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187 pages

English

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The final part of Krish Day's Indian trilogy. The Secrets of Rajpur illuminates, in a quaint and satirical vein, the impossibility of recording on paper the infinitely variegated impulses of human desire.Nearing the end of a long political career, the Minister of Education meditates on a fitting memorial to his tenure in office. His Personal Assistant, a lively and ambitious young woman who is also his lover, proposes an updated version of the KA ma SA tra as a gift to newly-weds. Drawing on private experience, and viewing modern Indian society as still beset by prurience and age-old puritanism, she believes the authorities ought to actively promote a wholesome rapport between men and women, tutoring the young on what's what and what's where.The Ministerial Committee charged with the revision of the ancient text is paralysed by ill-humoured debate and bickering, unable to agree on the indelicate wording and descriptions to be censored. When news of the Ministerial initiative leaks to the press, a storm of protests gathers force. Religious groups, women's associations, self-appointed guardians of national purity, take to the streets with vociferous and often violent demonstrations. With insistent calls for resignation, the Minister suffers a near-fatal stroke. The lady assistant flees town, to find comfort in the arms of her aged mentor, finally managing a tantric ashram for the conjugal rejuvenation of elderly couples.Embedded in the comic narrative are the tales of three women, each a facet of sexuality distinct from the message of the KA ma SA tra. A temple dancer, whose journey of faith, finds her at the profligate service of man. A young English woman, whose deranged fate unveils uncommon sensual talents, that finally crown her consort of a Prince. A Spanish gitano dancer unveiling a novel eroticism to reawaken the sated manhood of a decadent race.

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	16 mai 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838598983
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FAT DOG
A Canine Odyssey Across the Human Landscape
CHRONICLES OF RAMPUR
THE MYSTERIES OF RANIPUR
Of Bearded Ladies, Missing Brides
and Canine Bank Robberies

Copyright © 2019 Krish Day

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781838598983

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For
PETER & GINA PARKINSON
PROBIR & CHANDRA DAS
CARLO & NEDDA DEFANTI
GIORGIO & ROSELLA SIBELLA
PAOLO & MIRJANA IENNE
And for
LILLIANA RAVASIO

The only secrets in life are those
that man conceals from himself
Contents
THE KOKKA SŪTRA
THE GIANT
THE MINISTER
THE PERSONAL ASSISTANT
THE K Ᾱ MA S Ū TRA
THE PROFESSOR
RAJPUR
THE MISSIONARY
GODDESS
HARRIET
MARIA ADELINA de CASTILLO y VEGA
COMMITTEE
MEMBER
THE HHU & THE HHA
THE GROOM
THE IMMORTAL
MARION DE LA RUE
REENA
NOTES

I
THE KOKKA SŪTRA
The Professor furrowed his brow in puzzlement and read the lines once again:
“The ancient book of Kāma S ū tra was written in Sanskrit. Later on a wise man tried a few portions of intercourse in Kashmir with a passionate woman. She came before the prince naked and abused the entire Court with a challenge to quench her lust. Pt. Kokka, the legendary author of Kokka S ū tra, then fulfilled the woman’s desire. After her satisfaction she went home with dress on.”
The Professor paused for a moment in pensive reflection before resuming:
“The Prince of Kashmir was surprised by the activities of the learned scholar. An old wit asked him to translate the Kāma S ū tra for non-Sanskrit persons. So that, like him with the lady from Kashmir, they too might satisfy the urges of their women. Pundit Kokka obliged, but did better. Retreating to the Hindukush mountains for many years, he composed the Kokka S ū tra, incorporating in the ancient text his own findings, with the lady of Kasmir and many other ladies of various size and shape. Since then, men and women everywhere have been living in incomparable conjugal delight.”
Certainly, it was an odd start to what was meant to be an introduction to the life of a scholar and savant and his life’s labours editing and interpreting an ancient work. The subject himself was an uncommon one. Composed apparently sometime in the Victorian century, a legend in its time, the Kokka Sūtra was more the testament of a roving Casanova than man of learning. If true, the fame was well-earned, for rarely did a translator take it on himself to try out in person the contents of the manuscript. All in all, a most curious work, quite as much as the man himself.
The Professor leafed thoughtfully through the dog-eared volume, with its various sections on the categories of men and women, the seats of their passion, depending on the part of the country from which they hailed, the meticulous enumeration of the postures of love-making, auspicious placements of the planets for successful and satisfactory engagement, diets for rousing vigour and foodstuffs responsible for the loss of vigour.
Not content with merely editing and translating the original, the good man had apparently done more, gone to great lengths to ascertain personally not only the practicality of the various dozens of amorous postures in the “Kāma S ū tra”. That was the least of it. Travelling far and wide, up and down the land, north to south, east to west and back again, he had attempted to verify the facts, figures, affirmations and descriptions set out in the ancient classic on the mores, manners, practise and techniques of matters sexual and related topics.
A Herculean task, it often entailed risking life and limb. As when, in an effort to test the classification in the original text of the three main male types, the intrepid Kokka had approached men in different regions to measure their organs. Evidently, the author of the K ā ma S ū tra had erred in his evaluation of human nature. Far from being ‘sweet-tongued,’ both the Rabbit-man and the Bull-man turned out to be abusive and not a little prone to violence at the scholar’s attempts at statistical verification. As for the Horse-man, Kokka found his life in peril more than once, having to take to his heels and decamp from towns and villages under cover of darkness. Thereafter, he had, apparently, decided to forego testing the classification of female attributes.
No less arduous and perilous was the verification of the validity of of the various prohibitions in the ancient text, that forbade amorous contacts with, among others, lunatic females, nuns, those with brown eyes, a friend’s spouse, but especially with a king’s wife.
Nothing daunted, Kokka had apparently braved numberless dangers and pitfalls in his scholarly mission. After months and years of tireless travel, on occasion waylaid by bandits who left him robbed and denuded in the countryside, more than once thrashed by villagers, he was able to establish the truth of many of the regional amorous peculiarities detailed in the K ā ma S ū tra. That, among others, women from the middle Gangetic plains were averse to kissing, those from Malwa enjoyed stroking; that a Andhra woman was mostly a stranger to shame, that of Oudh suffered much from prurience and tittilation; the women of Gujarat cooed softly, those from Bengal were delicate of limb and preferred males with a refined tongue. A brief embrace sufficed for females unable to converse in Sanskrit.
Nor had the venerable Kokka, trained in youth as a railway linesman, neglected the key mechanical aspects, with detailed chapters on “Coupling & Decoupling,” along with forays into the biological field, with startling revelations under the heading “Prostrate, Spermatazoon & Placenta.” Curiously, as if finally exhausted by the labour of love, the transcription ended abruptly with succinct instructions on bathing babies:
“While bathing babies, clean thoroughly all organs. Then wipe all parts with clean towel. A teaspoonful of such germicide as Dettol, highly recommended in the K ā ma S ū tra, should be mixed with a bucket of water.”
Dettol! The Professor’s attention momentarily lingered on the brand name of the germicide. He could recall labelled bottles about the house in childhood, his mother swiping bruises with cotton soaked with the antiseptic, the sharp sting and the brief howls of pain. Surprising that the famed germicide should have been around a millenium and a half ago. Droll and risible, Kokka’s scholarship made for some doubt in the Professor’s mind. The man needed some looking into, he decided.
And then there was the latter-day author of the biographical notes on Kokka. Devoid of proven credentials, the mysterious figure had coyly concealed himself simply behind the title ANONYMOUS, M.A., Ph. D., professor emeritus, apparently. For sure, the prose was not all that might be expected of a learned academic, at times edging towards the risible and risqué. Proceeding, then, with the further sallies of Kokka into the ancient world of the K ā ma S ū tra, he had noted that:
“Each step of the majestic interpretation of the Sanskrit text is fully based on Pt. Kokka’s tireless personal experiments of the 64 positions with the maidens of Kashmir, satisfying entirely their conjugal and other expectations.”
Undoubtedly an indefatigable scholar, this Kokka, and no less an arduous chore for the ladies from Kashmir. Sitting back bemused, the Professor surveyed the desk, piled with note pads, loose sheets of annotations, a dozen editions of the K ā ma S ū tra, old and new, a variegated collection of translations and versions over the decades, some decidedly odd, a few more akin to the common literature of titillation complete with elementary drawings of impossible couplings. Each era had seen various versions of the original, adding, subtracting, deforming the original, one Italian traveller resident at the Mogul court slipping in various erotic lines from Catullus and several scandalous epigrams from Marcus Martialis; a later Arab journeyer introducing willy-nilly snatches from al-Nafzawi’s “The Perfumed Garden of Seduction.” Undoubtedly, the Kokka S ū tra was the oddest. For a passing moment, worry nibbled at the edges of the Professor’s thoughts, making him doubt the wisdom of having accepted the task.
A modern and simplified version of the K ā ma S ū tra to be handed out by the Ministry of Education to newly-weds and modern housewives. Shorn of its archaic phrasing, its droll excursions into the recesses of human intimacy, the quaint and curious beliefs and habits of the ancient world, there would be scarce little left of the classic work. And what little remained would then be eviscerated by the stringent recommendations of the Ministerial Commission.
For a start, there was to be no mention of the lingam. References to the male member were to be sparing and alw