Bollywood brides and brothels
Bollywood directors, one observes a pattern in the sets and the costumes. You realise that there's a conflation of royal palaces and brothels. Queens, brides and prostitutes all look alike, dress alike, live in the same spaces, dance and sing for the pleasure of men.
A celebrity wedding looks no different — same sets, same costumes, the same desire for glamour. This is what relationships should look like in social media discourse — instagrammable, with friends, girlfriends, wives, mistresses, ex-lovers, secret lovers and escorts. The look matters. The same look in almost all cases.
The Kama Sutra draws attention to the tension between the monogamous housewife and the polygamous courtesan. The former has access to status, power, dignity and nobility while the latter has freedom, agency and enterprise. The two belong to very different worlds. This was part of Indian culture for over 2,000 years. This system was broken down brutally by the British with the support of nationalists, who saw the courtesan culture as a sign of corruption and debauchery. In this one aspect, the nationalists and the colonialists agreed.
In the Kama Sutra, the text proceeds dramatically, from the virgin to the wife to adultery to the courtesan to eventually to use of aphrodisiacs. It is a mature work on human sexual desire composed in 300 AD, when sex and sexuality were relatively out of the moral and ethical gaze. It speaks of being sensitive to the virgin and preparing them to enjoy intimacy. It warns against violence that can put people
