Anna's Forbidden Love - Part 2

I just couldn't resist displaying these beautiful illustrations from the 1946 edition of Anna Karenina published by The Living Library Series. From top left: Anna & Vronsky dance at the ball while a shocked Kitty looks on, Anna & Vronsky courting each other in public, the distraught lovers, and Anna walks to her death (bottom right).

[This post is a part of the celebration of love and literature all this month on the beanbag. Why? Read here].

Anna's Forbidden Love

Tolstoy was forty four years old when he started writing Anna Karenina, the subject of which had been in his mind since the inquest on a young woman who threw herself under a train near the station a few miles from Tolstoy’s home. A few years earlier he had finished War and Peace and with Anna Karenina (the more perfect work) the psychological novel of the nineteenth century reaches its high-water mark. (Source: Introduction by Rosemary Edmonds, 1969 Penguins Classic Edition).

It is considered to be the greatest novel ever written. First published in book form in 1877, this novel has endured the test of time. But what is it about this book which has made it stay around for 136 years? Why is the story of an extra-marital affair of the wife of a Russian aristocrat with a young military officer still enthralling us? What makes Anna Karenina's story everlasting?

Love is a fundamental need of man and woman alike and it is, almost, the major theme of this novel. Anna wants to love and be loved. And it is this need for love, true love, which resonates with readers even now.

On the surface the story seems quite simple. Anna is in a rather conventional marriage with Karenin, a man much older than her. They have a son who is the center of Anna’s universe. Leaving her son behind in Moscow for a few days to help her brother, Stiva, with a domestic issue, is very difficult for her but go she must. Dolly, Stiva’s wife, had discovered his affair with the children’s governess and refused to live under the same roof as he. Anna travels to Saint Petersburg to save her brother’s marriage and fate plants the seeds for the destruction of her own. A chance meeting with Vronsky at a ball during her stay changes Anna’s life forever. They both fall madly in love and Anna leaves her husband, her beloved son and her home for her lover. But all doesn't end well for Anna, torn as she is between passion, jealousy and longing.

Even though Anna Karenina is famous, among most readers, for the extramarital affair of Anna and Vronsky, that is not the only theme of this novel. Parallel to Anna’s story is that of the simple, hardworking and less passionate Levin. Through him, it seems, the author is speaking to us because the ideas of Levin were Tolstoy’s ideas. Levin is both similar to and opposite of Anna. While she gives in to her heart and throws reason to the wind, Levin tries to keep his passion abated.

So why have I selected this book to represent love in literature? Anna Karenina is not heartbreaking or gut-wrenching like Wuthering Heights or Love Story.  Yes, it is tragic and melancholy. It makes one realize how little space there is in the world for men and women who feel and dream without the influences of society. Anna and Levin were similar in this way. Anna gave up everything for her lover, even her respect and position in society, adopting a devil may care attitude. The exhilaration of her love, initially, blinded her to the reality of her actions. Once she realized that she was a trapped woman and will always be looked down upon by others, she started doubting her lover. Jealousy consumed her, so much so that she ended up on the rail tracks.

Anna tried to find happiness in love. So did Levin. But happiness deluded them. Fate chose the more tragic end for Anna and Vronsky’s love. Was Tolstoy trying to pass a judgment here? Maybe he was. But Anna Karenina is far from being a lesson in morality. It is about a woman desperately seeking love in a world which was, is and will remain hostile and judgmental towards all who find happiness in love.  

Illustration of Anna & Vronsky is from the October 1946 edition of Anna Karenina published by The Living Library series. 

[This post is a part of the celebration of love and literature all this month on the beanbag. Why? Read here].

Spongebob loves Marilyn!

February is rather an important month for love and literature.

Love is obvious but why literature? The KLF (Karachi Literature Festival) is scheduled from the 15th-17th of February. And this year, for the very first time, there will be a literature festival in Lahore also or the LLF (Lahore Literature Festival). So February is the month of loving and reading or reading and loving, whichever you prefer. 

To celebrate the two, all this month, I'm going to discuss some soppy, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, tragic and funny love in literature. You can join me too. If you have a blog then please free to put a link of any post you've written about a love story in the comments. Otherwise send me your piece with your details and I'll post it on my blog. 

Love and literature on the beanbag all this month. This should be fun!

Manto - a victim of LOC

The NAPA Repertory Company was in India this week to perform their play, MANTORAMA, at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav Festival, an annual event at the National School of Drama, New Delhi. 

Four hours before the performance, which was sold out (all 500 seats), the NAPA troupe was informed that their play will not go on as scheduled. 

So much has been going on in Pakistan at the moment that the incident at the LOC (line of control)and India's reaction to it has not made waves here. In India though, the case is different. Their media has blown this issue to such gigantic proportions that all bilateral relations between the two countries have come to a halt. We already know about the hockey players and the women's cricket team. But the arts and cultural activities, too, have come under attack. And it was this very reason that the NAPA Repertory was refused permission to stage their play.

It seems that the Indian media and Government conveniently used the LOC incident to sweep their own problems, especially the inefficiency of the Government to handle the grotesque rape case, under the carpet.

This whole episode seems like a chapter from Manto's stories or his life itself. During his lifetime he was persecuted for his stories. And even after his death, he remains the center of conflicts between the two countries. 

Poster: NAPA Repertory Theatre Official Page (Facebook)

Literary treasures of the past

From the pages of the Urdu literary magazine Seep (oyster shell), an illustration by Jamil Naqsh. This is from Issue no. 39,  April & May 1979. 

On the final eve of December last year...

...I jotted down notes to myself on a piece of ordinary lined paper.

The tone of each note varied. Some were admonishing, others forgiving. It was very difficult to write a few because they spelt guilt no matter what the words.

I didn’t stop writing till I had poured out all my unfulfilled dreams, my regrets, my sorrow and my helplessness.

Then I took this piece of ordinary lined paper and tore it, once, twice, thrice and then over and over again till there was nothing left.

End the Silence

I am a Muslim.

But are you Shia or Sunni?

Does it matter?

Whenever I was asked this question in school, I tried to give a neutral answer. But some curious classmates won’t take a neutral answer. And then they asked the most bizarre questions. Do you sacrifice children during the month of Muharram? Or the red sherbet you sell outside Imambargahs, is it the blood of little boys and girls? I would laugh at these questions and tell them that the sherbet was certainly good old Rooh Afza and the only creatures we sacrificed in the name of religion were goats/cows/lambs etc., just like Sunni people on Bari Eid.

It doesn’t seem so any longer. Our sacrifice, in the name of religion, is not just limited to Eid-ul-Azha.

While thousands are protesting on Alamdar Road in Quetta beside their dead, the rest of us are going on with our lives. Imagine, for one horrific second, yourself standing in the cold beside the body of a loved one. It is something you will refuse to imagine. The old men in Quetta, fathers standing against the bodies of their young sons, never imagined it too.

They are Muslims.

They are Shia.

They are also Pakistanis.

And it seems that they are paying a price for all the above.

If we don’t raise our voice for them today, it shall be us tomorrow, regardless of our religion or beliefs.

Raise your voice against this injustice today, now. That is what matters most!