‘Love in the Time of Hate’: Rakhshanda Jalil’s book is a loving tribute to the Urdu language

In the backdrop of divisive politics and the shades of enthralling and deeply insightful cultural histories, Rakshanda Jalil’s Love in the Time of Hate was launched at the India International Centre in Delhi in the presence of authors, musicians, playwrights, editors, and even distinguished lawyers and literati of repute. While the hall was packed, the one person missing in our midst was my friend Khushwant Singh. I say this because Khushwant was the one who wrote reams about his love for

the language of Urdu, and for his bygone Lahore days, and recited Urdu nazms at the drop of a hat. Jalil’s book ripples like a river with couplets of all shades. She uses Urdu as a mirror to present many a lament and the reader must steal time to savour the poetry on every page of prose.

This book begins with the author’s ingeniously orchestrated personal yet pensive history that brings to life the most pivotal decades of the years when the language of Urdu was the salient power of poetry.

From one of the nation’s finest Urdu translators, the first section of this book is dedicated to politics in a quaint soft peddle. It is the people section that cascades into the haunts of history. Jalil touches...

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