Novelist Sudhir Kakar reignites poet Bhartrihari's love

Leading psychoanalyst and novelist Sudhir Kakar narrates the life journey of legendary Sanskrit poet Bhartrihari, as he fluctuates between whims of morality and desires, in a new book.
Set in seventh-century city Ujjayini, the book "The Devil Take Love", is a detailed research work about Bhartrihari, arguably the best Sanskrit poet of love, and is arrayed with his poetry on 'Nitisataka' (verses on wordly and court life), 'Sringarasataka (verses on erotic life) and 'Vairagyasataka (verses on renunciation and spiritual life).
Despite being a work of fiction, Kakkar has made an arduous attempt at presenting the ancient life in cosmopolitan India's Ujjayini city, where Bhartrihari, the court poet in the Kingdom of Avanti is believed to have lived.

"The research has been very detailed. Not only about the person but all the era, the time, their beliefs, what they ate how they lived," says Kakar about his book that delineates on Bhartrihari's poetry, on Sanskrit literature and texts, and on the social, cultural and urban life of that period.
"From scratch to final publication of the book, it took two and a half years time," says Kakar, who has penned five critically acclaimed novels in the last 12 years.
Having written for long on cultural psychology and psychology of religion, both fiction and non-fiction, Kakar's latest is interspersed with detailed narratives of love-making even as it sticks to its main theme - the appeal of senses at war with the call of spirit.

How did Kakar, who has previously themed his books around historic characters of Vatsyanyana in "The Ascetic Of Desire" and Shah Jahan in "The Crimson Throne" among others, land up to pen a fiction around Bharatrihari?
"What made the writing of a novel on Bhartrihari's life especially satisfying was the lack of information on the historical person behind it. Bhartrihari is a historical ghost and thus a novelist's delight since in writing the story of his life, biographical facts do not circumscribe the search for fictional truth," the writer says.