Misc. Erotica The Nine Nights

[shailu4ever]

First of all congratulations. Five years ago, I took a break from this site. In the meantime, I even forgot its name. Quite by chance, I recently came across the link again.
While browsing "View Today’s Posts thread, I read “The Nine Nights.”

For the first time, I felt the fragrance of the classical. Your command over language and the beauty of expression are truly remarkable. It felt as though I were reading English literature at a university level. More than the story itself, it was the words and the sentences that captivated me. I find myself reading them aloud, lingering over them, and carefully noting them down.

If you were to render Sanskrit erotic classics—such as Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta—in this refined classical English, you would be performing a rare and noble service to literature.

Hi Kavyaraja
 
Thank you, truly, for this extraordinarily generous and thoughtful feedback. I am deeply moved that The Nine Nights was part of your return to the site after so many years, and even more so that it accompanied such a meaningful rediscovery.
 
Your words about the language and cadence of the piece mean more to me than I can easily express. To hear that the sentences invited you to be read aloud, lingered over, and were even noted down is a gift any writer hopes for but rarely receives. Knowing that the music of the language resonated as strongly as the story itself affirms why I write in the first place.
 
Your comparison to classical literature, and your mention of Kālidāsa and Meghadūta, is an honor I receive with humility. Those works represent a tradition where beauty, restraint, sensuality, and devotion coexist with elegance and depth. If my writing even faintly echoes that lineage in English, it is more than I could reasonably aspire to.
 
Thank you for reading so attentively, and for responding with such care and generosity. Encounters like this remind me that literature, quietly and across time, still finds its way to the right reader.
 
Once again I truly appreciate your continued support.

With gratitude and warm regards
 
-- Shailu