Editor’s Note
It is one of those gnostic theorems that it is far more fun to read (and write) about love going wrong than love being done right. The gnostics, of course, were those chaps who believed there was a God and there was a devil, but the devil had won. This story is firmly on the side of the gnostics. It even has a cat.
More seriously, Chaandrey’s story walks the fragile tightrope between humour and fear. The narrator is a woman. It seemed to me that she’s not fighting her husband, but her own self. The question is not who will win. The question is, what worth such a victory. Robert Stoller, one of our shrewdest observers of human perversion, wrote in his book on the subject: “Only those strong enough to trust will let others in, allow intimacy. But if we have reason to feel unsafe… we shall be on guard, fearful of what others may find were we to let them in and how they will use what they find. So we seal ourselves off, a process that dehumanizes us. Then, to be doubly safe, we dehumanize them. They convert to fetishes. For those who do not fear dissolution, intimacy is a joy. For those who do, there is an even more primitive threat: if I let someone in — if I thereby merge with that person — may he or she not, like an evil spirit, possess me, take me over entirely? Then, the great terror, I shall lose myself.”
Let this story in.
—Anil Menon
The Bombay Literary Magazine
Acknowledgements
Image credits: Shoeb Dastagir. Strawberries and Cream. Reproduced here with Shoeb’s kind permission.
Shoeb’s paintings would probably be classified as magic realist by experts whose job it is to classify such things. In the artist’s own words:
“I give form to things that are intangible like atmosphere, mood & submission. I get my inspiration from nature and the profound silence of creation. Silence in nature speaks through to me .
My paintings combine pictures from imaginary worlds intermingled with whimsical characters and dream like sequences which border on fantasy and mystic dreams. As an artist I work towards developing work of art that intrigues and speak to you at the same time. My work invites the viewer to move into my world of fantasy and delve into beauty that I see in my world.”
Shoeb lives and works in Bangalore. More of his works can be seen here: A Little On The Wild Side.
Author | Chaandreyi Mukherjee
Dr. Chaandreyi Mukherjee has pursued her Ph.D. from Jamia Millia Islamia. She is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Vivekananda College, University of Delhi. She is an avid reader and a book reviewer on Instagram (@paperback.girl).
