Infinite Variety

by Madhavi Menon

  As though responding to this British view of tantra yoga, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev takes care to separate the lewdness from the transcendentalism:

  People always try to take recourse in the Krishna-Gopi relationship. As the legend goes, Krishna gave an orgasmic experience to 16,000 women simultaneously. This cannot happen with sexual union. A shishya can establish a very intimate relationship with a Guru. Intimacy is generally understood only as two bodies touching. The body is not intimate enough for one who is on the spiritual path. The physical body is an accumulation from outside, so in the tantric and yogic systems, the body is never considered an intimate part of you. Only when energies meet and mingle and a Guru’s energies overwhelm and override the shishya’s energies, it leads to an orgasmic experience—a union, but not of the sexual kind.

  Yoga’s relation to desire, then, is a multi-layered one. It seems clear that yoga re-channels sexual desire into lasting bliss of a non-sexual kind. But it seems equally clear that this non-sexual bliss can only be apprehended in, and has to be routed through, the mode of sexual bliss—what Sadhguru calls ‘orgasmic’ desire. In fact, both sukha and yoga are closely related etymologically—they derive from words that describe the beneficial joining of the hole and the axle. Sukha and yoga are both blissful, and replete with fulfilled desire. They acknowledge desire, but also want to clean it. They invoke ancient texts but also cater to timeless desires. They fit the axle of the head into the hole of the body.

  The desire for India—for its ancientness, its ‘wisdom’, its beauty—is now inextricably bound up with a desire for yoga. As an indicator of this inextricability, global celebrity involvement in India has tended for many decades to be routed through a desire for yoga. From the Beatles’ sojourn with the Maharishi to Marilyn Monroe being photographed in yoga poses, from Beyonce’s figure to Madonna’s spirituality, from George Clooney’s body to Jack Kerouac’s prose, yoga has been the gateway drug for an interest in an ‘authentic’ India. The syncretic history of yoga—Hindu and Muslim—has been made only more cosmopolitan over the years. It is now also English, American, Russian, vegetarian, non-vegetarian, sexual, non-sexual, hot and served at room temperature. Everyone, it seems, desires yoga.

  8

  Suicides

  But,

  I must pose.

  I must pretend,

  I must act the role

  Of happy woman,

  Happy wife.

  I must keep the right distance

  Between me and the low.

  And I must keep the right distance

  Between me and the high.

  O sea, I am fed up

  I want to be simple

  I want to be loved

  And

  If love is not to be had,

  I want to be dead, just dead.

  —Kamala Das, ‘The Suicide’

  The history of ‘love suicides’ runs deep in India, and is represented by tales of intense desire. In some versions of a story told about Shiva, his first wife Sati kills herself so she can be reborn to a different father who will approve of her husband. Sati’s father, Daksha, is a rich king who looks down upon Shiva’s ascetic life and does not consider it good enough for his daughter. He insults Shiva, and does not invite him to a sacrificial yagna that he organizes and to which he invites all the other gods. Sati insists on attending anyway, without Shiva, and commits suicide at the yagna itself. And indeed, after her love suicide, Sati is reborn as Parvati and becomes Shiva’s ‘second’ wife.

  In 16th-century Rajasthan, Mirabai ‘merges’ with the idol of Krishna in a temple in Dwaraka. Persecuted for wandering about in public and writing love songs to Krishna, Mirabai finally settles in Dwaraka, thought to be the birthplace of Krishna. Legend has it that the new ruler of Mewar, Udai Singh, sent a contingent of Brahmins in 1547 to bring her back to her home state. When they reach Dwaraka, Mirabai asks them to give her one night before complying with their wishes and returning with them to Mewar. During the night, she merges with the idol of Krishna, and is not to be seen again. This is a classic example in the Bhakti-Sufi tradition of becoming one with a god who is also the object of desire. Nothing can now separate Mira from her beloved Krishna.

  Love suicides in India are thus paradoxical events. Lovers are ostracized for mating outside their caste or religion or within their gender. They are threatened with violence. Suicides are occasioned by social, sexual, religious, regional and even linguistic divisions. They are seen by the lovers as the end of the line—that beyond which nothing exists. But in India, the strong belief in rebirth (for Hindus), and the deep desirability of merging with the Beloved (for Muslims and Hindus), makes love suicide resonate in more than one key. Suicide might be the end, but it is also the desired beginning—the point after which love can bloom without inhibition. Love suicides are viewed with horror but also accorded respect. They take a stand—it is the lovers against the world, and the lovers win in the long-term. Pain and helplessness mingle here with desire and agency. Death in a love suicide parts the lovers from the world but never from one another. In the reports, myths and tales reproduced below from multiple traditions developed over many centuries, we see this overlap between the pain and desirability of suicide. The lovers hover between shame and triumph, giving in and holding out, losing their lives and winning their loves.

  * * *

  Valmiki, the ‘Sundara Kandam’ from the Ramayana (2nd centuries BCE-CE):

  ‘Separated from you, reduced to bones, with no blood in the body, and having no further chance of meeting you, I, that chaste wife, am in a desperate situation, and the vow of chastity that I have observed, and the rule of having only one wife which you have been observing, have both become meaningless and vain. I pray from the bottom of my heart that you at least may return safe to your country and rest in happiness... O Rama! I am one whose mental functions have always rested on you exclusively. But still, unfortunate that I am, my austerity and vow have proved to be fruitless. So I have resolved to commit suicide. I should have ended my life quickly with poison or a sharp instrument, but in this city of Rakshasas there is no one to procure me poison or a sharp sword.’ Bemoaning her fate thus in many ways and with her body trembling and mouth dried, and also remembering Rama constantly in her mind, Sita Devi approached that great flowering Simsupa tree. Then expressing her sorrow in many ways and deeply immersed in grief, she held her braid of lock and said, ‘I am going to the abode of Yama this very moment, strangling myself with the binding cords of my braid of locks.’ Saying so, she who was noted for the beauty of all her limbs stood there for a moment holding a branch of that tree.

  * * *

  Waris Shah, ‘Hir-Ranjha’ (1766), translated by Charles Frederick Usborne:

  [Hir, more commonly spelt as Heer, is a beautiful woman born into a wealthy Jat family of the Sial tribe in Jhang (now in Pakistan Punjab). Ranjha is also a Jat of the Ranjha tribe, who leaves home after a quarrel with his brothers. Ranjha reaches Heer’s village and falls in love with her. Heer’s father offers Ranjha a job herding his cattle. Heer becomes mesmerized by the way Ranjha plays his flute and eventually falls in love with him. They meet each other secretly for many years until they are caught by Heer’s jealous uncle, Kaidu. Heer is forced by her family to marry another man named Saida Khera. Ranjha is heartbroken. He wanders the countryside alone as an ascetic and eventually arrives at the village where Heer now lives. The two lovers return to Heer’s village, where Heer’s parents agree to their marriage. However, on the wedding day...]

  * * *

  And the brethren said to Kaidu, ‘Brother, you are right. Our honour and your honour are one. All over the world we are taunted with the story of Hir. We shall lose fame and gain great disgrace if we send the girl off with the shepherd. Let us poison Hir, even if we become sinful in the sight of god. Does not Hir always remain sickly and poor in health?’

  So Kaidu in his evil cunning came and sat down beside Hir and said, ‘My daughter, you must be brave and pat
ient.’ Hir replied, ‘Uncle, what need have I of patience?’ And Kaidu replied, ‘Ranjha has been killed. Death with a glittering sword has overtaken him.’

  And hearing Kaidu’s words Hir sighed deeply and fainted away. And the Sials gave her sherbet and mixed poison with it and thus brought ruin and disgrace on their name. The parents of Hir killed her. This was the doing of god. When the fever of death was upon her, she cried out for Ranjha saying, ‘Bring Ranjha here that I may see him once again.’ And Kaidu said, ‘Ranjha has been killed; keep quiet or it will go ill with you.’

  They buried her and sent a message to Ranjha saying, ‘The hour of destiny has arrived. We had hoped otherwise but no one can escape the destiny of death. Even as it is written in the Holy Quran, “Everything is mortal save only God.”’

  They sent a messenger with the letter and he left Jhang and arrived at Hazara, and he entered the house of Ranjha and wept as he handed the letter. Ranjha asked him, ‘Why this dejected air? Why are you sobbing? Is my beloved ill? Is my property safe?’ The messenger sighed and said, ‘That dacoit death from whom no one can escape has looted your property. Hir has been dead for the last eight watches. They bathed her body and buried her yesterday and as soon as they began the last funeral rites, they sent me to give you the news.’

  On hearing these words Ranjha heaved a sigh and the breath of life forsook him.

  Thus both lovers passed away from this mortal world and entered into the halls of eternity. Both remained firm in love and passed away steadfast in true love. Death comes to all.

  * * *

  Heer-Ranjha’s tomb in Jhang, now in Pakistan.

  Photo by Khalid Mahmood. Source: Wikimedia Commons

  Shakuntala Devi, The World of Homosexuals (1977), p. 117:

  Homosexuals have been oppressed in all societies. They have been considered the negation of heterosexuality and of the nuclear family structure, and as such they have been driven from their jobs, families, education, and sometimes from life itself.

  * * *

  Ruth Vanita, Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West (2005), p. 141:

  In India, the idea that no one can separate those destined to be together is very powerful and is interwoven with the idea of love-death. In the 1988 film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (From One Apocalypse to Another), two feuding families react with great hostility when the daughter of one and the son of the other fall in love. The girl’s family tries to forcibly marry her off to another man. The lovers then elope and marry each other without witnesses, by garlanding one another in a ruined temple. This is a modern representation of a gandharva marriage. The woman’s family sends hired killers to kill her lover but by mistake they kill her, whereupon he commits suicide. Her dying words to him, ‘Now nobody can separate me from you,’ invoke the normative Hindu idea that death does not sever attachments. Almost identical words are found in every same-sex couple’s suicide note.

  * * *

  Meerut, TheTimes of India, 11 January 2006; ‘Girl Attempts Suicide over Lesbian Marriage’:

  Chafed by her family’s opposition to her same-sex marriage, an 18-year-old girl on Wednesday attempted suicide by consuming insecticide and was admitted to a nursing home in Kankerkhera.

  The two, who have grown up in the same locality and known each other for several years, ‘solemnized’ the marriage at a Shiva temple in Kankerkhera after which the girl brought her 20-year-old ‘bride’ with ‘sindoor’ (vermillion) on her head to live in her Jawaharpuri house on Tuesday evening. The family, however, disapproved of the union and sent the bride back to her house in Badam Mandi. The ‘groom’ was then locked inside a room and allegedly consumed some insecticide kept there. She was rushed to a private nursing home where her stomach was flushed out. Doctors attending on her said she was out of danger but kept under observation. The girl said at the nursing home that the two had made a choice and would continue to live together. She said they had been ‘living as husband and wife’ for the last five years.

  A probe had been ordered into the incident, District Magistrate Rama Krishan said. No police report had yet been filed in this connection, Senior Superintendent of Police Rajiv Ranjan Verma said, ‘Prima facie, no case has been filed but we are seeking the legal opinion on the matter.’ Affronted by the lesbian marriage, VHP and Shiv Sena activists staged a demonstration in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office.

  * * *

  Chennai, TheTimes of India, 22 May 2008; ‘Tragic End for Lesbian Couple Tormented by Family Pressure’:

  A lesbian couple who committed suicide by setting themselves on fire have been put to rest in a joint cremation this week. Christy Jayanthi Malar (38) and Rukmani (40) set themselves ablaze after their families took objection to their ‘unnatural’ relationship.

  It has been reported that the two women had suffered years of torment from their families who objected to the closeness of the couple. Although being in a relationship since their school days the women both had husbands.

  This is common in India where there are huge social and legal pressures to live a heterosexual lifestyle. The alarm was raised when smoke was seen coming from Mrs Malar’s home. When neighbours went in they found the bodies of the two women held in an embrace.

  It is thought that the women committed suicide after an argument that Rukmani had with her relatives. Police told reporters that the two doused themselves in kerosene before setting themselves alight. In an ironic twist, the families who tried to separate them agreed for the bodies to be laid to rest in a joint cremation.

  A senior police [official] told The Times of India: ‘We can’t say the relatives pushed the women into suicide. They might have verbally abused them, but that was to bring them back to normal life.’

  * * *

  Kochi, Mathrubhumi, 27 June 2008; ‘Youth and Student Immolate Themselves’:

  A youth running a barber shop, and his friend, a student, have been discovered dead due to burns in a rented house. Sivanarayanan (32), from Perumbilavu in Trichur, presently residing near Ajantha Theatre in Pandikkudi, Mattancherry (Kochi) and Deepak (17), son of Srikesh, R.G. Pai Road, are the deceased and their badly charred bodies were spotted in a room of the rented house Sivanarayanan had been occupying. The incident seems to have taken place at around 3 a.m. on Thursday (26th). Both the bodies have been completely burnt. Police recovered a petrol can from the precincts. Police assumes that the two, who were intimate friends, had committed suicide together.

  Deepak’s family had been objecting to his relationship with Sivanarayanan. As a result, Deepak had even attempted to run away from his house a few days back. On Wednesday, Deepak had been watching TV till 12 at night and must have sneaked out after that to go to Sivanarayanan’s house. Police added that he had even created a human shape on his bed with a pillow and covered it with a blanket to avert the suspicion of his family.

  The police have come to the conclusion that the trauma caused by his family’s discovery of his unnatural relationship with Sivanarayanan must be the reason for his suicide. Sivanarayanan, who came from Perumbilavu to Kochi a few years back, had been running three barber shops in the city.

  * * *

  Vijaydan Detha, ‘Chouboli’ (Oral tale, written down in 2010):

  Once there was a village where a Rajput and a Jat lived. They were the best of friends. They spent every moment of the day and every moment of the night as close to each other as shadows... The two had their houses built next to each other on adjoining plots. The love they had for each other was deeper than that of brothers.

  When the Rajput went with the Jat for his mukhlavau to retrieve his bride from her parents’ home, his friend’s in-laws treated him better than their own son-in-law... After a few days it was time to set out for the Rajput’s mukhlavau... The whole journey the Rajput couldn’t stop wondering how his in-laws would treat his friend. It would be horrible if they were to slight him in any way. When they drew close to a temple, he stopped the carriage. The Rajput was a devotee of Guile
less Mahadev. The Rajput stood before the image of Shankar Bhagwan with folded hands and prayed that his in-laws would attend to his friend with the same care and concern as they would to him. He pledged an eleven-rupee offering that everything might turn out just as he hoped. But he vowed that if there was any discrimination, he would come back to take his life at that very spot.

  The Rajput’s in-laws received the Jat as coolly as they would a menial. They treated him just like a servant. They discriminated against him in the way they served the food, in the way they served the drinks, in the way they talked to him. The Rajput’s heart went out like a snuffed candle.

  On the way back he stopped the carriage in front of the Shiva temple. He stood in front of the image of Guileless Shankar and pulled his sword out of its scabbard with a swoosh. And without stopping to ponder his resolution, he drew his sword across his neck. Blood pooled on the floor in puddles.

  The Jat waited a while and then went into the temple himself. And the sight he saw no one should ever have to witness! When he saw the red blood flowing from his friend’s body, his face went white as a ghost’s. There was no need to think any further. He grabbed the same sword to slice his own neck and fell next to his friend. While alive, both friends’ hearts beat as one. Now even their blood began to mingle. They began to dissolve into one another.

  * * *

  Lucknow, Express News Service, 19 May 2016; ‘Man Kills Self, “Wife” Consumes Poison at Grave’:

  A 22-year-old woman on Wednesday attempted suicide at the grave of a Muslim man in Muzaffarnagar, a day after he died allegedly after consuming poison. Danish Qureshi, 25, had reportedly committed suicide Monday when his parents refused to let him marry the woman who is a Hindu. The woman, who had reached Muzaffarnagar from Uttarakhand, was rushed to hospital by people present at the graveyard. Her condition is stated to be stable.

  On Monday, Danish came to Muzaffarnagar to discuss with his parents his plans to marry the woman. A heated exchange followed and Danish left home. When he returned home in the evening, his condition had started deteriorating. He had allegedly consumed some poisonous substance and died before the family could take him to a hospital. The family buried the body without informing the police.