Maps for Lost Lovers

Organised religion has always been for me a form of patriarchal oppression, where womankind are reduced to subservient beings first to their parents and brothers, and then to their husbands and children. A woman is not her own person, but always a subject to be submitted to God and to men, and Maps for Lost Lovers explored this in the form of a story about the honour killing of an illegitimate couple who were unable to legalise their union due to religious laws. 

Maps for Lost Lovers is a complex book that affords multiple readings. I was griped by all kinds of emotions while reading this book that was filled with differences between generations, genders, beliefs, cultures, laws etc. Despite the horror of the crime and the deep sorrow felt for the loss of the two beloved characters, there is much beauty to be found within the book in the form of the geraniums, birds, butterflies, and the changing seasons. And much love, whether that of fierce maternal love, tragic love between lovers from different religious backgrounds, unrequited love, or religious devotion. 

Coincidentally, I have recently started watching the original BBC 1981 Brideshead Revisited, another tale where organised religion is an underlying theme, and could not help making comparisons between Kaukab from Maps for Lost Lovers and Lady Marchmain from Brideshead. 

"The shop was named after her - Chanda Food & Convenience Store - but the sign above the entrance was painted over after she came back trailing the stink of failed marriages. The old name, it was felt, would needlessly remind people of the girl, their next thought probably being, 'Chanda - the twice-divorced girl.' I feel I am being erased, Chanda wrote in her diary angrily."