Women In Love

Shoma Chaudhury March 08, 1999 00:00 IST Women In Love -0001-11-30T00:00:00+05:53

WOMEN, so the lore goes, understand women better. And yes, love them better. More tenderly, more faithfully, more mutually. Altogether more all encompassingly. Easy to ride the crusade then, easy to hoof into the battlefield raising war cries for the rights of women who love women. But what if this were not wholly true? What if women who love women are also fickle, rapacious, conniving and cruel? Would one turn one's chargers then, retreat from the field and deny them their right to love, lust and desire?

The idea of the 'noble victim' is subtly woven into most crusades, but Facing the Mirror, Lesbian Writing in India, edited by Ashwini Sukthankar bravely eschews that and shatters all possible stereotypes. An anthology of short true-life sketches, poetry and fiction, the book throws up a ferris wheel of voices-women who thrill to the touch of first lovers; who slit their wrists in despair; slice their breasts off in anger. Yet, women who cry out for recognition that the love they feel is natural; that the desire that courses through them is not...