Vatsyayana, the author of the Kamasutra, teaches us that human desire is a matter of culture, far more than of nature. Unlike females of other species, women do not have a specific mating season, and so the union between the sexes has to be regulated by society. One has to go beyond nature to cultivate erotic desire and sexuality, which is not only about the sexual act but about the attitudes, values and beliefs surrounding it. It is a ‘social construct’, as Foucault would say. Sexuality was rescued from nature in the urbane life of the princely courts of India during the first six centuries of the Common Era. The Kamasutra was a product, most likely, of the suave imperial age of the Guptas and its aesthetic and sensual culture. The elite in the Gupta courts were drawn to the sixty-four arts, which included love poetry, singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, arranging flowers and cooking gourmet dishes that are catalogued in full in the text.
The Kamasutra presumes that sex should be a useful, refreshing and physically reviving pastime, a bit like a game of badminton or tennis—something that everyone should play as often as possible in order to relieve the stresses of life. It needs to be freed from a gratuitous sense of confusion and guilt, steeped in longing and awkwardness. Raj wondered if it might be possible to appropriate the Kamasutra for the liberation of the contemporary Indian middle class. ‘We are just as repressed as the Victorians, don’t you think?’ He suggested that we should lure today’s middle classes with the liberal past of ancient India and ‘give them the same medicine that Burton administered to the Victorians’. He went on from there to produce a narrative for the emancipation of prudish India.
If Ramu Mama was my model of the nagaraka, Kamini Masi was my inspiration for the romantic ganika, the second most important character in the Kamasutra, a most sophisticated and accomplished courtesan. The ganika had a privileged education in the sixty-four arts. From painting to playing musical instruments, from arranging flowers to picking fruits, from watching sunsets to reading poetry, there is no aspect of the sensual life that is not covered in the ancient text.
The Kamasutra appealed to me as a metaphor. It made me feel modern, even sexy, in a society where the reality around me was that of Sharma-ji’s patriarchy. Because the ancient text presents women as ‘subjects’ with real emotions and desires, rather than as objects in the dreams of men or simply recipients of male lust, I could identify its dramatis personae with Ramu Mama and Kamini Masi. The text defied the essential principle of Manu’s patriarchy that women are the sexual property of men, whether fathers, husbands or brothers. To believe otherwise was indeed a subversive thought in a newly independent country that was fully absorbed in the idealistic project of nation building. Yet, it was precisely the freedom of the mind that Independence had brought that made it possible to harbour such feminist hopes in the 1960s, much before feminism formally arrived on our shores. The patriarchal world view finally began to be unbound around the same time as the economic reforms in the 1990s when the minds of the young became decolonized.
~
Two days later, Isha dropped in unannounced at my office.
‘Nice office,’ she said. ‘But it’s a bit cramped, isn’t it?’
I was in shock.
‘I had to see you.’
I stared at her in surprise.
‘I was with some of your Rajput friends last night. They think the world of you. Sanghram Singh sends his salaams.’
‘He is certainly one of the most distinguished men in our city.’
‘He wanted to sleep with me.’
There was a pause.
‘And?’
‘I refused. He smelled terrible.’ She laughed. ‘I told him that I was in love with you. Poor fellow. It hurt him. But he was nice about it. He has invited us both to dinner tonight.’
I did not know quite what to make of Isha’s words. Was she toying with Sanghram Singh or with me? I didn’t believe a word she had said. She seemed to be creating a world of ‘play’, much like god’s leela, where everything is as real as you want it to be.
‘His flat has quite a view of the bay,’ I said.
‘Do you want to go?’
‘If you want to.’
‘Pick me up from my house.’ She jotted down her address. ‘Shall I see you at eight-thirty?’
‘Too early. Believe me, no one will arrive there before ten.’
‘Good, we’ll have his flat to ourselves then.’
She turned to leave. ‘Wait, I’ll see you down.’ We took the lift to the ground floor, where I hailed a cab, and she was gone.
We arrived at Sanghram Singh’s at nine, and as expected found ourselves alone. Even our host was absent. But we were graciously shown in by a liveried bearer who offered us drinks.
Unmindful of the bearer, Isha took my hand in hers, and asked me to show her the view. I led her to the grand balcony across from the drawing room and opened the door slightly. A thrilling flush of wind from the sea grazed our bodies and sent her black hair flying. Our drinks arrived. I asked about her husband but she did not want to speak about him.
‘Kiss me,’ she said.
‘Here?’
She nodded. I looked around.
‘Before the servants . . . and all?’
I quickly leaned over and kissed her, but on the cheek, and then I looked around furtively. She giggled.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘That wasn’t a kiss,’ she said.
Both of us remained quiet, absorbed in our thoughts as we watched the waves below. We sipped our drinks in silence.
‘You know, I don’t remember you as particularly good-looking,’ she said, staring at me. ‘You had a broad nose, thick lips and common brown eyes. But look at you now! That same broad nose reveals sincerity; the thick lips are sensuous; and the brown eyes show a special kind of strength.’ She turned away. Glancing around her, she frowned and added, ’In all this decadence, there’s only one thing that is wonderfully clean and fresh, and that is you.’ After a pause, she said, ‘You must be immaculate to the hollows of your toes!’
She took my hand, and after a pause, said, ‘I can’t stand all this. Let’s go.’
I looked bewildered, thinking it rude to leave like this.
‘I’m bored. Let’s go to your place.’
The bun on Isha’s head came undone as we walked out and hopped into a taxi. She leaned back and her hair flew. Her sari kept brushing against my chest. When my arm touched her body, she turned to kiss me. As our lips met momentarily, she turned away again and pressed her face against the window. As soon as we arrived, I looked around the street stealthily and led the way up the airless stairway to my flat; she followed unasked and unrestrained. As soon as I closed the door, she came towards me. I looked around uneasily. She turned her face and moved slightly away. I had the feeling that she knew all there was to know about men. But I detected something sad on her face and I placed my hand reassuringly on her forlorn shoulder. There was a haunting unhappiness in her which spoke to my heart.
‘What is it?’ I was confused.
Softly, reticently, I kissed her. She covered her face with her hands. I took her hand and drew her to me. Although I had visions of being a nagaraka, I had little real experience with women. Nevertheless, my hands moved instinctively up her body and I stroked her breasts confidently. I felt her back, her hips and her rounded bottom hidden by her sari. Gently caressing her, I felt her warmth and was aroused.
She wanted to lie down and I moved towards the bed but she insistently pulled me to the floor. We lay on a soft mat. I looked at her face surrounded by rich, luxurious hair, almost covering her brooding eyes. My hand felt her body again. I stroked her face soothingly and gently touched her lips. She kissed me, more ardently. I reached out under her sari and touched her leg. Then my fingers slid more boldly to her thigh. I could feel her shiver beneath my hand. She leaned forward with a sigh. My hand climbed up to her breast. I felt the front of her body insistent against mine. I reached for her high, arched behind. Sh
e gripped me in a tight embrace, her leg gently but insistently pressed against my hardness.
Her blouse was in the way and my fingers fumbled clumsily with the hooks. She took charge and began to remove her clothes. I saw her naked body for the first time and I was filled with wonder. As I touched it softly, she burrowed closer to me. I moved my lips and tongue along the hollow of her shoulder and neck. I kissed her breasts softly, taking the nipples in my lips in tiny caresses. I began to swallow her nipples with my tongue, until she grew impatient and she thrust them into my mouth. She put her arms around me and I felt her naked flesh against mine. We sank in sharp pleasure as she guided me inside her. For a moment I was quiet. Then I began to move inside her. She lay still, feeling my motion within her. My movement became more anxious and resolute. Presently it was over. I hugged her for a long time. At long last I drew away.
We lay in a shadowy silence. A breeze began to blow from the sea, gently caressing our naked bodies. I couldn’t make out what she was thinking. She lay there with my arm around her, her body barely touching mine. Eventually I roused myself and drew away from her. I covered her with a sheet. I picked up her petticoat, blouse and sari and placed them on the bed. I went out on the terrace. The sky was full of stars. The sea was in shadow, almost in darkness. I could hear the dark waves rising softly and heaving. The breeze continued to stir the coconut trees. I looked up at the stars and the great vastness beyond. I turned again to the sea and asked myself what sort of karma had brought Isha and me together again—this time she with a husband—in this anonymous city.
I went to sleep beside her and was wakened at dawn by the sound of a noisy seagull that had settled on the ledge of the terrace. A van from the Aarey Milk Colony went by. Isha opened her eyes languorously. I traced her mouth, her eyebrows gently with my fingers. I couldn’t believe that we had slept the whole night together. She kissed me shyly. We breathed quickly between our kisses and soon were drunk in Colaba’s sea air and knew what we wanted of each other and replicated the same urgent dance of the night.
We dressed slowly and in silence and made our way down the melancholy staircase. ‘Interesting place you have here!’ she said as she followed me down. We had not shaken off the spell of the night and could not bear to be separated. On the street we did not touch each other and parted speechlessly as Isha got into a taxi on Cuffe Parade. She looked back and gave me a long, lingering look.
Walking along Cuffe Parade, I felt the sensual city ringing in my ears as I wandered aimlessly about Colaba’s streets, amazed at how much that was familiar had changed. I felt free, no longer Isha’s prisoner as I had once been. Bombay had taken hold of my imagination. Heaven lay close above and I, a nagaraka, stood between it and my nagara.
~
After I began my adulterous affair with Isha, I felt an ‘unbearable lightness’. I felt light ‘not like a feather but like a bird’ and it pointed me in the direction of the Kamasutra’s erotic rasa. Bright and playful like the frolicking, fun-loving gods of the Hindu pantheon, my mood was devoid of the heaviness that I associated with romantic love. The Kamasutra assured me that adultery was ubiquitous, even commonplace in the world, almost making me forget that there was a third person, Isha’s husband, lurking in the shadows. It suggested that if a woman is ready and willing, the would-be nagaraka would be foolish not to capitalize on his good luck! But the Kamasutra’s most important lesson is that the lightness of eroticism has to be cultivated, like the sixty-four arts, and not left in the careless hands of nature.
When I was with Isha I found that I stopped taking myself or my life too seriously. We did simple things, laughed a lot, and I lived in the hedonistic spirit of a nagaraka. I lost my sense of self-importance, and on some days, I felt as though I was a speck of dust in the universe. If I died tomorrow, the world would continue as though I had never been there. Oh, a handful of people would miss me but even they would forget soon enough. Kama taught me that there is another way to live: if you believe that in the end nothing matters too much, you live in the moment and forget the future and the past. This was a priceless gift from my affair with Isha
But my fears also returned at times. ‘I can’t afford to become Isha’s captive again,’ I said to Kamini Masi one evening. She had become my confidante. She didn’t like to dine alone and sometimes invited me home when Ramu Mama went out. She instinctively understood my wish to hold on to my ‘unbearable lightness’; she took me under her wing and instructed me in sringara rasa, the ‘erotic mood’. If I didn’t want to become Isha’s prisoner, she said, I must acquire an eroticism that is hedonistic but not impassioned. Only thus would I be able to retain kama’s weightless charm. After dinner she pulled out a slim volume from Ramu Mama’s shelves and began to read a few verses from Vidyakara’s anthology of classical love poetry. Occasionally, we read short erotic verses called khandkavya, which were always bright, suggestive, intimate and light-hearted. I borrowed her copy and, in my enthusiasm, I recited them to Isha but they fell flat on her ears.
To cultivate sringara rasa, Kamini Masi reminded me, I had to be aware of kama’s enemies: attachment and memory. To illustrate this, she narrated a mythological story of the gods with such graphic descriptions of their nightlife that I blushed. The nagaraka’s prize, she said, was to become a ‘heroic’ lover of all women and not become the ‘romantic’ lover of one woman.
Where a high courtly culture flourishes, a philosophy of love is born. The Kamasutra is a product of what many historians have called India’s ‘golden age’, associated in particular with the Gupta dynasty that rose in north-east India in the early fourth century. Whether the Gupta empire deserves this honour is a matter of personal judgement. My own moral and aesthetic values seem to incline in that direction. It was a time when Indian culture seemed to be at its most self-confident and widely admired for its artistic and scientific achievements. It reached its zenith in the arts, crowned by the classical Sanskrit poets—Kalidasa, Dandin, Vishakhadatta, Shudraka and Bharavi. The astronomer Aryabhata had calculated correctly the length of the solar year, using two crucial Indian inventions: zero and ‘Arabic’ numerals. Vatsyayana probably wrote his Kamasutra in this period, imparting the nagaraka ideal of the urbane, sophisticated life to the male elite in the Gupta courts.
The Guptas had revived native Indian power after a long period of foreign dominance. Before 320 CE, foreigners had ruled over much of north-western and western India—Graeco-Bactrians, Persians, Scythians and Kushans had ruled successively for half a millennium. Society was essentially aristocratic, and as in all aristocratic societies, the main preoccupations were the pursuit of war, religion and sex. Although the Guptas were conservative, their attitudes were remarkably liberal. The time was apparently ripe to look within and wage a war of sexual freedom in order to rescue ‘pleasure’ from its three main spoilsports: society, religion and nature. And so, the Kamasutra, a rebellious text, found a comfortable home in their courts. Indeed, the spirit of the times infused the Kamasutra’s liberating project with a certain offhand grandeur.
An adulteress like Isha is called asati in Sanskrit, but the term can also refer to any unmarried woman who is not chaste. While in religious literature she is a ‘bad woman’, in classical love poetry, asati is invariably painted in cheerful, complimentary hues, a ‘fair return for the damnation heaped on her head in religious works’. Although the love poet praises her, her anticipation of pleasure is not unmixed with anxiety:
My husband is no easy fool,
the moon is bright, the way is mire
and people love a scandal;
yet it is hard to break a lover’s promise.
Driven by such thoughts, a certain beauty
in going to a meeting set for love
starts from her house door many times
only to turn back.
Despite the anxiety and fear of scandal, the poet thinks that illicit love is superior to the boring, domestic routine of married sex:
Where the moon is no
t inveighed against
and no sweet words of a messenger are heard,
where speech is never choked with tears
and the body grows not thin;
but where one sleeps in one’s own house
with one’s own subservient to one’s wish;
can this routine of household sex,
this wretched thing, deserve the name of love?
Isha, of course, never mentioned her husband. Neither did I. From the moment she offered me her love, I unconsciously began to believe that I had a right over her; her husband was superfluous. No doubt he was in a pitiable position but how could that be helped? Curiously enough, the Kamasutra insists that it is not a handbook for adulterers and even offers advice to husbands to look for clues for their wives’ adulteries. Vatsyayana states that it is generally not a good idea to sleep with another man’s wife, but just in case, if one is tempted, he has a chapter titled ‘Reasons for Taking Another Man’s Wife’.
Despite its tolerant attitude, the fact is that the society of the Kamasutra was patriarchal and a woman’s sexual pleasure was not held on par with a man’s; Kamini Masi reminded me that women were bhog, ‘objects of enjoyment’. To a male lover, adultery might be fun but it was terrifying to a husband. The dharma texts ignored the wife’s viewpoint and were harsh in punishing adultery. When they were lenient, it was because of a woman’s procreative potential—menstruation swept away a woman’s sins after a month. The ganikas may have lived a more liberated life but wives were bound by strict social rules. Girls received only limited education and were married off early. While Buddhist nuns, actresses, courtesans and prostitutes had more freedom, they were socially at the margin, and widows were never treated well. The average wife, Kamini Masi felt, was usually unloved and neglected. For this reason, she had not insisted on marriage to Ramu Mama, trading a loss in public image for the sake of private happiness.
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