- This book presents a different vision of the monsoon and the feelings associated with the rainy season: monsoon feelings have a history, which encompasses both continuity and change
- The essays in the book explore the rain-drenched worlds of poetry, songs, paintings, architecture, films, gardens, festivals, music, and medicine, in South Asia from the twelfth century to the present
- Each of the essays in the book is written by a specialist in the field of South Asian arts and culture
The monsoon is the season of pouring rain and intense emotions: love and longing, hope and fear, pleasure and pain, devotion and joyous excess. Through a series of evocative essays exploring rain-drenched worlds of poetry, songs, paintings, architecture, films, gardens, festivals, music, and medicine, this lavishly illustrated collection examines the history of monsoon feelings in South Asia from the twelfth century to the present. Each essay is written by a specialist in the field of South Asian arts and culture, and investigates emotions as reflections and agents of social, cultural, and political change across borders of language and religion and between different arts and cultural practices. This history of emotions in the rain is as rich, surprising, beautiful and devastating as the thundering monsoon clouds, and will delight general and scholarly audiences alike.
Contents: Note on Transliteration; Monsoon Feelings: Introduction - Imke Rajamani; The Spring of Hindustan: Love and War in the Monsoon in Indo-Persian Poetry - Sunil Sharma; A Theology of Feeling: The Radhavallabhi Monsoon in the Eighteenth Century - Richard David Williams; Clouds, Cuckoos and an Empty Bed: Emotions in Hindi-Urdu Barahmasas - Francesca Orsini; Dark, Overwhelming, yet Joyful: The Monsoon in Rajput Painting - Molly Emma Aitken; It is a Day for Enjoyment and Revelry: The Monsoon Garden - Catherine B. Asher; Delight, Devotion and the Music of the Monsoon at the Court of Emperor Shah Alam II - David Lunn and Katherine Butler Schofield; The Cuckoo's Song: Imagery and Movement in Monsoon Ragas - Laura Leante; Rimjhim ke Taraane Leke Aayi Barsaat: Songs of Love and Longing in the Bombay Rain - Rachel Dwyer; Hindi Cinema's Rainmaking Formula: Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen and Lagaan - Imke Rajamani; The Most Dangerous Season of All: Monsoon in Unani Medical Writings - Claudia Preckell Celebrating Monsoon Feelings: The Flower-Sellers Festival of Delhi - Margrit Pernau; Coda. A Meeting of Earth and Sky: The Monsoon in the Repertoire of Thumri - Vidya Rao; Authors' Biographies; Glossary; List of Figures; Bibliography; Filmography; Acknowledgements; Index.
Imke Rajamani is a researcher at the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. In her research and publications, she addresses topics related to Indian media cultures in the 20th and 21st centuries, the history of emotions, conceptual history and gender studies. Margrit Pernau is Senior Researcher at the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Among her numerous publications is the book Ashraf into Middle Classes: Muslims in Nineteenth Century Delhi (2013). Katherine Butler Schofield is Senior Lecturer in the Music Department at King's College London. As a historian of music and listening in Mughal India she is working with Persian and Urdu sources for Hindustani music c. 1570-1860. She is the author of various publications on the intersecting histories of emotions, the senses, aesthetics and ethics.
