The Ascetic of Desire

Download or read book The Ascetic of Desire written by Sudhir Kakar and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2001-06 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time is the fourth century AD, the golden age of Indian history. The locale: an ashram in the woods a little outside Varanasi. Every morning, Vatsyayana, author of the Kamasutra, recounts stories from his childhood and youth to a young pupil who plans to write the great sage's biography. Little is known of Vatsyayana's life, and the young scholar puts the pieces together in his mind along with relevant slokas of erotic wisdom from the Kamasutra, which he has learnt by heart. The story that unfolds is fascinating. Vatsyayana's mother Avantika and her sister Chandrika are famous courtesans in a brothel at Kausambi. From them and their various lovers Vatsyayana gains his first indelible impressions of sexual artifice. With characteristic insight, Kakar plumbs the psychological depths of a plethora of characters who are at various stages of discovering their sexual identities. What emerges is a powerful narrative of lust and sensuality imbued with an old-world charm and a surprising sense of irony.