Devdutt Pattanaik: If not Valentine, then Kama?

IllustrationDevdutt PattanaikHere it comes 14th February The day dreaded by some earnest Indian youth leaders who are convinced that love and desire and sex are foreign contaminations that will destroy the minds of young Indians Terrified they would rather spend the day worshipping fathers and mothers or brutally assaulting lovers on datesSurely a more powerful nationalist act would have been to reclaim or reframe Valentines Day and call it Kamas day or Madanutsva the festival of desire and pleasure so vividly described in ancient Sanskrit plays when women danced and sang in royal gardens and celebrated the arrival of spring when love is in the air and suitors flit about like butterflies around flowersPolitical leaders would rather establish antiRomeo vigilantes to save Indian culture Before we jump to conclusions and accuse one group of being antipleasure and antilove we must take note of the fact that Gandhian as well as RSS discourse valorise celibacy an unnatural act incidentally over romance Some liberal activists I am told ever ready to march for justice and equality shy away from kissing festivals on campuses that seek to defy misogynist censorship segregation and curfew rulesMuslim radicals believe pleasure is for the next life not this one Christian radicals see sex as sin The media simply assumes single men who announce their celibacy by wrapping orange robes are the real spokespersons of Hinduism The education system and the judiciary views sex love and pleasure through the lens of rape abuse violence pollution unwanted pregnancy and venereal diseaseThe modern Indian rejection of Valentines Day is essentially a symptom The root cause can be traced to monastic orders mdash Buddhist Jain and Hindu mdash where we find the first rejection of Kama the god of love who embodies pleasure and desire Male hermits saw women as seductresses symbols of worldly responsibility and pleasure Buddha called them daughters of Mara the demon of desire who causes suffering one who fetters one who distracts the spiritual seeker from dhamma In Tantra supernatural powers were traced to the act of retaining semen In folk mythologies of the Nath traditions the greatest threat to the yogi who gets powers by rejecting sex is the Tantrik yogini who gets powers by seeking sexWhat we forget is that in ancient lore unlike today the force of monasticism was always countered by the equally valid counterforce of pleasure and love Even the most austere Jain scriptures spoke of Kamadevas men who were irresistible to women The Jain epic Vasudevahindi tells the story Vasudeva Krishnas father who was one such Kamadeva In the Puranas to counter Shiva who burns Kama to death Shakti transforms into the alluring Kamakhya and Vishnu becomes the enchanting MohiniAs we ponder on the current form of this counterforce one detail from the Valmiki Ramayana merits mention When Bharat unaware of his fathers death and his brothers exile is returning from his uncles house to Ayodhya he senses something is wrong in the city as he approaches the gates Some calamity has befallen What was the indicator That young lovers are not to be seen in the gardens around the cityThe author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times Reach him at devduttdevduttcom