The Heart Asks Pleasure First

 

I’ve always believed that the book finds you. Some come and make a home for themselves in your bookshelf, and others instantly cradle between the grip your fingers and your fixed gaze.

Karuna Ezara Parikh’s ‘The Heart Asks Pleasure First’ found me in January of 2021, when the global COVID-19 pandemic had completed 10 months and we were trying to make sense of what collectively our lives had become. It had found me at a time when I was very willing to give up on love stories – heck, maybe on love itself.

"Longing. Is there a fuller word in the world? Tell me, is there an emptier one?"

 I couldn’t curtail myself from reading even a single day. And like anything which is addictive, I had a hard time snapping out of the world she had created in those 316 pages when I finished. Anyone who’s been in love knows that when love grips you, you find it hard to live even one day without communicating with each other – and that is the same effect the story of an Indian and Pakistani who were discovering each other in Wales, had on me.

I simply surrendered myself wholly to the poetic brilliance of Karuna’s prose. How she weaves a magic carpet using threads of religion, culture, history, poetry, art, romance, conflict, loss, yearning, love and friendship - all together - through words that hold you in a warm and tight hug and transport you to a place you never want to leave, is sheer brilliance. Daya’s head, Aaftab’s heart, Wasim’s friendship, and Asha & Gyan’s marriage – I safely coiled myself in the beauty of a piece of contemporary literature that is tender and intoxicating, and one that will remain relevant for decades to come.

Kahan hai manzil-e-rah-e-tammana hum bhi dekhenge,
Ye shab hum-par bhi guzregi ye farda hum bhi dekhenge:
Thahr, ai dil, jamal-e-ruh-e-zeba, hum bhi dekhenge.
- Faiz 

Any other love story that will I read for a long time, is most likely to pale in comparison to Karuna’s poetic cross-border, cross-generational transcendence of pure joy which has hope, and strangely, ability to leave you feeling healed.

They say masterpieces aren’t created overnight. She took almost 13 years to put together this one, and I urge every believer and non-believer, in these times of ‘love-jihad’, to give ‘The Heart Asks Pleasure First’ its rightful place in your bookshelf, or possibly also gift it to someone who appreciates poetic goodness.

Deep in my heart, I know there is a very likely possibility that someone might make a Bollywood film out of this one. I truly wish that it won’t be trivialized to 180 minutes of glamour and put-on-ness, because this story is a gem which is so pure – that it doesn’t deserve to be force fitted onto a screen, and played out by a bunch of actors who will make feeble attempts at bringing the characters to life.

P.S. – Thank you Instagram. Despite how much I crib about it being the black hole I that keep falling into and try getting out of, it was Instragram who helped me discover what I’m beginning to believe will be the best book that happened to me in 2021- maybe in the entire decade.

I am only a mere mortal and a lover of books,  so I would not like to term this post as a review, but just call it my expression of the author’s magnificence. Take a bow, Karuna!