By Suvir Saran
New Delhi [India], October 14 (ANI): Shobhaa De’s The Sensual Self isn’t a e-book; it’s a bloom — nocturnal, aromatic, unafraid of its personal scent. Like raat ki rani unfurling at nightfall, it intoxicates slowly, spreading throughout your thoughts till your personal pulse begins to hum to its rhythm. De writes with the shimmer of jasmine oil and the sting of sandalwood smoke — her sentences supple, scented, and scorching, her silences as necessary as her speech. She invitations you to ‘abandon good sense,’ to ‘ditch the rulebook,’ and as an alternative ‘personal your sensuality,’ regardless of your age or ache.
At seventy-seven, she has performed what few writers dare — she has made pleasure a philosophy, not an apology. This is a e-book that glides from the boudoir to the ghats of Banaras, from silk to pores and skin, from physique to being. De’s pen sashays as she does — generally in stilettos, generally barefoot. The pages pulse with a painter’s endurance and a poet’s precision: she speaks of saris that breathe, our bodies that keep in mind, lips that lengthy. She is a girl at peace with the mirror and in love with the thriller of her personal making.
And but The Sensual Self is greater than memoir. It is a map — throughout raags, materials, fragrances, and philosophies. De quotes Kalidasa as if he had been a recent and listens to Maria Callas as if Puccini had been writing for her alone: ‘To hear Callas sing Puccini is to listen to angels making love.’ She strikes from Bhairavi to Lavani, from mujra to Mick Jagger, from the ghats of Varanasi to the gilded boudoirs of Mumbai, threading East and West in seamless silk.
And then, like a sudden waft of chaampa, she brings within the Japanese — sakura and stoicism. Watching La Grande Maison Tokyo, she pauses over a wizened Japanese chef who tells his protege, ‘People get outdated… palates change.’ De sees herself mirrored in his stoic grace, his quiet acceptance of impermanence: ‘Palates change! For meals. For intercourse. The palate by no means forgets!’ She is a gourmand of life itself, tasting all of it — the bitter, the burnt, the attractive — with the identical urge for food.
In one other luminous passage, she writes of sakuras — ‘Fragility! Impermanence! Beauty! We are all sakuras. Sakuras who love. Sakuras who die.’ It’s a second of beautiful simplicity that echoes the mono no conscious of Japanese poetics — the pathos of issues, the ache of realizing magnificence is not going to final, and the grace of embracing it anyway.
She slips into French as effortlessly as she drapes her brocade saris, her linguistic lilt shimmering via the textual content like fragrance. Her works, translated into French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, carry her voice to continents that will by no means have recognized the scent of mogra or the warmth of masala chai. And but her themes — longing, loss, laughter — are common. She reminds the French of Colette’s boldness, the Japanese of Tanizaki’s tenderness, and Indians of their very own buried sensual knowledge.
In a world that prizes prudence over ardour, De dares to be decadent. Her writing isn’t revolt towards morality however towards mediocrity. ‘Lovers are voyeurs,’ she writes. ‘They feast on you with their eyes… Undressing is a superb artwork. Dressing up is straightforward.’ In these strains she distills a long time of remark right into a fact as sharp as a diamond: sensuality lies in consideration, not extra; in how one lifts a sari pallu, not how rapidly one drops it.
Her chapter on Courting turns foreplay into philosophy: ‘Try syncing lovemaking to the raag… every act should respect the hour of the day — Bhairavi at daybreak, Yaman Kalyan at nightfall.’ Desire turns into self-discipline; pleasure turns into prayer. Her chapter Saris and Souls transforms material into reminiscence — a mom’s pleats, a daughter’s pallu, every fold carrying the perfume of time. ‘The sari blouses — fashion and color — did not change… at all times white poplin, hand-washed at residence.’ Through these tiny particulars De turns nostalgia into narrative, and on a regular basis gestures into erotica.
She quotes, she provokes, she preaches with out preaching. The wit sparkles — ‘Stop settling for boring dal-chawal intercourse when life can supply spicy, finger-licking rooster chilli fry.’ The knowledge cuts deeper — ‘Love that does not ache is simply well mannered affection.’ De’s is the language of liberation disguised as laughter.
The Sensual Self reads like a dialog between Colette, Kama, and Coco Chanel — a textual content that glows with world grace. It evokes the evening backyard of Indian femininity — raat ki rani blooming below a full moon, mogra scenting the air of a long-forgotten courtyard, tuberose wreaths on a lover’s wrist, the faint stain of rose oil on a letter unopened.
And woven via all of it, quietly luminous, is Mr De — her accomplice, her mirror, her muse. He is the star who steadies the story, the moon towards which her gentle gleams brighter. He seems not as a prop however as a presence — affected person, passionate, profoundly alive. He is the calm after her chaos, the humour that balances her warmth, the person who, in her phrases, ‘is aware of the distinction between touching and holding.’ Their marriage — elegant, egalitarian, electrical — is the e-book’s unstated epicentre, its pulse and proof that companionship might be as sensual as old flame. Through him, De reveals that true intimacy isn’t conquest however continuity; not possession however ongoing surprise.
It is that this texture — this tactile, timeless sensuousness — that makes the e-book cinematic. One can nearly see her at Mira’s seaside mansion, ‘bathed in golden gentle,’ the aubergine brocade draped over her shoulders, her reflection shimmering in an extended mirror. She seems to be at her youthful self — the woman on a Ganga boat, bouffant excessive, eyes defiant — and smiles: What’s time, anyway?
Time, for De, isn’t linear. It loops just like the weave of a Banarasi sari, threads of reminiscence and which means intertwining. She embodies that uncommon grace — the flexibility to snort at loss and nonetheless discover magnificence in its ashes. In her world, even heartbreak gleams. Even rejection is rhythm. Even age is perfume.
As Diwali attracts close to, her e-book appears like the right diya — small but blinding, delicate but enduring. It reminds us that to gentle a lamp can also be to disclose a shadow; that to really feel deeply is to dwell absolutely. De’s manifesto for sensual residing transcends geography, gender, and technology. It is for anybody who has ever needed to really feel seen, touched, desired, or just alive.
This Diwali, The Sensual Self isn’t just a e-book — it’s an awakening. A jasmine-scented revolt. A celebration of the braveness to like with out disgrace, to age with out apology, to burn with out worry. It is a hymn to the physique, a haiku to the soul, and a handbook for the guts.
In a world without end chasing gentle, Shobhaa and Mr De collectively educate us one thing gentler and better — the way to grow to be it. (ANI/Suvir Saran )
Disclaimer: Suvir Saran is a Masterchef, Author, Hospitality Consultant And Educator. The views expressed on this article are his personal.