How India Loves

Rituparna returned to India after two decades of reporting from Silicon Valley. She had just published her memoir of healing from childhood abuse. Just as she embarked on her book tour, she began to receive an outpouring of tales of intimate partner violence from the readers of her book and her columns for a national newspaper. They come first as a drizzle, soon as a torrential downpour, ultimately taking over her entire life and work. Untold stories of lust, secret laughs, knife wounds and tears and love, always love. From the mansions of South Bombay to the powerful families of New Delhi. From the genteel and conservative to the loud and liberal. From slums to five-star suites. From eighty-year-olds rediscovering intimacy to thirteen-year-olds embarking on new journeys. From the world’s largest legion of 73 million single women, to those celebrating jubilee marriages. Tsunami after tsunami of stories of Indians. Of our rage. Of our abandonment. Of our losses and of our broken hearts. Of who we are today, beneath our endless charades and rituals. And why. How India Loves is four years of love stories collected from across the country. Stories that reveal our utter deep loneliness even when we are in love.