Nala

And in early medieval, uh, period and later medieval period you see love dominating a lot of literature, which began with Sanskrit poetry which had a lot of sexuality, sensuality, and erotic delight.

It became more about storytelling, and you had some of the greatest love stories written at this time, uh, whether they were k- lifted from the, uh, great, uh, epic Mahabharata, whether it was Nala Damayanti, Baz Bahadur, Rani Roopmati, The Love Legends of Punjab, Sohni Mahiwal, Sassi Punnu.

Whether it was, uh, uh, Maulana Daud who began the whole thing of, uh, uh, Premakhyan, uh, where he wrote the Chandayan.

Whether it was Malik Muhammad Jayasi in the 17th century.

We talked about Ram and Sita separated for, like, long durations.

Nala and Damayanti lose everything and each other in the process.

Savitri follows Yama, the god of death, to bring her husband back, and Shakuntala is forgotten by the man she loves.

So all of these stories are strongly, like, punctuated by, um, separation and all the feelings and yearnings and longings it kind of, it brings around.

Even in the rejection, they held their own.

And in this, I will take two examples.

One of Nala and Damayanti.

When Damayanti keeps going back and finding her true love.