Array of emotions race through piecing together vignettes of untold stories of nights filled with wretched desire, power, ostracized and suppressed emotions and a glimpse of fractures of alienated society. Some familiar, some eye-opening but mostly unacknowledged stealthy existence as we hear about AIDS epidemic, moving as swiftly as the speed we are diluting our value-system. Each voice in stories carries a resigned acceptance through broken spirit and sends a reminder of societal follies and failures we have chosen with arrogance of ignorance. AIDS Sutra, Untold Stories from India carries deadweight of all this and much more from isolated world of “India Shining” development.
Human dominance over nature, technological breakthroughs and other human beings has been a running theme over generations. Slavery is a direct consequence of it and so is thriving prostitution and coerced sex industry. With time, hierarchical power structure has exchanged role with monetary power. Hence Devdasis have been renamed as sex workers/prostitutes or something fancier I am not even aware of. I see AIDS epidemic as merely a consequence of something deep rooted in a pretentious model of precarious civilized society. Spread of HIV is directly linked to one of most persistent propensities (but widely undermined and lacking explicit acceptance) of repressed egos of human beings-sex.
Snippet from introduction of the book, “There were about a dozen women there, wearing their best saris, gold necklaces, flowers in their hair and bindis on their foreheads.” “This group of women had all been ostracized by their families and neighbors. One woman had hoped to keep her work a secret from her husband and children. But when word got out, her daughter was disowned by her friends. The girl was so distraught that she committed suicide.”
As I see from “society” perspective on flesh business, we cannot live without your existence but we cannot accept your presence of services you provide. Such is the dogmatic hypocrisy we have become comfortably numb with. Calling it shamelessness would be too harsh because after all, women are born to titillate the libido senses with good looks before they surrender their body.
Amartya Sen points out in his foreword of this anthology, “ since epistemology is so central to a well founded ethics- to informed reflections on the social and political commitments that the calamity inescapably demands. If we move from depiction to perception and from reflection to compassion and resolution, all this happens, as in good literature, without self-conscious effort. This is a huge achievement.”
Kamathipura (Mumbai), Sonagachhi (Kolkata), Peddapuram (Andhra Pradesh) are all different hues of the same pale shade of diseased poverty. And contemporary authors like Kiran Desai, Salman Rushdie, Sonia Faleiro, Siddharth Deb and many more have traveled, heard, experienced the dejected side of dark & small rooms and prettied/decorated faces to bring out pulsating and deeply moving stories.
We are famous because we are the descendants of courtesans and royalty, so we have that poise, those fine looks,’ the Kalavanthalu women say. No special tricks? No Tricks. We are known for our good manners. We treat a man like a king. We’;; cook non veg, we’ll give oil massages and baths. We turn on the fan. The men bring the whiskey, the McDougal’s-but everything else we provide, and when they leave we beg, Don’t go, please don’t, oh, don’t go, oh..’ we do all of that play acting. We spoil them.
Human dominance over nature, technological breakthroughs and other human beings has been a running theme over generations. Slavery is a direct consequence of it and so is thriving prostitution and coerced sex industry. With time, hierarchical power structure has exchanged role with monetary power. Hence Devdasis have been renamed as sex workers/prostitutes or something fancier I am not even aware of. I see AIDS epidemic as merely a consequence of something deep rooted in a pretentious model of precarious civilized society. Spread of HIV is directly linked to one of most persistent propensities (but widely undermined and lacking explicit acceptance) of repressed egos of human beings-sex.
Snippet from introduction of the book, “There were about a dozen women there, wearing their best saris, gold necklaces, flowers in their hair and bindis on their foreheads.” “This group of women had all been ostracized by their families and neighbors. One woman had hoped to keep her work a secret from her husband and children. But when word got out, her daughter was disowned by her friends. The girl was so distraught that she committed suicide.”
As I see from “society” perspective on flesh business, we cannot live without your existence but we cannot accept your presence of services you provide. Such is the dogmatic hypocrisy we have become comfortably numb with. Calling it shamelessness would be too harsh because after all, women are born to titillate the libido senses with good looks before they surrender their body.
Amartya Sen points out in his foreword of this anthology, “ since epistemology is so central to a well founded ethics- to informed reflections on the social and political commitments that the calamity inescapably demands. If we move from depiction to perception and from reflection to compassion and resolution, all this happens, as in good literature, without self-conscious effort. This is a huge achievement.”
Kamathipura (Mumbai), Sonagachhi (Kolkata), Peddapuram (Andhra Pradesh) are all different hues of the same pale shade of diseased poverty. And contemporary authors like Kiran Desai, Salman Rushdie, Sonia Faleiro, Siddharth Deb and many more have traveled, heard, experienced the dejected side of dark & small rooms and prettied/decorated faces to bring out pulsating and deeply moving stories.
We are famous because we are the descendants of courtesans and royalty, so we have that poise, those fine looks,’ the Kalavanthalu women say. No special tricks? No Tricks. We are known for our good manners. We treat a man like a king. We’;; cook non veg, we’ll give oil massages and baths. We turn on the fan. The men bring the whiskey, the McDougal’s-but everything else we provide, and when they leave we beg, Don’t go, please don’t, oh, don’t go, oh..’ we do all of that play acting. We spoil them.
Night Claims the Godavari- Kiran Desai
Return to Sonagachhi- Sunil Gangopadhyay
The Daughters of Yellamma- William Dalrymple
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