Asia Times: India rediscovers kama:
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It was the land of Mahabharat, the greatest epic known to mankind, where Lord Krishna, whose divine exhortations are contained in the Bhagwad Gita, could be worshipped with his beloved Radha, who was someone else’s spouse, perhaps that of his maternal uncle. It was the land of Khajuraho temples depicting copulating couples and multiples on its inner walls that prudes consider pornographic. It was the land of Kalidasa, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets who celebrated sex with an openness unparalleled in world literature.
With its decline, for some obscure reason ascribed to a natural cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations, India turned prudish and guilt-ridden about free sex. The introduction of Islamic and Judeo-Christian morality did not help. India ceased to be proud of Khajuraho and Kalidas. Krishna and Radha were still worshipped together, but children would not be told about their open illicit love affair. Both kama (sensual pleasure) and artha (wealth creation), the two essential aspects of the Indian way of life (dharma) suffered. India ceased being itself.
But as artha was revitalized with the introduction of new economic policies of liberalization and globalization and new technologies such as computers and the Internet in the early 1990s, it seems now that kama too has made a comeback. Perhaps the two go together.
Several sex surveys carried out recently point to a definite resurgence of guilt-free extramarital sex, as much on the initiative of women now as it was on the bidding of men before. Commenting on the findings of the KamaSutra Cross Tab Sex Survey 2003, conducted in association with Indiatimes, published on Thursday, sex expert Prakash Kothari said, “One can easily kiss that crummy era goodbye. A nation of 1 billion is getting sexy and kicking the guilt.” Psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh, MD, is jubilant: Finally, “it” is happening in India.