Bend It Like Wendy

In A Freewheeling Chat, American Indologist Wendy Doniger Talks About Travelling Third Class In India And Speaking Sanskrit In Moscow

- Bhavya Dore

Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago, first became fascinated by India as a child and went on to study the Hindu scriptures and mythology. Doniger, 77, has written and translated more than 40 books including those on the Kama Sutra, dharma, folklore and other aspects of religion and myth. Her most recent book is The Ring of Truth: And Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry. Her 2009 book, The Hindus: An Alternative History was at the heart of a controversy in India and was taken to court. Edited and condensed excerpts from a phone interview:

WHAT FIRST FASCINATED YOU ABOUT INDIA AS A CHILD?

Among the first books I read about India when I was about 12 years old was E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. And I was fascinated by the way that Hindus and Muslims seemed to be deeply religious people and the landscape itself was permeated with these religious feelings—the wonderful caves and the mosques on the banks of the river. After that I became more interested in the stories and images. Eventually I wanted to go to India to see all the places I had been reading about.

When I went initially I went to study the scriptures with a pundit. I wanted to work on the Puranas—that was what my dissertation was about—and the great expert was in Calcutta. I had just finished my undergraduate degree and I was beginning my Phd. My professor sent me to India. He felt, as I did, that I shouldn’t go on reading about India any longer without seeing it.