From the opening sentences of Sudhir Kakar’s kama-soaked historical novel, The Devil Take Love, it is clear that desire will take a wrong turn and come to a bad end. Kakar has imaginatively recreated the life of Bhartrhari, the greatest Sanskrit poet of love, renowned for vacillating between an exuberant life of pleasure and one of world-weary austerity. Since little is known about him, Kakar makes him, quite plausibly, the court poet of the kingdom of Avanti, setting his story in its romantic capital city of Ujjaini during the time of emperor Harsha.