How I Fell in Love with Moulana, by Dilbar (original) (raw)

Me and Maulana, a Love Story

Eternal truths about love and hate, and about how being in love can make one better, from the mouth of a Pakistani boy of eighteen.

“I regret not falling in love” A homage to my grandmother, Mrs Anuradha Banerjee Outlook India, 2023

Outlook, 2023

This Mother's Day, I remember the phenomenal matriarch of our family-my mother's mother, my Didan. On the 18 th of April, 2023, quietly, and I believe, reluctantly, Didan excused herself from the revelries of the world. I guess, this was her way to celebrate Nobo Borsho. A new life in a new universe where she would not be 'Didan' but Ms Anuradha Banerjee-probably, the CEO of a Food and Beverage company, travelling the world in private jets and writing romantic letters to her distant lovers. Didan was born in Gopalpur, Burdwan district, West Bengal. At a young age, she married my grandfather, Dr Krishnapada Banerjee. Didan's life always revolved around family and domestic chores. However, every kind of crisis was resolved by a fine balance between diplomacy and emotion. Even as a grandmother, she was always tactful and astute. She would bargain her way out; stand stubborn to reclaim what rightly belonged to her-skills that women often deny themselves.

THE COURTSHIP OF A BOY by Baqir

Several of the stories in this collection, stories written by youths in their late teens or early twenties, reveal that the writer feels “different” from ordinary boys. To be exact, that he is “a lover of his own kind,” the expression frequently used in the East for a male who is attracted to another male. So does Baqir feel, the writer of the present tale. This would be a very understandable statement in the West, where, in conformity with cultural standards, we profess clear distinctions between sexual identities, homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, and so forth, and where homosexuals are indeed “different” since they are but a small minority of the population. That statement, the claim to be “different,” is a lot less understandable in the East, where most men and most boys enter into love relationships with other males. In that context it raises a question to which no one has been able to give me a proper answer. If it is indeed the case that the boys who are in love with men feel “different” from ordinary boys, and if it is indeed the case (as most of my local informants have assured me) that the majority of the boys in that culture enter into such love relationships with older men, than it stands to reason that ordinary boys are in a minority, does it not? But if that is so, how can they be said to be “ordinary,” when in actuality they are the ones who are, in fact, uncommon?! Andrew Calimach Bucharest, January 2024

A Comparative Study of O. Henry and Pannalal Patel's Selected Love Stories

Towards Excellence, 2021

'Love' has always been a topic of interest for people around the world. Poets, novelists, painters, dancers have multiple works dedicated to 'love' and it seems they can't get enough of it. Friendship, anger, cares, jealousies are emotions attached to love and have been dealt with by authors of the world. The ancient and the modern, the teens and the adults, males and female are in awe of 'love'. This makes it a very interesting subject for study. William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry has written almost 300 short stories on various themes. He never failed to surprise the readers with a twist at the end of his stories. Pannalal Patel is a celebrated Gujarati author who, like Henry, has almost 20 short story collection under his name. He too has dealt with various themes including love, crime, sacrifice and more. The current paper focuses on comparing the love stories by these authors. The selected stories are The Gift of Magi and Witches' Loaves by O. Henry and Sukh Dukh na Sathi and Nirupay by Pannalal Patel. As both, the writers belonged to two entirely different places and were active during a different time, the comparison of their stories will help to learn the idea of 'love' as the authors see it and the treatment of 'love' in their stories.

An Ethnography of Love in a Tamil Family

Culture & Psychology, 2004

If you visit Dr. Margaret Trawick's home page at the University of Massey, New Zealand, there are two photographs on display. One is of Trawick herself. The other is a photograph of one of the primary respondents in her study on love in a Tamil family. The inscription below that photograph reads 'In Memory of Pullavar S.R. Themozhiyar, 1938-1998'. Trawick lived with Themozhiyar's family and used them as sources for her book Notes on Love in a Tamil Family. The book was researched in three phases, in 1975, 1980 and then in 1984. First published in 1990, the book was awarded the 1992 Coomaraswamy award for significant scholarly work on South Asia. Oxford University Press, India brought out an Indian edition in 1996. Trawick's meeting with Themozhiyar, or Ayya, as he is also known in the book, was a serendipitous one. She was in Tamil Nadu researching concepts of the human body in South India. Ayya was introduced to her as a 'Tamil scholar who made his living by lecturing at religious gatherings about Saiva literature' (p. 41). Ayya introduced Trawick to the epic poem Tirukkovaiyar by Manikkavacakar. This was a love poem, which talked of the love of a man and a woman, and also spoke of the