AHALYA - Thou art synonym for adultery or Indra's victim

AHALYA  -  Thou art synonym for adultery or Indra’s victim

 

          

                                                                         

*****Adultery is the end of all trust with that person who indulges in it.  Fidelity is a much revered and safeguarded virtue.  A strong and lasting relationship lies in the fidelity of the partners.

Brahma, the creator god utilizing most of his time including the leisure time and creative energy given life to the most beautiful maiden namely Ahalya the princess.   She was the most beautiful of feminine creations, an envy for both the material world and the celestial beings.  She was the most beautiful woman in the entire world.  She was married to a sage much older in age to her called Sage Gautama.  Lord Indra (the king of all the gods) was fascinated by her beauty and used to ogle at her while she was plucking flowers in her hermitage garden.  He used to spy on her in his flying horse which used to hover around sage Gautama’s Ashram situated near the river Godavari.  Indra driven by love, sex and desire lusted after the beauty of sage Gautama’s wife Ahalya and was waiting for an opportunity to satiate and consummate his passion.

                                                  Mallu painter Raja Ravi Varmas’s  Ahalya.  

(In fact, Raja Ravi Varma gifted Hindus a portrait to worship by giving a current visual form to adore Hindu gods in human replica.)

Not willing to wait any more, one day he appeared in sage Gautama’s hermitage in the dead of night and crowed like a rooster to wake up the sage from his sleep and make him to mistake that it was dawn.  An unsuspecting sage Gautama woke up and set out for the river to bath and then to proceed to the mountains for meditation as was his daily routine and rituals. 

Once the sage was out in the river,  Indra disguised as the sage Gautama went to his home and woos Ahalya to have sex with him thus consummating his desire to be in the arms of Ahalya and passionately ravishes her beauty.  Ahalya though sensed something fishy was overpowered by the tricks of Indra and surrendered to him and she too enjoyed the act.  There was burning desire and fire under the belly that they made steamy and lustful sex.   Lord Indra enjoyed fully the best and most beautiful creation of Bramah and satiated his sexual desire.

The sage Gautama with his inner eyes saw that Ahalya was in trouble and steadied his steps towards the hermitage.  He sensed that he was duped and it was not yet dawn.  The sages are blessed with the instincts to realize and observe things due to their ascetic life which is not possible for ordinary mortals.  They had the power of both boons and banes.  They can curse even a god in human form and destroy or disfigure him.

The more he advanced towards his hermitage he became increasingly suspicious about the foul play.  In the hermitage he caught both Indra disguised in his form and Ahalya in intimate position and was enjoying the act.  He caught them red handed and cursed both Ahalya and Indra.  The woman who did adultery was ordered to go deeper in the forest and to become a stone.  A terrified Ahalya pleaded her innocence and was told to his husband that she was tricked by Indra.  Sage Gautama given a boon to Ahalya that Lord Rama when he travel across this forest one day will brush his feet on you and you will be forgiven and liberated to regain your feminine form.

He cursed the fleeing Indra after spotting Sage Gautama in the form of a cat to have thousand vulvas in his body and that he will be castrated.  The testicles of Indra was fallen on the ground and was replaced by that of a ram (lamb) thereafter.  The Lord Indra was ashamed with thousand vaginas all over his body by the curse of Gautama to repent his dastardly act of seducing a married woman.  Lord Indra later taking bath in river Godavari which caressed the stone of Ahalya got his body full of vaginas to transform into thousand eyes.

Who can forgive a woman who has done adultery which was the end of all trust ?

It took sixty thousand years to finally Ram (an avatar of God Vishnu)  to travel by that forest near the river Godavari and brush against the stone and give Ahalya the “shapmoksh”(reprieve or liberation from the curse).  Sage Vishwamitra who was escorting Rama to the King of Janaka along with his younger brother Lakshman and wife Sita asked him a question.

“If you, heir of Raghu clan, Prince of Ayodhya, touch her without judgement, she will be liberated from her curse,” said Vaishwamitra.

“But isn’t adultery the worst of crimes, for it marks the end of trust?  Renuka was beheaded for just thinking about another man; this is far worse,” said Lakshman.

‘How much punishment is fair punishment? Who decides what is enough? A king needs to intervene, balance his ruthlessness with compassion.’

Ram immediately touched the rock that was Ahalya.  It moved. He stepped away and she materialzed, letting out a sigh, and then a wail, for she had been relieved of her burden of shame.

Gautama appeared from the shadows, looking confused, happy to have his wife back, yet unable to forget his humiliation.

‘Let go of your self-pity and your rage, noble sage.   Let the knots of your mind unbind until aham gives you atma.  Only then will be able to restore your hermitage and bring back joy to your world,’ said Ram with a demeanour of a king.

Guatama stretched out his hand.  Ahalya, once beautiful, now gaunt, paused for a moment, and then accepted it.  Vishwamitra poured water over their joined hands so the two could start life afresh.

A curious Mandavi wondered why fidelity is so important in marriage. The rakshasa women, she had heard, did not restrict themselves to her husbands and the rakshasa men did not restrict themselves to their wives.  In nature all kinds of union existed: swans were faithful to each other, the male monkey had a harem of females that he jealously guarded, the queen bee had many lovers. Why then was fidelity so important to the Rishis?

‘It is a measure of how satisfied we are with the offerings of the spouse. The dissatisfied seek satisfaction elsewhere,’ said Vishwamitra.

‘I shall always strive to find all my satisfactions in a single wife,’ declared Ram.

‘What if your wife doesn’t find satisfaction in you?’ asked Vishwamitra, eager to hear the response of the prince.  But it was a princess who responded.

‘If she is wise, she will accommodate the inadequacy. If he is wise, he will strive to grow,’ said Sita, still looking at Ahalya and the hesitant tenderness of Gautama.

 AHALYA -  a 14 minute short film by the famous Bong and Bollywood Director Sujoy Ghosh.

It is a challenge to make an epic thriller in such a short duration.  Ghosh's short film is competent and has a certain mysterious charm.  It certainly attracts repeat audience.   It has already enjoyed 5.45 million views in You Tube since its release in July, 2015.  

After watching Sujoy Ghosh’s Bollywood offering “KAHANI” which enjoyed much fanfare and critical acclaim, the writer‘s curiosity was aroused for his future contributions.

Ahalya is an Indian short film which is a modern adaptation of the mythical story of Ahalya, but with a feminist angle to it. 

 

  

The director succeeded in presenting Radhika Apte the actor in the role of “Ahalya” alluringly seductive and an enchantress with irresistible charm.  She was sensuous throughout the film and had the desired aura of the killer instinct.  Her golden anklets adds to magnifying  her beauty who a clad in her slip as she climb the stairs followed by the policeman.  The heroine ‘Ahalya’ is married to an ageing artist who knows he is unable to sexually satisfy his wife.    He finds a way to make his wife enjoy life by attracting young and handsome men to his studio and making them game for his wife’s libido.  The story narrates the criminal plot hatched by the old man and turning the victims into dolls.  The table in his living room has a magical stone covered by glass which if touched by a person can lead to fatal liaison and then becoming figurines.  In one of the sequence when a figurine falls down Ahalya calls it naughty with a mischievous smile.

The movie is a rip-off from the epic “Ramayana” featuring a beautiful princess called Ahalya and her old husband, a sage called Gautama and a fatal attraction towards her by the king of all the gods, the Lord of heavens, Indra.   We have already discussed the relevance of the epic and how the movie title justifies the name “Ahalya”.

The Lord Indra’s role is essayed by a young police inspector called Indra Sen.  Indra Sen (Tota Roy Chowdhury) knocks the door of artist ‘Gautam Sadhu’ (veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee) to investigate the mysterious and sudden disappearance of a young and handsome model ‘Arjun’ who last visited the artist’s studio.

Indra Sen serious and duty bound finally caves in to the trap of husband-wife duo.  The arrangement was slowly liked by the artist’s wife and she started enjoying the game which was masterminded by her husband who was incapable of satiating her libido.  The number of figurines in their show-case increases by day by day and the investigating cop too becomes a target.

Plot

A young policeman Indra Sen comes to the home of a famous ageing artist Goutam Sadhu investigating a case of a missing man Arjun. There he is greeted by his young and beautiful wife whom he mistook for his daughter.  The old man introduces her as his wife with a certain glee and mischief in the corner of his eyes.  The missing man's doll-version is placed on the mantelpiece, along with other dolls, who Sadhu tells him had been modelling for himself. A stone is also placed there in a glass case. Sadhu tells the policeman that the stone has magical qualities and that anybody who touches it turns into whosoever he or she wishes to. He tells the policeman that Arjun knew about it and suggests that he might have used it. The policeman does not believe him initially but agrees to try it when the old man dares him to.  He goes up to hand his mobile over to Ahalya, who addresses him seductively as her husband.  She asks him to shoo away the policeman and come back to her. He plays along with her only to find himself cast in stone like other dolls placed on the same mantelpiece.

       



Auteur Sujoy Ghosh

Inspirations -

The film takes elements from the mythological story of Ahalya from Ramayana but crafts a modern version of it with a spin. In the original tale the young and beautiful Ahalya is seduced by Indra (the king of all the gods), and is cursed by much older husband sage Gautama to turn into a stone. But in the retelling of the story in the film, the punishment is visited on the character based on Indra alone, while the woman is shown to be an accomplice in the seduction game.  Our earlier mention of it as a modern adaptation of the mythical story of Ahalya with a feminist angle to it.

The film has shades of The Collection, an episode from The Twilight Zone TV series and of Satyajit Ray's short story Professor Shonku and Strange Dolls and also of Alma, an animated short film.

There isn't really much suspense in Sujoy Ghosh's Ahalya. Not that this matters. Ghosh's short film is competent and has a certain eerie charm. Even if you guess the end, you’ll give it the 14 minutes it asks of you because the old Kolkata home looks beautiful, legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee is in it and Ghosh has succeeded in setting his story in a world that looks normal but feels weird.

As the title of the short film suggests, Ahalya is a contemporary take on a Hindu legend about infidelity. Many of us are familiar with Ahalya’s story, thanks to Ramanand Sagar's teleserial Ramayana and perhaps some Amar Chitra Katha comics. Ghosh’s retelling appears to be a “bold”, modern version – an Ahalya who doesn’t melodramatically weep because she’s had sex with a man other than her husband, an Ahalya with a touch of evil in her. At first glance, Ghosh’s Ahalya seems to be unadulterated contemporary, but spend a little time with the myths, and you’ll realize that the ancient storytellers may still be cleverer and more sophisticated than our contemporary auteur.  It is surely a rip-off from the epic Ramayana.

       

       

There are at least five different versions of Ahalya, Gautam and Indra's sex triangle floating around the treasure trove of stories that is Hindu mythology. The most widely-known version is from Ramayana, but all of them have the same barebones. Ahalya is the beautiful, young wife of the old sage Gautama. Indra sees her and becomes lust-addled. When Gautam leaves his home, Indra appears, disguised as Gautama, and makes love to Ahalya. Ahalya realises she's been deceived when the real Gautama returns home and the fake Gautama is still in her bed.

Furious at being cuckolded, Gautama curses Indra (who has, for some inexplicable reason, turned into a cat) and Ahalya.   Indra (by now, de-felined) becomes sahasrabhagavat — or one with 1,000 vulvas. This curse is eventually turned into something arguably more useful for the leader of the devas: the vulvas turn into eyes, allowing him to somewhat literally keen an eye on everything. Or at least 1,000 things. (And just like that, in an astoundingly prescient transition that is richly prophetic, Indra goes from sex-obsessed to potentially creepy voyeur.)

                                                                      Radhika Apte

Ahalya points out to Gautama that she had been deceived and that she couldn't have seen through Indra's disguise. While Gautama accepts this, the fact that Ahalya had sex with a man other than her husband makes her impure and so she too is cursed – to be a stone for 60,000 years, in the Ramayana version. In another, she's reduced to a skeletal hag. One of the earliest retellings says that Ahalya was turned into a dried-up river. This may be the reason Indra after taking holy dip in the river Godavari got thousand eyes in his body than vulvas.

Although the Ramayana is what has kept Ahalya’s story in circulation, if you equate authenticity with age, the version involving Rama isn’t the ‘original’. Ahalya, Gautama and Indra’s affair appears in older texts, like Brahmapurana, which gives us some back-story, including details of how Gautama and Ahalya were married.

In Brahmapurana, we find out that Ahalya was Gautama’s student for years. Indra and the other gods wanted to marry Ahalya when she came of marriageable age, but Gautama won her hand, thanks to his punning abilities (No, seriously - pun intended).

Brahma, Ahalya’s creator and father figure, decreed that the one who could go around the earth fastest would marry Ahalya. All the gods raced off to perform this feat. Gautama went to the divine cow Surabhi, who was pregnant, and walked in a circle around her. Because there’s a word for pregnant in Sanskrit whose alternate meaning is “earth”. Just to play it safe, Gautama also made his way around a Shiva lingam. Then he showed up and asked Brahma for Ahalya's hand in marriage.

Brahma, ever appreciative of geekiness, decided Gautama’s version of circumambulation was acceptable and so, by the time Indra and the other devas returned, Gautama and Ahalya were man and wife. Indra was furious, but could do nothing about it since Brahma had given Gautama the go-ahead.

Later, when rumours reach Indra of how Ahalya is in a state of marital bliss with Gautam, he decides to go down to earth and see for himself. And the story follows the familiar path of lust, disguise and curses. Indra’s punishment is the same across versions, but in Brahmapurana, Ahalya is cursed to become a dried river and there's no mention of Rama. Gautama decrees that Ahalya will regain her human body once her cursed form is able to join the river that washes sin away, the Gautami. So it happened, we’re told.

Somewhere along the way, someone decided that the Ahalya story was a good one to slip into the Ramayana (and the Mahabharata). What is it about this thoroughly domestic story that made the ancient bards think it belonged in epics about heroes, kingship, war and colonisation?

The most obvious connection is between Sita in the Ramayana and Ahalya. Aside from being flawlessly beautiful, they share an unusual connection through their names. Sita — furrow in Sanskrit — is named so because she was found at the tip of a plough. Ahalya's name contains the Sanskrit word for plough. Both women live in the forest after marriage. Sita has a short stint in Ayodhya's palaces before heading out with her husband Rama for his vanavas (exile). Ahalya lived with Gautama in Brahmagiri, a pastoral idyll that is believed to be in today's Western Ghats. Both these women's beauty drew the attention of a king — Indra, in Ahalya's case; in Sita's, Ravana.

Ravana initially tries to seduce Sita by appearing before her in his natural form. One version of the Ahalya story says Indra did the same. He praised Ahalya’s beauty in eloquent poetry, trying to woo her with words. But Sita and Ahalya reject these kings who attempt to impress them with their might, and swear fidelity to their un-royal husbands. Indra and Ravan both respond with deception. They give up their youth and virility, and disguise themselves as old men. Indra takes on Gautama's form while Ravana pretends to be an old beggar. Both of them appeal to the women's morality. Ahalya is being a good wife because as far as she’s concerned, she’s having sex with (and initiated by) her husband. Sita crosses the lakshmanrekha to give alms to the needy.

Later, despite Gautama saying she's impure, Ahalya's virtue is not besmirched. She proves her innocence. Sita faces similar charges of impurity and she too clears her name and reputation. They also survive years in wilderness because of their husbands' lack of trust. Sita is abandoned in the forest while Ahalya is all alone in her cursed shape (neither a rock nor a dried-up river have much by way of company). Effectively, they're silenced and kept away from society where they could, perhaps, be seen or heard.

To think someone noticed the parallels between the stories of these two women and inserted Ahalya’s story in the Ramayana is a fascinating idea and one that becomes all the more intriguing when you realize that there was clearly an effort made to ensure Ahalya’s story wasn’t edited out of the epic. To ensure it would remain in Ramayana, a thoroughly tenuous link was forged between Ahalya and Ram. Her punishment changes as does her redemption, in which the young prince Rama is cast as her saviour. And so Ahalya stands in the Ramayana, unforgotten. We don’t know who inserted her into either the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, and neither can we authoritatively claim the reason behind that decision.

What we can do, however, is wonder and interpret. Because wound into an epic that reeks of testosterone, aggression and masculine strength is the story of a woman who is wronged by the man who marries her and used by another man who claims to be in love with her. Perhaps it’s a word of warning that in the games of masculine posturing, the victim and the pawn is the woman. This was true in the golden age with Ahalya, when Indra’s wounded ego demanded he have the last hurrah in his competition against Gautama. It happens again, 60,000 years later, when Sita is ostensibly the reason that Rama goes to war against Ravana. Yet when the war is over, he rejects her as impure even though she’s been faithful to him. It’s almost as though the narrator is suggesting – albeit with great subtlety – that some things don’t change with time.  This shows Rama’s double standards.  In one way he liberate Ahalya from the shame and at the same time doubt his wife Sita ‘s chastity who was forcibly abducted by Ravana.

Ostensibly, Ahalya’s story is a rap on the knuckles of any woman who strays, and of course it is. But at the same time, it also points out all the ways in which women were (and continue to be) restrained and straitjacketed. Even though he is her teacher and knows of her intellectual prowess, all Gautama – and those hearing the tale – can see in Ahalya is her beautiful body and how that beauty is bound to drive a man insane with lust. Intriguingly, Ahalya’s story is never told without mentioning the curse that Indra suffers as punishment. She is at fault, but we’re not to forget that Indra is to blame. And from the fact that his curse quickly turns into an advantage while Ahalya must wade through time to restore herself, we’re to note that the stigma doesn’t stick to men.

As devices go, Ahalya’s story is complex, intricate and full of possibilities – for both conservatism and subversion. It’s not often that we find stories that are so spectacularly slippery.

This is why Ghosh’s interpretation of Ahalya is a rip-off if you know the myth. His take on Gautama is more interesting since the Maharishi is turned into someone who almost preys on youthful masculinity. Ahalya, on the other hand, is at best her husband’s sidekick. She’s someone who willingly reduces herself to a sex object and that too, seemingly at her husband’s direction. Perhaps the men that Goutam Sadhu sends up to his wife are feeding her sexual appetite.

Perhaps she’s the mastermind – though there’s nothing in the film to suggest this. Goutam Sadhu definitely appears to be the alpha in their relationship – but even in that scenario, Ahalya is reduced to a body. It’s evident from the way Ghosh’s Ahalya dresses and moves that she’s titillating the men (and the viewers), but subtly. The brush of skin seems accidental, but isn’t. The clothes seem casual, but are studiously seductive. Ghosh seems to suggest it isn’t Indra’s fault if he’s turned on by this Ahalya. She’s goading him, with every look and every gesture. How can any man resist that much bare skin, that figure, the invitation in her eyes, is the unspoken question in the short film.

Not just that, by trapping Indra in one of Goutam Sadhu’s dolls at the end, Ghosh ensures that all our sympathy is for this poor man who, thanks to eyeballing a scantily-clad woman who was flirting with him, has suffered a horrible fate. Ahalya is the sexual predator in disguise.

Watching Ghosh’s Ahalya, you can’t help but wonder if the story he tells in 14 minutes would have survived if it didn’t have the rich tapestry of the myth as its background. Stripped of all the issues and complexity that is contained by the myth and its ancient retellings, Ahalya stands as a decent but unremarkable story. It’s difficult to imagine it surviving and allowing for the kind of interpretation and reinventions that the Ahalya myth has engendered.

Then again, perhaps the old myth nestled in the Brahmapurana would have suffered the same kind of obscurity had some bards not had the genius idea of weaving it into an epic that was being told and retold. And here’s the truly heartening part – for all the rigid sexism and conservatism of Hinduism’s guardians and followers over the ages, Ahalya was embraced, accepted and remembered with respect. So much so that the film  directors  later, in the 21st century, here we are, retelling her story.

Facebook Friends and Vishwamitra -

In the times of spiraling Facebook friends, we need to know about the legendary Ramayana Sage “Vishwamitra”.   ‘Vishwa’  means Universe and ‘mitr’ means friend.  Vishwamitra is the friend of Universe.  With the light touch of your laptop keyboard we can reach international friends and cement a friendship that upsurges from any part of the world.  You Skype them and chat with them and build a bond of friendship.  The growing acquaintances courting friendship is increasing like never before.

Vishwamitra was the teacher of Rama.  He taught Rama to turn ordinary arrows into potent missiles with the power of fire, water, the sun, the moon, wind and rain.    With the telescopic  arrows he can destroy a tree with arrow of fire and create a fountain of water from the earth by shooting an arrow into the earth and create wind by another weapon of arrows.  He can destroy planets by using telescopic arrows. Vishwamitra merits a separate blog post and hence not detailing him here.

Let me conclude this BLOG post with the opening sentences**** -

Adultery is the end of all trust with that person who indulges in it.  Never cheat your spouse with infidelity (However, a cheated spouse may seek vendetta a tit-for-tat).  Fidelity is a much revered and safeguarded virtue.  A strong and lasting relationship lies in the fidelity of the partners.