Not much is known about the author of the Kamasutra besides his name and that he lived in Kausambi and Varanasi and had access to the court of the ruling prince. Using extracts from his treatise, Sudhir Kakar, India’s leading psychoanalyst, has reconstructed his life and times. He has done so with the consummate skill of a master craftsman using psychoanalytic techniques, imagination and felicitous prose to bring to life a scholar of ancient erotica who died over 1500 years ago. He uses an ingenious device of getting a young neophyte (obviously himself) who spends many days over many years in Vatsayana’s hermitage on the pretext of writing a commentary on the Kamasutra. He questions Vatsayana on contentious points like the art of seduction, foreplay etc.
If Kakar is right, Vatsayana was an illegitimate child of a wealthy tradesman and brought up in an establishment of courtesans run by two sisters, one of whom was his father’s mistress. Young Vatsayana became a favourite of his mausi (aunt). He saw the comings and goings of rich patrons who came to see the girls sing and dance. After a gurukul schooling, he gained access to the ruler’s court and was granted a stipend to compile a definitive work on erotic arts. He was married off to the ruler’s beautiful but wayward sister-in-law many years younger than him. They retired to a hermitage at the fringe of a forest, While the Acharya was busy writing or meditating, his wife loitered around in the jungle watching birds and beasts and contemplated on life by a lily pond. On this sylvan scene arrived a young man to compile a biography of the Acharya and clarify some points of his magnum opus. After their mid-day meal, while the Acharya was resting, the young student followed his guru’s wife into the forest. They became lovers. One day the Acharya came upon them and caught them. He said nothing but disappeared for ever. The young lovers fled the hermitage and the town because an extramarital relationship between a shishya and the guru’s wife was regarded the gravest of sins. They had an illegitimate child. In short, the author of the Kamasutra, the Hindu classic on sex, was himself, impotent.
31 October 1998
Day of rejoicing
I look forward to Republic Day. So, I expect, does everyone else. Unfortunately for most of us it remains a spectacle performed by others, watched by us. We are not participants but mere spectators. In my younger days I used to watch the march past consisting of bands, tanks armoured vehicles, missiles, floats, folk dancers, caparisoned elephants, camels and school children. But I haven’t watched them now for over twenty years. No one sends me a pass and I don’t feel like blowing up Rs 200 to watch something that I can with greater comfort ensconced in my armchair by the fireside, facing my TV set. Much as I enjoy what I see, I remain an outsider. That saddens me, because this is the one day in the year we should be celebrating in our homes and in the homes of our relatives and friends, exchanging gifts and making merry. The Government has hijacked Republic Day and turned it into a purely sarkari extravaganza.
Is there another day in the year that we can convert into a day of national rejoicing? One that readily comes to mind is Independence Day, August 15. Unfortunately, that day has also been appropriated by the Government with the prime minister delivering his speech from the Red Fort and everyone making balance sheets of our achievements and failures. In any case, it is not the best time of the year for any kind of festivity.
After eliminating religious festivals for obvious reasons, the most suitable day I can think of is Gandhi’s birthday, October 2. The weather is clement, there are no sectarian overtones to the event and all said and done, he was, and is, our Bapu. All we need is to build up a consensus on making it our truly national day of rejoicing.
Fatwa on Rushdie
The lesson to be learnt from Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa passing the sentence of death on Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses is that nothing boosts sales of a book more as banning it or vilifying its author. Not many people would have read this book but for the worldwide brouhaha created over it following the ban imposed by the Indian Government and all Muslim countries. Attacks on British and American culture centres, burning copies of the book in public places, rioting mobs quelled by police opening fire only added to the book’s sales. The Satanic Verses remained in the top of the list of bestsellers in English-speaking countries for many months. Few, very few people were able to plod through more than fifty pages of the over-500 paged book, but owning a copy became a status symbol. If you want to know more about Salman Rushdie, a summary of his most controversial novel and the reception it got, you can do no better than read The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, The Ayatullah and the West by Daniel Pipes. It is published by Sita Ram Goel’s Voice of India.
The author, Daniel Pipes, is a specialist on the Islamic world with a doctorate from Harvard University. Besides the reception The Satanic Verses got, Pipes gives us some details of Rushdie’s life. He was born in Bombay in June 1947, the only son of four children of non-Kashmiri-speaking Kashmiri parents. They were evidently prosperous, as after a few years of Cathedral School in Bombay, he was sent to Rugby and then to King’s College, Cambridge. He specialized in Islamic history.
On his return home, the family migrated to Karachi. Salman could not come to terms with the stifling atmosphere in Pakistan and decided that if it could not be Bombay, it would be London. Even in England he found the discrimination practised by Whites against Asians and Blacks unacceptable. The Satanic Verses has quite a lot to say about the vandalism of punks and skinheads against a Bangladeshi family running a restaurant. Rushdie took British citizenship, married an English girl, Clarissa, and has a son (Zafar) by her. He divorced Clarissa and married an American novelist, Marianne Wiggins. This marriage had begun to come apart before the publication of The Satanic Verses. After the fatwa, Marianne stood by Salman for a month but could not take the strain of remaining in hiding with a man who had a huge price on his head, and divorced him.
Rushdie continues to be hunted by Muslim fanatics and remains under heavy security provided by the British Government. He has become the symbol of defiance against religious bigotry and the right of freedom of expression. The ban on The Satanic Verses spawned a lot of wrong notions about its contents in the minds of people who had not read it. Most of them think that the title applies to the entire Koran. It does not. It is taken from two very brief lines diluting Islam’s total rejection of idolatry. They are said to have been dictated not by Allah but by Satan, and later withdrawn. However, Rushdie does question the Muslim belief that the Koran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed by Allah. He is also very irreverent in his attitude towards the Prophet and his wives. Rushdie has a penchant for hurting people’s deepest sentiments. It is ironic that his name, ‘Rushdie’ is derived from the Arabic word for ‘mature’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘proper’. It is not surprising that The Satanic Verses has become ‘highly valued contraband’ in countries, that have imposed a ban on it. It has been translated into Arabic and is available in Arab-Muslim countries at a very high price. In Turkey it is available under the counter at $200 (Rs 8500). Such is human nature. As soon as you forbid anything, it becomes all the more desirable.
30 January 1999
Who are you trying to fool?
You can fool some people for some time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Our present-day rulers think they can. They are in for a very unpleasant surprise: no one believes a word of what they say. Take the latest case of the brutal murders of the Australian missionary working among lepers in Orissa and his two infant sons. The police have identified the leader of the gang that perpetrated the crime as being an active member of the Bajrang Dal. The long, white-bearded Giriraj Kishore had the audacity to proclaim on TV channels that there are no lepers in that area. A few minutes later the same TV channels showed pictures of lepers grieving over the loss of the man who had devoted his entire life looking after them. Who is lying—Giriraj Kishore or the lepers? You decide for yourself.
While the investigating authorities had named the principal killer as a member of the Bajrang Dal, Home Minister L.K. Advani,
to whose parivar Bajrang Dal belongs, gives the Dal a clean chit. Who knows the facts better, the men on the spot or the home minister in Delhi committed to preserving the image of his parivar as one happy family? You decide for yourself.
And finally, the prime minister sends a committee of three cabinet ministers—Murli Manohar Joshi, George Fernandes (the giant killer of yesteryear) and Patnaik—to go to Orissa, investigate and give him a report. They spend about an hour or so ‘investigating’. Neither Joshi nor Fernandes can speak Oriya, but along with the effete-looking Patnaik (it is hard to believe he is Biju Patnaik’s son), they proclaim that the killers were in no way connected to the parivar and it was all a big conspiracy to defame the government. Can you believe a word of what they say?
The trail of falsehood goes back to the victimization of Christian institutions in Gujarat and violence against the nuns in Madhya Pradesh. We are glibly told that Christians have invited trouble on themselves by converting tribals to their faith. Furthermore, they are funded by the substantial donations they receive from abroad. But of course they are; they need modern equipment for the hundreds of hospitals, clinics and leper homes they run. And their schools and colleges, unlike most others, are not money-making shops. They don’t buy converts; they don’t bully people to convert—only they accept Christianity who feel a sense of gratitude for what Christian institutions have done for them, I am pretty certain that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Madan Lal Khurana and Bansi Lal do not accept the ‘official’ versions put out periodically; otherwise they would not be fasting at Gandhi’s samadhi on the anniversary of his martyrdom. Thank God we still have some people with a conscience to lead us.
6 February 1999
Changing times
It’s been a hard, long winter—the longest and hardest within living memory. Never before do I recall Delhi being under a blanket of fog from a week before Christmas right up to the first week of February. Come to think of it, I can’t recall a single foggy day till a few years after Independence.
I’ve known colder days in Delhi but for very short spells—no more than four or five days when the water in the marble fountain in the garden froze to ice. But the days were crisp and clear with blue skies and bright sunshine. Above all, the air was always fresh. The nights were still and silent. We knew the progress of the moon from the crescent to its fullness. On moonless nights, the sky was studded with myriads of stars.
We saw meteors break loose from their moorings and disappear into the unknown. We gazed at the constellations we knew and could guess the time from the position of Great Bear around the Pole Star. The only noises that slightly disturbed our early slumbers were the howling of jackals near garbage dumps and the calls of night watchmen shouting to each other, ‘khabardar ho!’ There were no policemen on patrol duties. Thefts and robberies were rare occurrences.
All that has changed. No jackals howl, no watchmen call out to each other. Police vans scamper about throughout the night. On an average there are four to five cases of theft, robbery, rape and murder every twenty-four hours. Worst of all is the change in climate. To breathe fresh air, you have to go twenty miles or more beyond the city limits. To see the stars and the moon, you have to go even further because city and village lights have robbed us of nature’s gift of darkness.
Our one and only river, the Yamuna, has become a sewer fouled by human waste, chemical effluents and half-burnt bodies. People continue to bathe in it because their forefathers did so. We drink its water, filtered though it is, at our own peril. Those of us who can afford it, prefer bottled mineral water. What bothers us most is the foul air we have to inhale day and night. It gets fouler by the day as more buses, cars and scooters take to our already congested roads. I, who had not known illness in my long life, was stricken by viral flu. The fever left me but the cough persists. I know if I got out of the city for a few days, my chest and bronchial tubes would clear. I can’t leave my place of work because I have to earn my living. The same holds true for all other citizens.
As citizens we have reason to be angry. Many of the things that make our cities unliveable in can be taken care of: Put an immediate ban on emptying sewers and pouring effluents into our rivers. Declare at least one day in the week a day when petrol or diesel-run vehicles (except ambulances, fire brigades, and police cars) will not be allowed on the roads. No more sermons, speeches and learned papers on the subject. It is time for action. The time is now.
13 February 1999
Among the crawlers
A sentence used by L.K. Advani on the supine attitude of the Indian media during the Emergency will be quoted in history books because it sums up the gutlessness of our tribe of pen-pushers. He said, ‘She (Mrs Gandhi) only asked you to bend, you decided to crawl.’ He was right then; he would be right if he repeated the remark with regard to the media men of today. But let it not be forgotten that there were a few journals that closed down in protest, and many journalists were clapped into jail by the Emergency regime.
Others who protested mildly and pleaded for lifting of the Emergency and the release of political prisoners were spared in order to create the impression that the Government had not stamped out all criticism. The Illustrated Weekly of India, of which I was then editor, fell in this category of mild protesters (I supported the Emergency but opposed censorship of the press). Advani acknowledged this in his book published soon after the Emergency was lifted.
I have little doubt that if Emergency was imposed again, media reaction would be much the same as it was in the mid-1970s. A handful of media men would put down their pens in protest, a handful would be gaoled, the vast majority will bend backwards to toe the government line (crawl when only asked to bend). I will give an instance to prove my point.
A few weeks ago I was asked to preside over the launch of a book on corruption in Indian life. I was given only a couple of hours’ notice, as the person who had agreed to do so had let the publishers down. I was down with fever and had not read the book. However, when I was told that L.K. Advani and V.P. Singh would be speaking, I agreed to go. I knew it would be my only chance to tell Advani to his face what I thought of him.
I thought very well of Advani as a clean, upright and able man. That is why I agreed to propose his name for elections to the Lok Sabha from New Delhi. I have every reason to believe that my doing so swung a substantial Sikh vote in Advani’s favour. He won.
My disenchantment began when Advani started his rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya. I criticized his move then. I repeated my criticism at the book launch: ‘You sowed the dragon’s teeth which led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid,’ I said. ‘You are a clever coiner of words. You turned the Babri Masjid into a dhaancha and a disputed structure; your parivar parrots these expressions to this day. You denigrated critics like me as pseudo-secularists. Your brainless followers continue to use the same expression for people like me.’
I reassured Advani that I still held him in high regard as a man of honour and integrity. ‘Two things I will never believe about you—that you feather your nest, or are unfaithful to your wife.’ The remark amused Advani as well as the assemblage. So did the next one: ‘You are a puritan. You do not drink, you do not smoke, you do not womanize.’ And after a pause, ‘such men are dangerous.’
Needless to say, my hosts were acutely embarrassed by my speech. I wanted to get it off my chest, and I did. Advani did not seem to mind and said he would answer me at a more appropriate occasion than the launch of a book. Fair enough. What appalled me was the media reporting. Only one national daily gave my outburst the prominence it merited. All others blotted my name out of their reports. Most blatant was the coverage by Doordarshan. While all the other speakers were shown, the man presiding over the function was not. It was quite a feat of cinematography.
13 March 1999
Crime uncontrolled
Your hear the same sort of stories from all parts of the country: it is not safe to go out after dark; it is not safe for old people to s
tay alone; housewives must not open doors to strangers even if they pretend to be postmen or come to check your electric meters; schoolgoing children must be seen getting into the school bus or inside school gates lest they be abducted and held for ransom.
If big cities are unsafe, the countryside is no less so; in some places it’s the Naxalites, at others armed gangs of landowners. Most politicians have armed musclemen of their own to contend with rival politicians with private armies of goondas. There are robberies on trains and buses.
There seems to be no dearth of firearms available without licenses. Once acquired, there is a compulsive itch to use them at the slightest provocation. What has gone wrong with our countrymen? Do they want the country to dissolve into a chaos of violence?
‘There is anger everywhere’, suggested a friend by way of explanation. ‘Anger against whom?’ I asked. ‘Everyone,’ she replied. ‘The entire system. Otherwise, how can you explain boys throwing stones at passing trains, buses and cars, and running away? For no reason whatsoever, innocent people are killed. There is no follow-up. No arrests, no punishment.’
It is true. There is no respect for the law. How can there be any when our lawmakers take the law into their hands and bash each other up?—when a member who assaults a minister in a Legislative Assembly and is ordered to be arrested by the Speaker, is promptly let out on bail by a High Court? How can we expect better behaviour from common citizens?
C. Rajagopalachari used to say that religion is our best policeman. That may have been so during his time when religions had a social purpose and people were more religious. Now, religions have little social purpose, and the people practise their rites as matters of habit, without conviction. Another guardian of morality was the family. Erring offspring were brought to book by their parents and elders. Now, families have disintegrated; school teachers teach their pupils how to read and write but are no longer gurus to guide them on the path of rectitude, to tell them what is right and what is wrong.
Big Book of Malice Page 11