intricate dance of existence. From the twelfth-century female poet Mahadeviyakka to the twentieth-century Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore to such contemporary poets as Kamala Das and Vikram Seth, this glittering tapestry of lyric voices beautifully and sensually evokes the transfiguring force of love.

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Foreword

WAITING
From Subhashitavali of Vallabhadeva
My Love

VATSYAYANA From Kamasutra
Four Embraces

MILAIPPERUNKANTAN From Kuruntokai
What He Said

ALLUR NANMULLAI From Kuruntokai
What She Said

ORERURAVANAR From Kuruntokai
What He Said

KALIDASA From Meghadutam
The Loom of Time

ANONYMOUS
A Small Request

SRINATHA
Love Letter

JAGANATHA From Bhamini Vilasa
A Word of Warning

CHANDIDAS
‘I have blackened my golden skin’

ANURADHA MAHAPATRA
God

MAMULANAR From Kuruntokai
What She Said

CHANDIDAS
‘I throw ashes at all laws’

KAPILAR From Ainkurunuru
What Her Friend Said

TEVAKULATTAR From Kuruntokai
What She Said

From Gathasaptasati
‘Even in a reeling world’
‘How can you describe her?’

From Amarusataka
‘All I have to do’
‘She’s in the house’

VARATUNKARAMAPANTIYAN’S WIFE
Space to Space

KABIR
‘Like a sharp arrow’

JAYANTA MAHAPATRA
A Day of Rain

MANORAMA MAHAPATRA
My Whole Life for Him

AMRITA PRITAM
Early Spring

K. SATCHIDANANDAN
Loving aWoman

BALAMANIAMMA
Gift of Love

SHAKUNT MATHUR
A New Way of Waiting

GHALIB
Desires Come by the Thousands
Behind the Curtain

NISSIM EZEKIEL
Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher

MIRAJI
Love Song of the Clerk

SURESH JOSHI
Darkness

SITANSHU YASHASHCHANDRA
Solar

NIRALA
Love Song

A. K. RAMANUJAN
Looking for a Cousin on a Swing

MEENA ALEXANDER
Indian Sandstone

FAHMIDAH RIAZ
Tongue of Stone

PRATIBHA SATPATHY
Dew Drop

SAROOP DHRUV
Beyond the Flapdoor

KEKI N. DARUWALLA From Night River
‘Dream and reality’

MEETING
VATSYAYANA From Kamasutra
‘When men ask about all the ways of embracing’
‘Whatever wound a man inflicts on a woman’

KALIDASA From Sakuntala
‘Craving sweet’
‘Seeing rare beauty’

ANONYMOUS
Kamasutra

From Amarusataka ‘Held her’

KUMARADASA From Janakiharana
‘In their quarrel’

CANDRAKA From Sarngadharapaddhati
‘A long time back’

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
‘Before you came’

FAHMIDAH RIAZ
Deep Kiss

SUDEEP SEN
Desire
Caress

MIRABAI
‘Here she comes’
‘Hari is a dhobi’
‘On a sudden’

CHANDIDAS
‘I have hardened my mind’

SUJATA BHATT
The Kamasutra Retold

KABIR
‘To say that the love’
‘Lying beside you’

VIDYA
Love in the Countryside

VIKATANITAMBA
Recollection

VALLANA
‘When he had taken off my clothes’

BHAVABHUTI From Uttara Rama Charita
‘Deep in love’

CHAVALI BANGARAMMA
My Brother

RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Black Blossom
One Day

AKHTAR-UL-IMAN
Compromise

ISMAIL
You

BASAVANNA
‘Look here, dear fellow’

ILANKO ATIKAL From The Cilappatikaram
From The Round Dance of the Herdswomen

MAHADEVIYANKKA
‘Like a silkworm weaving’
‘When I didn’t know myself ’

D. VINAYACHANDRAN From Hell Writes a Love Poem
‘When the gigantic bulls with broken horns’
‘For love’
‘It is heaven and hell’
‘Standing naked before the mirror’

From Amarusataka
‘When my face turned toward his’

CEMPULAPPEYANIRAR From Kuruntokai
What He Said

From Amarusataka
‘My girl’
‘Tender-limbed girl’

DOM MORAES
Container
What I Meant

A. S. MUKTHAYAKKA
Little Poems

AYYAPPA PANIKER
The Prison

O. V. USHA
Doubt

KEDARNATH SINGH
On Reading a Love Poem

JYOTSNA MILAN
Woman, 2

AMRITA PRITAM
Talk
DailyWages

UMASHANKAR JOSHI
‘Before I met you’
An Apology

SUNANDA TRIPATHY
Tryst

NABANEETA DEV SEN
Fig Tree
Antara

HIRA BANSODE
Woman

ANONYMOUS
Drowning

MUDDUPALANI
Radha Instructs Ila, Krsna’s New Bride, in the Arts of Love

NANDURI SUBBARAO
Blow Out the Lamp

NABANEETA DEV SEN
Beginning and End

ANURADHA MAHAPATRA
Guiltful

TEJI GROVER
Jealousy 1

BHASWATI ROY CHAUDHURI
Side by Side

GAGAN GILL
She Touches Him

RAJANI PARULEKAR
The Snake Couple

AYYAPPA PANIKER
‘To me your body’

FAHMIDAH RIAZ
‘Come, give me your hand’

A. K. RAMANUJAN
Love Poem for a Wife, 2

JAYANTA MAHAPATRA
The IndianWay

VIKRAM SETH
Unclaimed

KAMALA DAS (KAMALA SURAYYA)
The Old Playhouse

KEKI N. DARUWALLA
To My Daughter Rookzain

SUJATA BHATT
Sherdi

ARUN KOLATKAR
Chaitanya

VIKRAM SETH
From The Golden Gate

JAYADEVA From Gitagovinda
Joyful Krishna
Ecstatic Krishna

PARTING
From Amarusataka
‘To go’

MUTTA
‘So free am I, so gloriously free’

SUMANGALAMATA
‘A woman well set free!’

MIRABAI
‘He’s left me’

JAYADEVA From Gitagovinda
Careless Krishna

MAMALATAN From Kuruntokai
What She Said

KACCIPETTU NANNAKAIYAR From Kuruntokai
What She Said

KAPILAR From Kuruntokai
What She Said

From Gathasaptasati
‘Separation’s fire’
‘Aunt’

From Gahakoso ‘Scornfully’

KAPILAR From Ainkurunuru
What Her Friend Said

CANDRAKA From Sarngadharapaddhati
‘At day’s end’

SRIVARA From Subhashitavali of Vallabhadeva
‘I know’

GHALIB
Near the Zam ZamWell
Some Exaggerations

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
Any Lover to Any Beloved

From Gathasaptasati
‘They whisper the cruel one’
‘Unable to count’
‘Distance destroys love’
‘His form’

RABINDRANATH TAGORE
‘He never came to me’
Comings and Goings
From I Won’t Let You Go

DILIP CHITRE
From Travelling in a Cage

CHINU MODI
Elegy

KAIFI AZMI
Humiliation

AYYAPPA PANIKER
How Well Have I Forgotten!

AMRITA PRITAM
The Sigh That Breathes Fire

FAHMIDAH RIAZ
Stoning

AGHA SHAHDID ALI
A Rehearsal of Loss

NIRENDRANATH CHAKRAVARTY
The Bloodstained Trophies

AMRITA PRITAM
The Tale of Fire

SUGATHA KUMARI
Night Rain

P. BHASKARAN
Sometimes, Remember Me

KABITA SINHA
The Last Door’s Name is Sorrow

JAYANATA MAHAPATRA
Poem for Angela Elston

AGHA SHAHID ALI
From A Nostalgist’s Map of America

VIKRAM SETH From The Golden Gate

NISSIM EZEKIEL
Description

AGHA SHAHID ALI
Film Bhajan Found on a 78 RPM

MEENA ALEXANDER
Closing the Kamasutra

KISHWAR NAHEED
A Story Among Many
History Does Not Repeat Itself
Agreement

FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
‘Do not ask of me, my love’

Acknowledgments

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