Eric Chopra Decodes The Many Shades of Romance in Indian Paintings

One of the recurrent themes in medieval Indian paintings, from the Pahari hills to the Deccan courts, is love and the many emotions it carries. These works capture the entire spectrum: yearning, viraha, reunion, quarrels, surrender, and even the loss of self in pursuit of the beloved. At times, love is elevated into the language of devotion. The scenes range from archetypal nayaks and nayikas to stories of Radha and Krishna, Layla and Majnun, and Nur Jahan and Jahangir. Rich in rasa (flavour, sentiment), these paintings invite us to become rasikas, connoisseurs of their lyricism.

Sakhi Persuades Radha to Meet Krishna by Purkhu, 1820-25, Kangra

This painting channels the emotional intensity of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, the 12th-century Sanskrit masterpiece devoted entirely to Radha and Krishna. The poem captures viraha-dukha, the pain of separation in love. In this painting, Radha sits in hesitation as her sakhi gestures, urging her to go. The friend is essential: confidante, keeper of secrets, the one who bears sorrows and inconvenient thoughts alike. On the right, Krishna appears twice. First, he peers anxiously from behind the bushes; then, in another moment, he sits with his flute, restless and waiting. The melodies of the flute carry Radha’s name.

Escapade at Night by Chokha, 1800-10, Mewar

This artwork (above) is charged with the thrill of secrecy. The palace sleeps: guards slumber at their posts, a noblewoman drifts in reverie, and amidst it all, there is a clandestine moment. Outside, a richly adorned horse waits as its master scales a rope towards his beloved, who leans from the jharoka. Animals gather below in pairs—monkeys, rabbits, birds—and seem to be the only witnesses to the union. Above them, storm clouds roil. The lover braves danger and weather to reach his beloved, a theme that recalls the archetype of the Abhisarika Nayika, the heroine who dares the night for love.

Raja with His Beloved, 1790-1800, Kangra

In this Kangra scene, paan once again marks intimacy. The Raja and his beloved sit on a terrace bed, eyes locked, bodies cradled into each other. He reaches delicately into a paan-daani, while she holds a leaf near his lips. Around them, seven attendants perform their duties—fanning, blushing, bearing perfumes, carrying trays—but they appear as silent shadows to the lovers. The painting epitomises the surrender of self in love: to be so absorbed in one another that surroundings dissolve, that one’s identity drips into the other’s like a drop into the ocean.

Nur Jahan Holding a Portrait of Jahangir by Bishan Das, 1627, Mughal

This painting, of Nur Jahan holding a portrait of her late husband Jahangir is both political and personal. For centuries, she was cast in history as a schemer who usurped power, a reading shaped by patriarchal suspicion of female authority. Today, we understand Nur Jahan and Jahangir as cosovereigns, partners in governance and in love. The composition harks back to Mughal allegories: Jahangir once held a portrait of Akbar after a dream visitation. Here, Nur Jahan cradles Jahangir’s image, haloed and gazing out from a jharoka. Her attire, a skirt of diaphanous muslin—that famed textile likened to evening dew (shabnam), sometimes called baft hawa, ‘woven out of air’. Born Mehrunissa, she was first titled Nur Mahal (Light of the Palace), but soon, with her radiance shining the entire universe, she was renamed Nur Jahan (Light of the World).

Two Young Men Seated, One Offering the Other Paan, Early 18th century, Pahari

Among the Pahari paintings, this intimate scene (left) is most tender. Against a plain maroon backdrop, with its starkness heightening privacy, two men sit locked in an unwavering gaze. A paan-daani rests before them, filled with betel leaves. In their hands, more leaves lie in waiting: two poised on laps, one raised as an offering. The man on the left reaches to feed his companion, but his wrist is restrained gently by the other, who seems to want to reverse the gesture. The paan, long a motif of love, here symbolises both union and parting. Mir Taqi Mir once wrote, in Saleem Kidwai’s translation: “When hair appears on your face, my dear, you will learn kindness. Helplessly you will offer your lovers betel leaves as tokens of parting.”