India, Feb. 15 -- The day of love has just passed, and I am reminded of a novel about love - different, complicated love - that I read a few years ago.

It was by the inimitable Hindi writer Kamleshwar (1932-2007). Ek Sadak Sattavan Galiyan (One Road, Fifty-Seven Lanes) was his first novel, written in 1956.

It initially appeared in the storied literary magazine Hans. By the time it was released as a book the following year, Kamleshwar had moved from Allahabad to Delhi. These were what he would later call his "gardish ke din" (days of adversity).

In his memoir, Jo Maine Jiya (1992), he recounts how he subsisted on a plate of idli-sambhar a day, and was forced to pawn the only two valuables he possessed: his watch and his typewriter.

His...