30Sep 2005

Indian "Morality"

Pleasure is the tapas of the without

- Vashishta (quoted by Roberto Calasso in Ka)

Ka is a treatise on the Indian Mythology without the cloak of the recent Indian “Morality”. Ka sheds all those we have strived hard to supress - the sexual liberation of ancient Indians.

In Ka, Roberto Calasso, writes how Indian mythology states Rishis were the first beings Brahma entrusted the task of procreating, causing the birth of several Gods and Demons in the process.

Roberto also writes how Parvati was sexually attracted by Shiva even when she was just a chip of a girl which is why she did a tapas to get him.

In this light, I also discovered, how Pandu was cursed with death when he penetrated any women - which makes sense. When I watched mahabharata on TV, I didnt understand why Pandu had to die when he hugged Madri =D

So, now when Manu (interestingly, the mythological Manu was supposed to be conceived when Brahma had sex with his daughter Satarupa) sent me an email with links to blog entries on Chennai’s morality police, I pondered at what lengths we have gone to hide the sexual freedom of the old.

I know, a lot of you, might just be a little uncomfortable reading this entry. But that is precisely the point. To raise the shroud of hundreds of years on sexuality.

Now what has this got to do with the Anna University fiasco or the recent incidents of Chennai’s Moral Police rearing its ugly head? Exactly this: the basic premise of the Indian culture that expressing sexuality is wrong and reprehensible - Dina Malar embarassed women who were kissing men in a party, Anna University screams at men who wear ‘red and black’, Panimalar college (one of the JPR ones) uprooted trees to stop couples from sitting together under the trees, punished a male student for being friendly (in conservative standards) with a female teacher.

What Anna University did was not any more hypocritical than what we are used to - only it was more explicit. It is consistent with our hypocritical assumptions about women who drink, who smooch, wear or not wear clothes, Anna University imposes these rules albeit more conservative.

So guys, the revolution doesnt start from Anna University, but from our own perceptions. Start using the banned four letter words (fuck for one), use the biological names for penis and vagina, dont call sex as “that thing”. Stop thinking of women as creatures from Mordor and treat them as equal partners - in smoking, drinking and sexual intercourse.

I know many of you are already there, but there are thousands of us (including women) who arent. And with them lies the future of Indian youth.

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Comments

Comments are closed for this post. Please message me on twitter, if you would like to comment.

Abhinav: Thanks! Sorry for the mistake! Corrected it oredi!

divya 10/10/2005 - 18:48

Vashishta was the narrator of the Mahabharata? Thats news to me.

Abhinav Goyal 10/10/2005 - 11:46

I feel a woman is truly liberated when she is free to express her views on any subject on this earth and lead her life the way she wishes.

Women still face a volley of abuses, chappals,and some men even disfigure them with acids or are done away with forever.

Their problems starts right from their parents where they not allowed to study the subject they want and are not allowed to marry the person they want and live the way they want.

So more then the freedom to drink,using four letter words and premarital sex, the basic thing every woman yearns for is for the world to treat her as an human being - showing compassion and love and giving her the freedom to make her own choices.

It requires a lot of courage, both mentally and physically, to bring about a change in the perceptions of society.the fight has just begun.

geetha manian 10/07/2005 - 02:00

Lehmunade: You have missed too many words in those four dots =D Creativity or wat :)

The future of Indian youth does not lie in using ‘fuck’ but in the hands of those (men and women) who wince and scream when others use the word (self-ceonsoring), who treat women who drink with disdain( or women who smoke), wince when premarital sex is mentioned and think it is evil to have sex before marriage, who watch porn but are embarassed to talk about it in the public.

divya 10/06/2005 - 18:39

>> So guys, the revolution doesnt start from Anna University, but from our own perceptions. Start using the banned four letter words (fuck for one), ….. And with them lies the future of Indian youth

How can starting to swear help the Indian youth?

Lehmunade 10/06/2005 - 00:48

>>You are just way too funny to ignore =D ‘decent >>gals causing all kinds of distractions’ and you >>are angry about them stopping a guy but not >>bothered if they stop a girl! =D I think the >>ranters have a target audience here ;-)
:)
No gender fight !! Peace !
all I said was dress is immaterial when it comes to any issue…”the way a girl dressed caused her rape” is as foolish a sentence as “t shirts wearing boys are not gentlemen” .

Rk 10/05/2005 - 09:38

ammani: *Divya faints at the sight of her idol on her blog* Thanks for your compliments! I cant stop gushing about your quicktales! You ought to win the Booker for that! =D

divya 10/05/2005 - 00:11

Excellent! I loved the way you have presented your views without resorting to hyperbole. Very balanced.

ammani 10/04/2005 - 23:38

Namrata: Thank you! True, the more you restrict choice, the more you can see a war coming!

Ravages: Long time! LOL I guess it is true! We are all hypocrites anyways, so being a hypocrite doesnt make a person wrong or guilty.

Sue: Thank You! It may sound trivial. We need to be in a place where people can liberally use ‘fuck’ without any constraint and HEAR ‘fuck’ without wincing THIER eyes or afraid somebody might think THEY are bad just because they heard ‘fuck’. If you can accept ‘fuck’ you can accept other choices people make!

Ravi: You are just way too funny to ignore =D ‘decent gals causing all kinds of distractions’ and you are angry about them stopping a guy but not bothered if they stop a girl! =D I think the ranters have a target audience here ;-)

Shekys: Of course. I do not think there is a state in India that implements rules according to the rulebook and diligently! The trick is to pass them, and that itself is a BIG DEAL! =D

NMK: Relax, you havent disagreed with my post. I do not berate the University for implementing the rules, I am only providing a perspective on how we have evolved to this ‘ethics’ when we had none in the vedic age.

Kanti: The word choice and freedom are linked in the normal usage of those words. People do not think there is a choice when there is no freedom. So if there are rules that ban you from wearing G-strings, then people most likely wont choose to wear them. This is the moral police and the code that we have evolved into.

divya 10/04/2005 - 22:04

My parents are sensible people, and they brought me up so as to adjust to almost any ‘weird’ environment. The rest of my family is as conservative as is suggested above, but my parents are cool. So I’ve been allowed quite a few ‘reasonable’ freedoms since I was young. So, I know all about the moral police bit.
They are plain losers. We should tell them to go get a vasectomy done if they hate sex so much.

I don’t see whats wrong about overexposure or colour of attire.
Its all about choices. If a woman *chooses* to walk about in scanty attire, its her choice, and her problem if she attracts unwanted attention. If someone goes to school in baggies, its his problem if his friends laugh at him. There are always some adverse consequences from these choices.
My belief is that we should be given atleast this choice.

Kanti 10/04/2005 - 07:26

Hey Divya:

I am probably going to be the only moron to disagree with this post.

I dont believe that moral censorship and moral policing are acceptable. I dont think that segregation of educational institutions on the basis of sex is acceptable either.

On dress codes, I am more ambiguous. What sathyabama does is non-sensical, but having a dress code per se is not. Most firms have a dress code (which usually includes no jeans, of course the IT and tech worlds are very different). A university is an institution and is allowed to have it own rules (reasonable ones). If it thinks that its image is impacted by the way its students dress, then it should be allowed to impose a sensible dress code (NTU has one that says you cannot come in mini skirts, slippers or shorts, if you do they will ignore you and not attend to you at the students affairs office or other offices).

nmk 10/04/2005 - 05:02

the fact is tht the rulebook has not been opened in anna univ.students still use mobiles and wear casuals to class.this piece of info comes frm an “anniyan”(tht’s wat we’re called)himself.

sheky 10/03/2005 - 11:22

hey..did you forget many other achievements by Indians that are always quoted when such issues come up: like it was an Indian -Vatsayana who taught the world the art of making love…or that India is second most populated nation ….

actually if you see, it is not just about late nights, nightouts in clubs, kissing in public…i just can’t understand the restrictions imposed on the dress code…it is seriously meaningless…i have seen most decent looking girls causing all kinds of distractions and so on…a boy to be fined for wearing t-shirt and jeans is as crazy as it can get..i know the pain because i had been thru similar college where tshirts were not allowed.

ravi 10/03/2005 - 11:15

Excellent post. You have managed to touch the crux of the issue.

It is definitely a pity that a country like India which had such a progressive outlook in ancient times has degraded to such lows. Am not sure everyone using the f-word is necessary for progress, but accepting the right to so definitely is. Hopefully, with more awareness, things will change for the better.

Sue 10/03/2005 - 10:05

I think it was kingsley who said India had an oversexed past and an undersexed present. That is so true.
These moral police are the ones who wouldn’t hesitate buying a kumudam or a kungumam or other such with centrefolds (not even professionally done ones at that, poor paper quality and bad printing) but who decide that certain things are spoiling tamil culture

Ravages 10/03/2005 - 03:12

Hats off to your post, I think we need more such entries across the blogosphere to bring awareness in our country. What our so called elders/teachers don’t understand is that they are harming the youth/children at large since we all know that one has the tendency to try/do things if you are asked not to do it. Go back to childhood reminiscences and one can find umpteen examples for the same. What our teachers need to do is address the issue with maturity; which they fail to do.

Namrata 10/03/2005 - 02:42

Nan, Maran: Thank Ye!

Sat: It is no point blaming the press, the police were foolish enough to arrest those people who were partying is what the sad part is. And of course, if it was a private party, why invite the press, who takes responsibility for the “privacy” of the private party? There are too many angles there and blaming just the press just wont do. Perhaps it is much better to blame ourselves! =D

divya 10/02/2005 - 19:18

The issue seems to become more and more serious every year.
First it started out with curfew on bars and pubs.
And restriction of dresses in some “orthodox” colleges, which I find totally obnoxious.
And now this.
What will they think of next?

If you remember the reason for Chennai’s moral police intervening, it is because of some crazy-ass reporter who decided to earn some quick buck at the expense of a fun of lot of others.
It is the media who should be punished, not the moral police.
I hold the fourth estate responsible for this untidy mess that they have left us in.

sat 10/02/2005 - 17:21

I read about this issue in other blogs but your post is the best!

Same thing happened in Malaysia this year but this time the public, non-malay press and the NGO’s were strong in their protest which lead to close scrutiny of state Islamic enforcement activities. Tamil Nadu youth should protest!

Maran 10/02/2005 - 17:04

Oh, girl, you’ve made my day. Nothing like an activist outlook to pump energy into self. Salute!

Nandini 10/02/2005 - 16:08

Manu:
The scenario might just be a bit better, but I doubt if there will be any significant change, as Sherene says, the ranters are still in a minority and that wont change for another 100 years atleast!

I think all JPR colleges are in similar positions. It would be no wonder if the girls danced after the guys. Btw, the poor students are as embarassed if not more, than you!

Kirubakaran: I didnt mean the british and the moghuls, but even before, the bindusaras and chitraguptas too. I think the decadence started several centuries before, but have not done enough research to know when exactly.

Sherene: As I said, awesome post! I think it puts in perspective the whole fiasco!

divya 10/01/2005 - 17:44

I started typing a comment, and it ended up being a blog-post =) Come hither to my blog for my views on this post. Cheers!

Sherene 10/01/2005 - 12:24

I LOL-ed on seeing that you linked to wikipedia for f??? :-D By the way, I use regex instead of the actual word not because I am intimidated it but because I don’t want someone to google for ‘f??? kirubakaran’ and visit my blog :-))) I tend to use it quite liberally in other mediums not indexed by Google - orally for instance. But that could mean that I need a more elaborate vocabulary.

Its the Moghuls and British that screwed us up, right? Placing blame can be childish but fun.

Anyways, good post. Thinking of lots of comments… but gotta go now. Weekend calling. brb.

Kirubakaran 10/01/2005 - 09:36

Hmm…on a second reading my thoughts are just an extension of the last line by Divya.
(Note to self: Never rush to comment ;-))

btw is Satyabhama a JPR college ? Do they still have the rule that guys can’t talk to girls (applies to faculty too).Those who don’t know about satyabhama here is a true story.

In Saarang(Cul fest of IITM), satyabhama was one of the teams for choreo.Now their turn came and an all boys group came on stage and about midway through their allotted time the guys left the stage.We were wondering why someone wouldn’t utilise the full time and behold ! an all girls group came to the stage and started their dance.It was so obvious that these two teams hadn’t even seen each other.Except for costumes
there was no similarity between both.

Manu 10/01/2005 - 01:27

Students are up in arms about the anna university rules.The Indian blogosphere is fuming against the hypocrisy of tamil vernacular dailies.

What i’m wondering about is the scenario say 10-15 years from now.When the people who are protesting now will be parents, police officers and like.Will they repeat the same old tune “this generation is going to the dogs.The kids have no values..blah blah” and start imposing restrictions left,right and center or will they finally break the mould ? :)

P.S:So Manu was the result of incest.hmm..interesting.I thought only the Japanese were into that thing ;-)

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