Nine Lives...

Looking for something different to read during a recent staycation at home (yes that is a neologism or a newly coined word that I stumbled upon and it means taking a break but staying at home J), I had ordered a copy of ‘Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India’ by William Dalrymple from Amazon.com with some trepidation to say the least. My Facebook status reflected my apprehensions: “Religion and Spiritualism have always daunted me and I’ve consciously shied away from reading such books ….”

But the more I read the book (I’m not done yet) the more I feel that it is a tale of nine remarkable men and women set against the backdrop of an unsettled India grappling with change rather than some dreary theological discourse. The stories chronicle the lives of ordinary men and women who have devoted their lives in the search of God, who have willingly given up lives of luxury and comfort for paths of self-mortification and have detached themselves from all worldly possessions in the quest for the ultimate.

Surprisingly enough though, they aren’t associated with cults and rituals of mainstream Hinduism or Islam but on the contrary practice their own brand of faith that sometimes completely inverts the norms of conventional religion. Disturbingly however, their numbers continue to dwindle as the capacious folds of contemporary Hinduism and Islam threaten to swallow these unique and sometimes extreme practices in the subcontinent.

Some examples include: The Jain nun who had her hair plucked out strand by strand so that she could be accepted as a monk only to see her powers of self detachment tested when her closest friend ritually starves herself to death; the tantric woman who comes to live in the cremation grounds of Tarapith after failing to find love and acceptance in the city; the Buddhist monk who is forced renounce his vows and take up arms against the invading Chinese only to writhe in self-remorse later; the Devdasi woman suffering from AIDS who forces her children into prostitution thinking its her divine duty; the thrice displaced woman refugee who finally finds love and acceptance in the syncretic views of Sufism in a remote village in Sindh; the Rajasthani folk singer who memorizes a 4000 line poem to perform all night long---all are very personal and emotionally charged stories that strike a chord and ask uncomfortable questions.

What makes these people choose the path that defies conventional wisdom? Are they the truly enlightened ones? Are they driven by some divine power that makes them renounce everything? And what do they get in return? Freedom from endless cycles of birth and rebirth? Nirvana? Moksha? Lesser mortals like me can only read and wonder.