Title: Kama: The Riddle of Desire
Author: Gurcharan Das
Publisher: Penguin Books
Pages: 548
Price: Rs 799
The book Kama The Riddle Of Desire is a testimony to the fact that Gurcharan Das personifies a huge storehouse of knowledge. Well- versed in arcane mysticism and esoteric mythology, Das has consummately dwelled on the different aspect of Kama — a primordial instinct — which exists in every living being.
Broadly dividing this innate desire into opposite binaries — Kama optimistic and Kama Pessimistic — the narrative unfolds through an imaginary character Amar. Studying in a Christian school under the tutelage of Puritanical teachers, he is first confronted with the pessimistic side of Kama. And when, at home, his Kama pessimist father gets the inkling about his amorous longings for Isha, a bewitchingly beautiful daughter of their family friends, he exhorts his son to suppress his Cupid inflamed passions and stick to the principle of celibacy as long as the latter does not tie the sacred nuptial knot. Undoubtedly, many societies have put pre-marital and extra-marital sexual escapades under the scanner of Victorian morality.
By stowing Kama in the category of one of the seven deadly sins, most of the religious philosophies also give credence to the notion that sex is a great impediment in the way of one’s spiritual growth and ultimate salvation. It is just for procreation but not for recreation. Contrary to the idea, the book also celebrates the optimistic aspect of Kama as the source of chief bliss which has been glorified to the hilt( through the delineation of the characters like Ganja smoking Pundit). The libido (later called Eros) is considered to be the driving energy of the life instinct in the Freudian frame. But having read this book one certainly begins to wonder, what makes Das think of writing a tome on a subject that has, in fact, lost its originality despite being the elan vital of human existence?
Nowadays, a peculiar trend is going on. You initiate a subject and others follow it in toto. Pavan Verma wrote on Vatsyayan’s Kamasutra a few years ago. That galvanised Das to come up with this treatise on Kama. But the author’s redemption lies in the fact that despite quoting a passage over passage from the Greek, the Hindu and the Christian mythologies and also the references from Plato, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, Turgenev, Proust, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Manto etc., he has been able to weave each passage into the corpus of the book seamlessly.
His description of Kama acts as an eye-opener to the retrograde individuals with prudish mindsets. Kama is the essence of life. But it is not the Kama (a mere sexual activity) perceived by the masses. Kama is the sum total of all that is aesthetic in life and that can make life meaningful. In other words, Kama has an all-encompassing ambit.
Indeed, the writer’s showers of erudition do not tire a reader with an appetite for philosophical exploration. Rather they broaden his/her horizon about the various manifestations of human desires. But if any reader lays his/her hands on this blend of philosophy and fiction with the prime purpose of getting just pastime pleasures, he/she is bound to lose his/her marbles.
All said and done, Kama could have been a very readable book for all the classes of the readers, had it contained less repetitions and mind-boggling allusions. The author should have resorted to a direct approach and avoided slipping into circumlocution.
