The Religion of Love

In her debut novel, Karuna Ezara Parikh asks some pertinent questions about faith and the politics of identity

- Piya Srinivasan

THE HEART ASKS PLEASURE FIRST by Karuna Ezara Parikh PICADOR INDIA 324 pages

It seems fitting to listen to Michael Nyman’s eponymous and haunting piano score as one reads Karuna Ezara Parikh’s debut novel The Heart Asks Pleasure First. The theme of star-crossed lovers is one that is beloved of the Indian subcontinent but gains new life in Cardiff, Wales, in 2001 where this story unfolds. For the popular social media influencer, model and former TV presenter, this book was a labour of love that took 13 years in the telling. “When I began writing this at 21, my experience of love had been so limited, and I had no understanding of geopolitics. Over the past 13 years, the biggest change though is a global shift towards authoritarianism, which made telling the story more imperative and urgent,” says Parikh.

The doomed love between two Indian and Pakistani students, Daya and Aaftab, becomes the canvas on which Parikh paints the questions that absorb the novel: the indictment of borders, the tyranny of religion and the power of language, concepts that are universal but also uniquely South Asian. Their love blossoms in the wake of the 9/ 11 attacks, making religious identity the central narrative arc. The novel is marked by the wave of Islamophobia that follows and its effects on the immigrant Muslim community in Britain. Parikh sketches the micro-tensions within the community and traces the changing dynamics between faith and extremism that insidiously affect Aaftab’s life. As he navigates his love for the graceful Daya amid the opprobrium of his family and community, his brooding personality finds a foil in Wasim, his roommate, who is more provincial and religious but a true “yaar”.