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Well, everyone has been in love with Elizabeth Bennet [from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen]. And I’m sure women have as well (laughs). There are also certain characters one is fascinated by. Look at someone like Karna, for example, in The Mahabharata. Very interesting character. You can’t say I am in love with Karna, because actually I can’t quite visualise him. He had a rough time. And you know, the resentments that he felt, I would say, were in many ways justified. We always talk about Arjun as being Kounteya but in fact Karna has as much right to be called Kounteya.VIKRAM SETH
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| Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina in the 2012 movie of the same name |
I love with in what way? In a romantic way? (Laughs) Umm, gosh… I don’t know! I mean I fall in love with every book that moves me, I fall in love with the characters in some way. And that’s sort of the point of reading, to form a connection to the characters. So there’s no one character that stands out. You know, when I read Tess of the d’Urbervilles I fall in love with her, or when I read Anna Karenina… whatever the book is, you connect with the characters, you connect with at least some of the characters. You feel for them, you care about them, your heart breaks for them. I think that’s the test of literature, that love you feel. JHUMPA LAHIRI
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I must say at the outset that when I think of my favourite books, I don’t necessarily think of the characters. Like when I think of Ulysses [by James Joyce], I don’t think of Leopold Bloom or Stephen Dedalus, I think of Dublin or Joyce’s language in the book.
But put in a corner with a gun to my head, I’d pick Mr Biswas from A House for Mr Biswas [by V.S. Naipaul]. Mr Biswas stands out to me because of his capacity for joy, his animatedness, and his living relationship with the English language.
When he works as a bus conductor, he rejoices in reciting the various names of the stops on his route in Trinidad. When he works as a sign painter, the letters ‘S’ and ‘R’ of the English alphabet give him particular joy. I love him for this joyousness. For Mr Biswas is otherwise an unhappy man, the little man married to a woman from a rich, patriarchal, powerful family. And before he dies, he writes to his son Anand, about the house he has finally built for himself, a house with a tree that was in bloom. “It was a letter full of wonders,” says the narrator.
It is the same reason why I like Paul Morel’s father Walter Morel in Sons and Lovers [by DH Lawrence]. Walter is a miner, married to a woman who in terms of class and education is ahead of him. Like the Biswases, they too are in a discontented marriage. In spite of that, Walter, who is not very articulate, conveys his joy through everyday domestic activity in the novel, as when he is mending things, and soldering and whistling to himself. AMIT CHAUDHURI
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Among my all-time favourite literary characters is Charles Strickland in W. Somerset Maugham’s novel The Moon and Sixpence, based loosely on the life of the famous French artist Paul Gauguin. Charles Strickland, a middle-aged London stockbroker, abandons his family, possessed by an insatiable artistic urge. Living in poverty in Paris, he is helped by friends but doesn’t display loyalty towards anybody except his art. After his lover-turned-model commits suicide, he travels to Tahiti, marries a native woman and paints his magnum opus on the walls of his mud-thatched house. Before turning blind and dying of leprosy, he tells his wife to burn down the house, and with it the painting, after his death.
I had first read the story as a teenager, and Strickland as the supremely obsessed artist had grabbed my imagination.
Hossian Miya in Manik Bandopadhyay’s Padma Nadir Majhi [The Boatman of Padma] is yet another captivating creation. A quixotic character, he is a naval entrepreneur but foremost a seller of dreams. He convinces poor peasants and boatmen to migrate to Moynadeep — a land of untold riches and utopian paradise where there are no divisions by caste or religion. A human trafficker in today’s terminology, he turns out, ultimately, as perhaps the most romantically adventurous character in 20th century Bangla fiction.
Both these characters have been played by famous actors — Sir Laurence Olivier as Charles Strickland and none other than Utpal Dutt had portrayed Hossian Miya in Goutam Ghose’s film.KUNAL BASU
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Bheeshma from The Mahabharata. A complex man who had a lot of greatness but also did deeds (like how he treated Amba) which leaves one troubled. AMISH
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Oh, there are so many! The first would be Mr Pickwick [from Charles Dickens’s first novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club aka The Pickwick Papers]. He is full of fun, a simple and good-natured soul. He is always getting involved in awkward situations! He is one of my best-loved characters written by Dickens. My other favourite Dickens character is
Mr Micawber from David Copperfield. He perpetually finds it difficult to make ends meet but comes up on top in the end. Then there’s Mr Dick, a simple soul who helps young Copperfield when he runs away from home, and Aunt Betsey Trotwood, who’s strict but also very warm-hearted.
Outside of Dickens, I love Hercule Poirot [by Agatha Christie]. He’s eccentric but always uses his ‘little grey cell’. He’s a great detective, he’s my favourite detective. I like him more than Sherlock Holmes. I like Poirot’s companion Captain Hastings too, who is like his Watson.
In P.G. Wodehouse, I like Jeeves and Bertie, especially since Jeeves is always getting his master out of trouble and impossible situations. But I am also a big fan of Ukridge and his financial schemes and Lord Emsworth and his prize-winning pig.
You see, my favourite book is Wuthering Heights [by Emily Bronte] but all the characters there are so dark and gloomy! I have read the book twice and read it through the night both times but those are characters I wouldn’t like to live with (laughs).
I much prefer Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [by Lewis Carroll]. She is an independent sort of girl who questions things and doesn’t get intimidated easily, either by ferocious queens or mad hatters. And she’s quite practical. She gives you a sense that she’s really having those adventures, although in the end it all turns out to be a dream! RUSKIN BOND
love’ author Ravinder Singh on romance & why geny is in a hurry
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Do you have any Valentine’s Day plans?
(Laughs) All my Valentine’s Day plans so far have been on Facebook, for my readers. I talk to them, when they ask for a couple of tips I offer them. But this year, this whole month and specifically this week, we are celebrating the spirit of romance by celebrating my debut novel, I Too Had A Love Story. It’s been six years and it has sold more than a million copies.… So I have been talking about the untold stories behind the making of the book, what readers love, the best lines from the book etc, all on my fan page on Facebook.
Coming to my personal life, probably my wife [Khushboo] and I will step out for a dinner, that’s it.
What is a romantic dinner for you?
Wherever you can strike a great conversation. Somewhere far away from current affairs and all that. The last time someone asked me this question three-four years back, I was a bachelor, living in Chandigarh. And I said, my idea of a romantic date would be going up the hills of Kasauli in the afternoon, having great masala chai in the car when it’s cold outside, having some garam parathas and driving back in the evening.
And that has changed now that you are a married man?
Well, as a married man there is a new set of responsibilities. Now it’s about understanding, it’s about dealing with clashes at times, and then saying sorry… and celebrating and doing crazy things. So, it’s a lot of fun also. The family multiplies when you get married, responsibilities also multiply. But you get a companion to enjoy each and every moment, so that is a big change.
Some say marriage is the end of love and romance...
[Laughs out loud] It depends! On the kind of person you land up with. You may get a great companion and marriage becomes bliss but if unfortunately you get the wrong one, it actually turns out to be almost close to a deathbed!
Did you ever imagine you would be looked upon as a love expert?
Oh, not at all. When I was penning down my book, I didn’t even think there would be one-tenth of the following that I hold today. It happened completely unintentionally. On top of it people now ask me… in fact, my first sentence at any event is a disclaimer that I am an author of love stories, I am not a love guru (laughs)!
But people still come up and ask me. At times they are not able to make up their mind if it’s the right age for them to even accept someone’s proposal or they are feeling butterflies in their stomach for a person and how to go about it. A majority of them are also on the verge of breaking up… so many men have asked me if I can talk to their girlfriends and convince them on their behalf!
What are the common mistakes people make in a relationship?
One big mistake that is extremely, extremely common is that people are all in a hurry to fall in this thing that they believe is love but it’s actually a one-sided infatuation or just a romance. They don’t understand the essence of it, they don’t understand that love also means being responsible, love also means a sense of sacrifice, which is completely missing in a majority of love stories these days.
They all want to fall upon the sentence, ‘love is blind’. The problem is that before you commit love to someone, don’t be blind, keep you eyes open, because you might end up ruining someone else’s life. You know, romance has become a fashion these days… ‘I also want a girlfriend/boyfriend’... and because of that want, they just don’t live their lives in a peaceful manner. There’s always this anxiety among them that love isn’t happening. And the moment you fall in love you start seeing the glass half-empty. Things change and questions of trust, infidelity… all sorts of things crop up.
What would be the best Valentine’s Day gift that you’d like to receive?
I think the best gift I’d like to get is to know that someone gifted my books to their beloved. Just the news of it will make me happy. Because I believe that the kind of love that I have written about is very different in nature, they are all on the emotional chord, there is an element of honesty, there’s trust, there’s commitment and there is a sense of sacrifice. I really want this sort of love to be nurtured in our society. Of late we have been missing the kitabon wala pyaar and if we are able to bring back that kind of love in the current generation, it’ll be the best gift.
And a gift you’d like to give on Valentine’s Day?
[Laughs] I haven’t planned anything, I’ll just go with the flow. February has a number of things — my own birthday [February 4], then Valentine’s Day… then it’s the birthday of Khushi, about whom the first book was. Unfortunately the day she passed away also falls in this month, again it’s the month when we were supposed to get engaged, in 2007… so the whole month is a mix of so many feelings, and I share all of that with my readers.
