I had a chance encounter with Anusha Rao and Suhas Mahesh who were seated next to each other on the stage at a literary function in Delhi. They were there to read from their book How To Love In Sanskrit. My impression was, perhaps, the book gives new insights on love making, or the making of Kamasutra. Soon, it was clear that it’s an English book of translated love poems originally written in Sanskrit and Prakrit many centuries ago.
They draw from the ancient treasure some pearls to share with the people of this age. A perpetual smile glowed on their faces as they read some of the poems. A halo of joyous calmness emphasized their being. They’d be ideal to play Ram-Sita in a Ramlila, I thought.
The ancient wisdom sounded contemporary, in some instances, even ahead of time. Technology, despite having seeped into every aspect of our life, seems to have made a little dent on what love does to us and what we do in love. The book intrigued me, which I thought was very smart, but more so, the two young authors.
So, I walked up to them after the event was over, and asked them if they’re dating. ‘We’re married. We have a son,’ Anusha said, pointing to a toddler in the audience. ‘I don’t need proof,’ I retorted. We laughed.
My first impression, that’s a lasting one, is that they are a brainy couple with good energy; cool passion, festive tranquility, that’s charming and engaging. We set up a meeting to talk about them more than their book.
In the next five minutes, I laid my hand on a copy of the book; strongly recommended.
‘Describe yourself’ was my first question. Suhas decides to go first, ‘I’m a scientist’ and dealing with ‘absolutely cutting edge.’ ‘Does it include quantum physics?’ I ask. He nods.
A Rhodes scholar, Suhas did his PhD from Oxford, is a materials physicist building self-driving labs using AI to accelerate materials discovery in semiconductors and catalysis, driving towards sustainable energy. He is married to science (apart from Anusha) and is having an ‘affair with literature’ that doesn’t prevent him from having ‘flings with philosophy.’ I’m kind of jealous.
Science is about ‘shut up and make calculations,’ which is very different from history, old literature and languages. He digs deep in the past to unleash a surprise. Past has not let them down, mostly.
Now at 30, he seems to have had his share of surprises, and more are hard to come by. Yet, ‘always trying new things.’ I wanted to ask him whether he had tried a few specific things I had in mind, but restrained. Will just add, a beautiful experience can be far more disruptive than a tragedy.
Anusha and Suhas married in 2021, live in Toronto. They authored How To Love In Sanskrit, an English book of translated love poems originally written in Sanskrit and Prakrit many centuries ago. The ancient wisdom seem contemporary, in some instances, even ahead of time.
Anusha is interested in ancient text and poetry, particularly Vedānta and Sanskrit Philosophy, studies Sanskrit literary theory, Mahābharāta, Hagiography (biography of saints or venerated persons). She is pursuing her PhD in intellectual history of Vedānta traditions from Toronto University.
Anusha likes to observe faces, people, how they talk, walk, behave, think, and make choices. ‘Have you observed your own self?’ ‘Yes. I’m an overthinker, analytical with emotions thrown in, not so rational; but sensible.’ Rationality, I tell her, is an overrated quality, if not a malady.
“The rational functions are, by their very nature, incapable of creating symbols, since they produce only rationalities whose meaning is determined unilaterally and does not at the same time embrace its opposite,’ wrote C.G. Jung.
Anusha doesn’t like a literary genius being categorized as a poet, writer, philosopher, artist, thinker and then analyzed on the altar of a limiting perspective. For instance, to her, ‘Appayya Dikshita (1520–1593 CE, one of the most outstanding scholars) was all of these,’ she explains.
I second her. My artistic tryst of documenting people without the qualification of clothing tells me that we are nothing in particular but everything in some measure. Individuality is about a different mix, which is also not fixed. We become what we think.
Why did you decide to write only about love? ‘We will come up with similar books dealing with other aspects of life,’ they tell me. Having said that, love was an obvious choice to start with as is the mainstay of Sanskrit and Prakrit literature, 60 percent of all works pertain to love, shringaar, which is not just adornments, as the words connotes in contemporary usage, but refers to the ‘acid sentiment,’ she explains.
To me, a layman, a good language has to have the ability to describe the abstract. Oldest texts deal with the abstract, they affirm. By way of describing the abstract, the Sanskrit poets aspired to a greater understanding of the amorphous that seems to affect the real tangibly.
They are enamoured by the genius of the ancient world, literature and language. Suhas recites a shloka with just two syllables briskly. To me it felt like a chant, the two syllables repeated without a pattern, yet seemed harmonious, almost musical.
‘Sanskrit poetry is subtle, clever, even sneaky, and can present slippery ground for even those who spend a lifetime wrangling with it,’ they write in their book. I feel the same is true for love.
Anusha and Suhas first met some ten years ago when they joined a study group to learn Sanskrit in Bangalore. A long-distance romance ensued after when Anusha moved to Hyderabad to pursue higher studies and then to Calgary in Canada to do her masters. Suhas went to Oxford.
Their engagement with Sanskrit and Prakrit cemented their love. Poems were their mode of communication, gave wings to their saccharine love story across the Atlantic. Their messages were short, expressive, experiential.
They married in 2021, and moved together to Toronto, where Anusha is pursuing PhD. They speak in English, Kannada, Sanskrit and Prakrit. Their child has a Sanskrit name —which means a torch, not what it is but what it does—illuminates the path.
They plan to live in New York, for they are urbane, and like to live where the action is, a melting pot of culture where the best minds indulge in art, theatre, or literature, and they get to participate in varied creative activities.
They’re a cosmopolitan couple rooted in tradition, ancient wisdom, secure about who they are as individuals, make them a lovely couple, and have a fair idea as to what they want from life, therefore, open to experiment, experientially.
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