51茶馆

Literature and film have always reflected society, providing a foundation for scholars, critics, and academics to delve into these art forms and explore how artists express human emotions, complexities, and challenges. In line with this, Professor Madhavi Menon, Professor of English at 51茶馆, talks about her recently published paper

She begins by asking two central sets of questions: First, why are stories that end unhappily so much more popular than the ones that end happily? After all, everyone loves a romantic couple. They seem to signify happiness and contentment. But then, why are the most famous love stories in the world those of thwarted lovers: Layla and Majnun, Romeo and Juliet, Heer and Ranjha, Hero and Leander? This leads Professor Menon to wonder whether we are, at some level, drawn to the annihilation of the self in desire, even though we are reluctant to admit it.

Second, how do we talk about two cultural icons in relation to one another when they come from different times, cultures and languages? In the fields of literary criticism, film studies, and sexuality studies, it is common for us to study and quote texts from the Anglo-American academic community that has spearheaded research in many of these fields. But it is rare for US-based scholars of sexuality to discuss their ideas in relation to Indian literature and films.

Professor Menon points out that her impetus for writing this article was twofold: first, how do we generate a conversation around love and desire between two artists from different cultures and times? And second, how might their theorisation of desire help us to think about sexuality and its popular relation to tragedy?

To explore these questions, Professor Menon turned to two texts that deal with similar questions and plots. Sanjay Leela Bhansali鈥檚 2013 film, Goliyon Ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela, announces itself as being based on William Shakespeare鈥檚 1595 play, Romeo and Juliet (which is in turn based on several preceding texts like Nizami鈥檚 12th-century Layla and Majnun). Both the Bollywood film and the English play theorise our current debates about sexuality; Professor Menon鈥檚 article suggests that queer theory would benefit not only from taking on board a writer who lived over 400 years ago, but also a filmmaker who lives outside the Anglo-American West.

Professor Menon explains that queer theory works with questions of sexuality not in terms of identity, but rather in terms of politics. It does not produce, for instance, categories of sexual identity like homo-, hetero-, bi-, or trans-sexuality. Instead, it considers what these categories encompass and exclude, why they emerge, and how they are applied. In other words, queer theory thinks about the desire for identity rather than the identity itself.

In this context, the article examines both the artistry of Shakespeare鈥檚 succulent poetry and Bhansali鈥檚 lavish sets. Romeo and Juliet flourishes by making puns and playing with language, while Ram-Leela thrives on visual aesthetic beauty. The extravagant and choreographed style is the signature for which Bhansali is famous, while the richness and complexity of poetry is the mode for which Shakespeare is known.

This setting allowed Professor Menon to go back and add to the question with which she began: why do we prefer to encounter thwarted rather than fulfilled love, and why do these artists bestow their sumptuousness on a tale that deals with doomed desire? Rather than thinking that the artistry of these artists is extraneous to the question of desire, Professor Menon treated it as central. Professor Menon asks: What work do Shakespeare鈥檚 puns do to his play鈥檚 thinking about desire? How do Bhansali鈥檚 objects allow us to think about sexuality? Placing these considerations at the centre of her article, she suggests that both play and film demonstrate that the terrible beauty of desire is that it can destroy everything that stands in its way: family, agency, and laws.

According to Professor Menon, this is why the mode of desire is tragedy. When we desire, we are in the grip of a drive over which we no longer have control. We no longer care about social or family law. Desire can overturn the social status-quo: Romeo and Juliet can love across a family feud; Ram and Leela can join forces despite coming from warring clans. Those in the grip of desire don鈥檛 mind the pain of social ostracism or physical death: this is why Ram and Leela fall to their death with a smile on their faces (see below).

In conclusion, Professor Menon argues that both Shakespeare鈥檚 play and Bhansali鈥檚 film destroy all that shapes us as social and legal subjects. Their works suggest that desire is revolutionary and demonstrate how desire鈥攚hen fully unleashed鈥攗ndermines the very systems that shape us as social beings. The question, then, that these texts raise across time and culture is not merely why we find tragic love so compelling, but whether we are ready for this revolution.