Searching for the heroine

To give Harsha V Dehejia his due, if there is mention of romanticism and miniature (or other forms of traditional) art, he is sure to be around.

Fast on the heels of The Flute and the Lotus, he returns to the bookshelves with this book that concentrates on the portrayal of the romantic heroine in Indian art.

The almost-encyclopaedic nature of the book has been contributed by the many authors who write different chapters, and the paintings are mostly from Dehejia's own collection, though some are from other private collections, or have been specially collated for the purpose of the book.

Unlike his previous attempt, published by Mapin, Dehejia returns this time round with Roli in the nature of editor rather than writer. And it is difficult to ascertain whether this is the strength or the weakness of the volume in question.

To begin with, having persuaded as many as 39 scholars to contribute to the book, Dehejia omits any mention of why they were selected for the task. Even a guidebook writes up its contributors, so the austere mention of only name and location is particularly churlish.

Therefore, we learn that Molly Emma Aitken is from Montclair, New Jersey, that B N Goswamy is from Chandigarh, Meilu Hu from UCLA, Los Angeles, California, and Patricia Uberoi from Delhi. What makes them experts in their field, what work they may have done, and what their speciality is remains a mystery.

So, to the chapters themselves. Given the size and scope of the publication, for the reader "" academic or lay-person "" this should have been the eponymous volume that distils all the learning of the nayika or heroine into this one book.

In a sense it probably does too, yet from its very first pages this must be one of the most difficult books to read. Leave alone suggest why chapters have been placed in any particular order, Dehejia errs in doing away with an introduction that would place the book, its writers, the different chapters and any contradictions in context.

In its absence, the book opens directly and rushes through an immense number of pages with little or no standardisation. The endnotes suggest that this is an academic journal; if so, the (usually) short chapters are disturbed all too often by the endnotes, while other chapters have no annotations, and still others instead of focusing on the heroine of the painting dwell on the literature instead, such as Aditya Behl (from the University of Pennsylvania) who devotes nine pages to an original translation from a forthcoming work on Sufi poet Qutban.

Possibly, there are links, but these are not easily decipherable, making Dehejia's effort appear shoddy and slipshod, especially for one who practices medicine as well as teaches religion at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

The uneasy shifts from popular writing (Pran Neville on courtesans, Patricia Uberoi on calendar art and Mirabai) to lucid, erudite accounts such as Rosemary Crills's romantic heroine from Rajasthani paintings, to somewhat detailed accounts of nayikas with mirrors, or nayikas with birds, makes a patchwork quilt that, had it followed a sense of manifest order, would have created a brilliant mosaic but only ends up like a child's kaleidoscope.

Confusingly, some chapters are devoted to the telling of a tale, but the overt significance is lost. In "The Nagas and the Kanya" for example, Gurcharan S Siddhu tells us a charming folk tale as illustrated by Madhubani painters, and there is even a heroine in it. He proceeds to recite the tale, and then tells us about the work of the artist, but how does this knit into the overall framework of the book? This absence of context seriously mars the work, whether for scholars or for readers with an interest in art who will find the segments disjointed and erratic.

Did Dehejia have a brief for his writers, or did he simply ask for contributions based on their expertise but without any idea of the final product? Certainly, it seems that way. Which is a pity given the excellent production quality of the book that appears to be its only redeeming feature.

A Celebration of Love:
The Romantic Heroine in the Indian Arts

Edited by Harsha V Dehejia
Lustre Press/Roli Books
Price: Rs 1,495, Pages: 304