Quote by Vikram Seth: “Love's an uncommonly short‑lived plant, its roots in the air.”

This vivid metaphor portrays love as something inherently fragile and unsustainable, suggesting it often lacks deep, anchoring foundations. It offers a somewhat cynical or realistic view of romance's fleeting nature.

Published in the early 1990s, Seth's Beastly Tales revisited classic fables with modern twists, often using animal characters to comment on human foibles, including the complexities and transience of love.

Indian novelist and poet, born in Calcutta in 1952 and educated at Oxford and Stanford. His novel A Suitable Boy, published in 1993, is one of the longest novels written in the English language and an intricate portrait of family, love, and India in the years after independence.