Abstract
In this book, the author, himself a clinician and with many books on Hindu mythology to his name, explores the various instances in the Hindu mythological stories, across scriptures and epics, both written and oral traditions, where the rigidly defined concept of gender becomes circumspect and more fluid. Stories, according to the author, are a medium to share humanity’s discoveries and inventions and connect to both the conscious as well as the subconscious mind. The term he likes to use is “queerness”, which questions what constitutes male and female. Starting with an all too relatable warning to the reader about the land where celibate men decide what is good and bad sex, the author makes a fair point that to understand what is queer, cultural filters are necessary; a behavior that might be considered queer in one culture may not be considered so in other cultures. Before getting to the Hindu stories, the author gives a nice overview of mythological tales from all over the world, including Aztecs, Vikings, ancient Mesopotamians, Sumerians, Egyptians, and so on, bringing to the fore the irony of near-universal homosexual oppression. He manages to bring about a sense of continuity from the tales from ancient times, where queerness is looked at in a neutral way or even celebrated, to the biblical tales, where though queerness is ever present but is looked down upon and invokes punishment, suggesting that the negativism for queerness is a relatively new phenomenon. It seems no coincidence that this looking down upon homosexuality began with the rise of monastic orders and valorization of celibacy across most cultures. The author draws an interesting analogy with how the rise of monastic orders, with monolithic faith, in the West, which probably has its roots in Southeast Asia, combined with the colonial influence, led to the rise of nation-states that place great importance on a constitution, like the commandments in a religion. The public, here, becomes the god and the judiciary, the all-seeing prophet. He is not convinced whether this ‘one rule for all’ is the most ‘rational’ thing to do and, hypothesizes, that the refusal to conform, which started with the Renaissance in the West, has led to women revolting against men, minorities against majority, and, similarly, the queer people coming out in parades refusing to stay invisible. The book smoothly transitions to the Hindu stories, with references to Jain and early Buddhist mythologies, as they have certain common ideas that are not seen in the Western mythologies, like the idea of ‘samsara’, the wheel of birth and death, and ‘karma’, implications of the past actions on the present. The author draws out tales from all over India and from many writings, including the popular ones such as Mahabharata and Ramayana and referring to popular gods, and seeing the names of the sources at the start of each story further increases the interest of the reader. The Hindu mythology makes references to queerness almost constantly. There are tales of men turning into women, women turning into men, men creating children without women, women creating children without men, children being born out of more than two parents, and creatures that are neither this nor that and bit of both like “Makara” (mix of fish and elephant) and “Yali” (mix of lion and elephant). The bullet points, at the end of each story, are a treat to read, giving the insights of the author and fascinating bits of trivia for example Kamasutra warns that conception with the woman on top can alter the sexuality of the child conceived. While telling the story of sexual union of Shiva and Vishnu, through his female form Mohini, the author makes a very valid point that the idea of two of the most prominent Hindu male deities having intercourse with each other and producing a child (Ayyappa) was not a cause of embarrassment until the Western world pointed out its queer nature. It is also very interesting to find out that the popular tales like that of Krishna and Radha have queer undertones as Krishna is Kali and Radha is Shiva’s avatar in some Hindu traditions. The author keeps the reader engaged with stories like that of Bhangashwana, who says that it is the female who derives more pleasure from the sexual intercourse, as Bhangashwana is someone who has been both male and female. One might even see Bhangashwana as a bisexual. Reading these stories one gets the impression that the gender had been considered a very fluid concept. This fluidity in our stories is commonly met with denial or may be explained away in metaphysical or supernatural terms, by those who frown upon queer behavior, and maybe the repeated renditions of these stories, often in texts written hundreds of years apart, are a gentle attempt by the sages to open up our restricted minds. These stories demand us to look at them with an open mind and call us out to look at all things that make us uncomfortable, as in author’s own words, ‘like the hijra’s clap’.