Indian Identity

by Sudhir Kakar

  7 The section of the story I reproduce here commences after the marriage of the princess and the prince, a time when they should have ‘lived happily ever after.’ But it so transpires that the prince becomes infatuated with another woman with whom he spends his days and nights, completely neglecting his young bride.

  For three years, things went on like this. Then one day an old woman who happened to be the neighbour of the princess came to see her and said: ‘Dear child! You are quite young and pretty, and yet your husband is a whoremonger! What kind of wife is she who is unable to control her husband?’

  ‘What can I do, mother?’ complained Standing Lamp. ‘Since Brahma has created me like this, nothing can be done against it!’

  ‘So, Brahma has created you like this, has he?’ answered the old woman in mockery. ‘Don’t say foolish things! It is your own fault that you suffer! But if you listen to my advice you won’t regret it!’ And when the princess agreed to listen, the old woman proceeded: ‘Here, take this magic drink and mix it with the rasam (spiced lentil soup) prepared for your husband! He won’t leave you for a second!’

  Taking the magic drink with apprehension, the princess thought: ‘I wish I knew how this works! If she is right, we will be happy as before. But suppose that it harms him. What shall I do?’ And, being unable to make up her mind, Standing Lamp went out and spilt the magic drink in her backyard, serving her husband an innocent usual rasam.

  A snake lived in an old anthill in the backyard, and a few drops of the rasam mixed with the love potion fell on its head. As a result, the snake became infatuated with the princess. As soon as her husband left for the house of the dasi (female servant), the enamoured serpent tapped at Standing Lamp’s door. She went to see who it was. As she opened the door, she was happy to behold her husband come back! The snake had taken the form of the prince. Without further hesitation, she gave herself to the snake, who enjoyed her fully in its embrace.

  The princess carried on thus with the serpent for some time, and as a result became pregnant. When the snake came to know of her condition he felt a desire to tell her the truth. The serpent said: ‘Woman! I am not your real husband! Your husband is at this moment in the house of the dasi. I am the five-hooded snake living at the back of your house. The love potion which your neighbour, the old woman, gave you the other day, fell on me, and as a result I came to love you. But now I am going to break the infatuation which your husband feels for the dasi who plays the role of his wife.’

  After a short time, the prince, still infatuated with the dasi, found out that his wife was with child. He ran to his father-in-law and complained that his wife, the princess, must have been unfaithful to him, since although he had not touched her for some two years, she was pregnant!

  The king sent a few maids to bring his daughter to his presence. Standing Lamp sought the advice of the snake.

  The serpent, coiled in the bed of the princess, laughed and said: ‘Your bad days are over. When the king, your father, asks about your condition, tell him without any fear whatsoever that your husband alone is the father of your child. If there should be any doubt, turn to the members of the court and tell them that you are willing to undergo any test in the temple or before any deity. Don’t be afraid! Or better still, say this: Bring a pot and let in a serpent. I’m willing to put my hand into the pitcher with the snake to retrieve a gold coin placed inside! In this way, no one will doubt your word. I shall of course manage to be the snake in the pitcher!’ And the serpent left.

  As soon as the sun rose, the princess got up, dressed in her best attire and jewels, and appeared in the hall of audience of the royal palace. The king turned to his son-in-law and said: ‘Well! Why don’t you ask her what you wanted to ask her?’

  ‘Sir,’ said the prince-husband, ‘how is it that when it is two or three years since I last touched her, this woman is now bearing a child?’

  Standing Lamp addressed the gathering of councillors: ‘I am indeed pregnant, and no one else but my husband is the father. If you have any doubt, I am willing to undergo the ordeal by snake!’ The king and the prince and the members of the council agreed, and a snake-catcher was immediately sent for and asked to produce a suitable corbra.

  The snake-catcher came and started to play his flute. The five-hooded snake king subdued all other snakes, and entered the pitcher that had been prepared, with a golden coin dropped inside.

  The princess had a bath, and as soon as the returned she went round the pot and uttered the following words: ‘The one whom I touched on my wedding day was truly my husband; today I shall truly touch the serpent.’ Then she removed the seal from the pot, thrust her hand inside, took out the snake, threw it round her neck like a garland, removed the gold coin, deposited it on a golden platter—and the father and the husband, and the ministers cheered her, shouting: ‘She is indeed a maha pativrata, utterly chaste and faithful and a great lady!’ All of them praised her virtue, while she returned home, and the prince had no more doubts that he must be the father of the child.

  The dasi was curious; she sent her servants to the princess with the request that she should bring her child for her to see. ‘Our mistress must see your baby! Please, give it to us!’ Standing Lamp told them to come on the next day. The servant girls returned without the baby, and the offended dasi reported to the prince what had happened. ‘What? I send for my son and she dares to refuse? What is this?’ And he promptly complained to his father-in-law the king about the conduct of his wife.

  That night Standing Lamp called the serpent and asked him: ‘The dasi asked for our son. What shall I do? Shall I send him to her?’

  The snake replied: ‘Finally it has happened. Good days are ahead of you now. Your husband will return to you, and the dasi will this time lose his affection. Deck the child with all ornaments and send him to your father. When they come to fetch him, weigh the child along with jewels. Tell them that they should return him precisely as he is. If the weigh will be less, the dasi will not only have to make good the loss but also become your slave. The jewels of the child will be made of nagaratna, the snake-gems, and even your father’s entire treasury will not equal them in value. I’ll come, and snatch away the jewels. Don’t be afraid, and send the child without worry!’

  Next morning, the king’s servants came to the princess: ‘Lady, your father our lord the king wants to see you.’ The princess took the child and appeared in the king’s presence. ‘Daughter,’ said the king, ‘your husband wishes to see his son!’ When she remained silent, he went on: ‘Why haven’t you sent the child to him?’ Standing Lamp answered: ‘Sir, I have no objection to send my boy to the house of the dasi. All I fear is that he may be robbed of his precious jewels. I therefore humbly submit that he is weighed here and now along with his jewels. If he is returned intact and in the same weight, I shall be satisfied. However, if something is missing, I insist that the dasi be dispossessed and become my slave. If she agrees to this, I’m willing to send my child along.’

  The king summoned his son-in-law and the dasi. They accepted the conditions. The princess placed her son in a cradle, in another cradle she placed the jewels and she had them weighed so that everyone could see and have no doubt. The dasi then took the boy and the jewels to her house, fondled the child, caressed it, played with it, fed it with milk, and kept it with her for the night.

  In the dead of the night, the serpent crawled in, and in utter secrecy stole away some of the most precious jewels.

  In the morning, Princess Standing Lamp insisted that the child and the jewels be weighed in the presence of the king and the councillors. It was at once revealed that the weight of the jewels had diminished! The councillors watched everything carefully and decided: ‘The dasi is guilty of a crime. The jewels have been stolen. The dasi must act according to the agreement.’ Without the least contradiction the dasi became a servant in the household of the prince. The princess was happy. After some time, she was restored to her husband’s affection, and while the dasi too
k their orders as their domestic slave, they enjoyed life to the full.

  In this newfound joy, the princess completely forgot the snake. The snake thought: ‘Ah! Oh! Because of us, the princess has found new happiness, and now she has forgotten us! However if we bite and kill her, there won’t be any joy in that for us! We cannot make love to her now. All that is gone. The best solution for us is to commit suicide!’ And it decided to strangle itself with a lock of Standing Lamp’s hair.

  So, one night, the snake crawled into her bed, and entangling itself in a lock of her hair, died on the spot.

  The next morning, at sun-rise, the young ruler woke up and was horrified to find a dead snake in his wife’s hair! As he woke her up, her head was heavy with the weight of the dead snake, so large was it. She was afraid even to move, but she felt terrible remorse and sadness. She realized why it had killed itself. ‘Why do you weep?’ asked the husband. ‘O lord of my soul! This is our home snake. I had prayed to him and offered puja (worship) to him for your return to me! But when you did return, I forgot all about him! That’s why he came, and died!’ And she added: ‘Please, take the boy, and perform the rites, and have the snake cremated prayerfully with due obsequies.’

  The prince agreed. With the assistance of the boy, he performed obsequial ceremonies for the snake and had it burnt. They worshipped the snake regularly. From them on, Princess Standing Lamp, the young king, and the boy lived happily together.

  This shows that women are not to be trusted in this world! They are a tricky and deceptive lot.

  The serpent as a lover of the human female virtually demands an interpretation of the snake’s symbolic significance. This demand cannot be evaded even when we know that it is the area of symbolism which has earned psychoanalysis its greatest opprobrium and harshest criticism. Viewed by some as akin to a crankish medieval bestiary, the Freudian theory of symbols has been accused by its critics of ignoring the all-important context in its quest for ferreting out a universal sexual significance of natural objects and artifacts, The accusation has some substance although it was Wilhelm Stekle rather than Freud who introduced the notion of one-to-one correspondence between the symbol and the symbolized. Taken over by Freud and incorporated in the second and subsequent editions of The Interpretation Of Dreams, the notion of universal symbolism, in fact, contradicts, Freud’s own dream theory.8 Whatever its uneàsy place in theory, we know that in his clinical work, an analyst, of whatever persuasion, proceeds from and remains closely connected to the uniqueness of his patient’s ‘text.’ There is neither a straightforward application of theory from a cookbook of interpretations nor any culling out of facile equivalencies from some lexicon of universal symbols that can help the analyst understand and interpret the meaning of the analysand’s communications.

  The impression that the psychoanalytic theory of symbolism is based on a kind of invariance and is indifferent to context perhaps stems from its historical evolution where, in the early years, the Oedipal period was regarded as the fulcrum, both of mental life and of symbol formation. Thus the child’s use of the representation of his own body parts to symbolize his conflicted relationship with a parent—the cutting off of hair to symbolize castration anxiety, to take an example, is then limited to analytical material from the Oedipal context. In later periods of development, the ‘castration anxiety’ may be expressed in symbols of loss of identity or of humiliation which do not necessarily involve a mutilation of body parts. Conversely, one symbol may express more than one idea and it is the various details minutiae of the context which determine whether a given image is symbolic and what exactly it is symbolic of.

  The caution is especially necessary in the case of the snake, which traditionally has been a symbol with multiple meanings. In religious beliefs around the world, the snake is both accursed and worshipped. Repository of all mysteries, representative of the chthonic powers of the underworld, epiphany of the moon, a symbol both of immortality and the threatening powers of death, symbolically the snake occupies a unique position in the animal world.9

  Psychologically, too, depending upon the context, the snake can symbolize a variety of meanings.10 Because of some of its real or perceived characteristics—extending itself, swelling and rearing up the head (cobra), penetrating into holes and crevices in the earth, secreting a fluid, evoking the tacky and clammy sensation associated with genitals—the snake has been traditionally considered the most important symbol of the male organ. There are, however, other contexts in which the snake is not a phallic symbol. Evoking its hidden aspects and the more python-rather than cobra-like associations of enveloping, strangling, incorporating, and swallowing small creatures, the snake can come to symbolize a devouring vagina, a dangerous femininity; its poison—a death in the coital embrace. In yet other contexts, it can be equated with the umbilicus which is a bridge to the womb, while its characterstic of sloughing off the old sin in exchange for a new one can come to represent change and transformation, the hope of psychic rebirth in therapy. It is then through the configuration of three contexts—of the narrative, of the culture, and of the symbolism associated with the snake, that we can arrive at a more careful interpretation of the serpent lover of our tale.

  The situation in which a newly married bride competes with another woman for the affections of her husband is not particularly novel in narratives of Indian gender relations. The theme of the souten, a co-wife or a mistress who rules the man’s heart and must be dislodged from this position, is the subject of many folktales as well as songs. In most tales, we are told the wife wins back her husband’s love by being patient, virtuous, and clever.11 She tricks her rival into revealing her flaws which puts her own attractiveness in sharp relief. The fantasy of the serpent lover, however, involves deeper layers of the woman’s psyche. In psychoanalytic parlance, it contains more id than ego material, which is generally true in folktales. The serpent lover appears in reaction to Princess Standing Lamp’s grievous disappointment in the prince at the beginning of their married life. The snake provides her with the status of motherhood which, for an Indian girl, consolidates her identity as a woman and can mean a significant improvement in her position in the politics of joint family life. The snake is the elusive fulfilment of both a romantic and social quest. It is the ‘good penis,’ the idealized phallus of the woman’s fantasy. This interpretation is fully consistent with the cultural symbolism of the snake where the worship of godlike naga deities is closely linked to sexuality and reproduction and is also supported by the serpent’s more universal phallic significance. We can see some of the underlying dynamics in this fantasy in a clinical vignette.

  A 25-year-old woman has been deeply worried about her husband’s evident romantic interest in another woman. She dreams that the man tells her he is going to spend the weekend with the woman. She protests violently, but her protestations have no effect on the man who goes off on his tryst. A group of gods, dressed as bandits, of whom she is not sure whose side they are on, follow the man. When she comes to the house where the husband has gone, she finds him lying dead on a hospital bed, his body badly mutilated, evidently killed by the bandit gods. Sitting on the man’s body is a wonderful snake, glistening, glittering, and studded with diamonds, and toward whom she feels a strong attraction.

  In the story, of course, the murderous rage felt by Princess Standing Lamp toward her philandering husband is completely absent, whereas in the dream it is half-heartedly sought to be disavowed by the device of the bandit-gods who may or may not be on the woman’s side, that is, may or may not be a part of her. Yet the outcome in both the dream and the story, the replacement of the disappointing real-life husband by an idealized serpent lover, is strikingly similar.

  The snake lover of our story differs significantly from the animal groom tales of Western folklore which have been a subject of psychological analysis by Bruno Bettelheim.12 In a reversal of the Indian pattern, the Western sexual partner is first experienced as an animal, a human being who has been turned
into a loathsome beast by a sorceress. He is not a product of the heroine’s disappointment in marriage. She is forced to join him while still a maiden because of her love or obedience to the father, and it is her devotion to her animal lover that disenchants him and gives him back his human form. Bettelheim interperts the European fairy tale as a message for the girl that to achieve a happy union the female has to overcome her view of sex as loathsome and animal-like. In my own interpretation of the snake lover as an idealized phallus, it may well be that idealization helps the girl overcome her childhood fears of the adult male organ which can lacerate and ‘bite’ into her inside. The ‘good penis’ helps her in the acceptance of a violation of her body’s boundaries, a violence inherent in the sexual act. The snake, after all, figures prominently in threats of chastisement directed toward the female child in some parts of India. But more important, given the radical changes in a girl’s situation brought about by marriage and the overwhelming nature of demands made on her by her new family, coupled with an inattentive or straying husband, the private yet culturally shared fantasy of the idealized phallus both consoles and eases her transition.

  The psychic transformation required in giving up the dreams of girlhood and settling into the reality of married womanhood then require the unconscious fantasy of the ‘good penis.’ Whoever this phallus may ultimately belong to—the father, a god, the ideal male—it can only serve as a transitional object. The snake, strangled in her tresses at night while she sleeps, must die as must her earlier dreams of love and passion before she can settle into conjugal domesticity and motherhood. Both the snake and the ‘good penis’—the one is the other—are then perpetually mourned in the secret recesses of her heart, their memory now incorporated in the son.

  My story of the snake wife derives from the arena of popular, mass culture. It is the 1987 movie, Nagina, said to be an all-time top grosser in the history of Indian cinema. Raju, the 21-year-old hero of the movie, returns home after a 15-year sojourn in England. He is the only son of a wealthy mother—his father having died while he was away—who was sent to England as a child to be treated there for inexplicable anxiety attacks. Raju was cured and stayed on with his uncle in London, where he grew up and went to school.