Ruh

For whoever has felt alone,

I began writing Ruh after watching women from an older generation around me. Their lives often seemed to be shaped around what a husband or partner needed. I wondered how much room was left for their own wishes, anger, pleasure and sense of self. It made me think about how easily a man can mistake the woman he needs for the woman she actually is.

My own lonely days became part of the writing too. I knew the wish to have someone beside me. I wanted to look at that need honestly, including what it can ask of another person.

The connection to Laila and Majnu came later. In the Sufi tradition around their story, I found the idea of a love so consuming that the boundary between lover and beloved begins to blur. It helped me find the film's form, but the writing had begun with those women and my own questions about loneliness.

As I wrote, those thoughts began to connect: the women I had seen living around a partner’s needs, my own desire for companionship, and the longing in Laila–Majnu. Science fiction gave me a way to ask how far we might go to have the love we want, and what room that leaves for the person we claim to love.

Prashant Singh Rathore