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With Deepak Chopra and Pavan Varma entering the list of writers on the Kama Sutra, there are more versions of the book, reports B.K. Roy For generations people have giggled nervously at the very mention of the Kama Sutra. Kama Sutra had meant two words suggesting similar things to all. A book of positions so impossible that you’d need Tom Cruise, John Woo and 50 stuntmen to help you through it With eminent authors Deepak Chopra and Pavan Varma entering the list of writers on this book, Kamasutra has returned to haunt the bookshops in India. In fact, it is laughingly claimed that there are more writers on the Kama Sutra than there are readers, if you omit the buyers who just want to glance through the various "positions." The Kama Sutra describes making love as "divine union." Its author Vatsyayana believed that sex itself was not wrong, but doing it badly was sinful! For a book, that was officially allowed by the British Government to be published only in 1963, the Kamasutra has done very well. The intrepid and daring Sir. Richard Burton first found the Kama Sutra text by chance in 1883, when researching the Ananga Ranga, also called The Stage of love. Faced with opposition from the prurient British he had only six copies of the book printed in English.. There are so many connotations of this ancient text, that even the BBC Channel 4 had a TV series in 2001 called Position Impossible. For the publishing industry the Kama Sutra’s brand name is all the better for coming with no copyrights attached to the ancient text or even to early translations like the one by Sir Richard Burton. And they can print pretty much anything they want under that name and they have. Amazon. Com lists no less than 225 books with Kama Sutra in their titles, including variations for women and gay men, 3D and pop-up versions and even a KS for cats! But in 1996, the authorities clamped down on the film Kama Sutra - A Tale of Love and demanded that 14 explicit scenes were cut before it was fit to be shown to Indian audiences. In India, five-star hotel bookshops do particularly good sales of the Kama Sutra and have as much as 20 different titles of the same book. Of these, the versions illustrated with Mughal-style illustrations are particularly popular gifts for tourists to take back home, according to booksellers, as this combines something Indian with the fun element of sex. For those who don’t care for reading, there are other Kama Sutra products as well. Amazon lists music to accompany the Kama Sutra, video and DVDs , massage oils, aromatherapy kits and edible spice essences all sold under the Kama Sutra name. In Mumbai, studio Lingerie, a boutique based in Phoenix mills, that retails only the most upscale lingerie has a special Kama Sutra underwear set from Aubade, a premium French brand. It is actually made in Paris, rather than in Sri Lanka or China. It’s a couple’s set, with a thong for her and boxer shorts for him, both printed with the Mughal-style illustrations, and comes along with an erotic dice game. One cryptographer, Dr. Singh was asked by the London Daily Telegraph newspaper to set a coded puzzle and he created one based on the Kamasutra model, using the various "positions’ in place of coded words. A 19th century French translation of the book, is currently the most downloaded of all e-books on an Internet website, that provides 20,000 books for free and gets some two million hits each month. But the cognoscenti were really puzzled when a ‘respected’ person like Deepak Chopra wrote a version of Kamasutra. According to the doctor- turned-spiritual guru, his Kamasutra is an enlightening spiritual guide. Your obvious surprise at his idea of bridging together sex and spirituality brings a knowing smile to Chopra’s face and he replies with the story behind the birth of his interpretation. "Once, on my annual visit to India, I was at a bookstore, looking at one of the Kama Sutras and after a while I felt, so strongly, that the four goals of life spoken of by Vatsyayana—kama, dharma, artha, kama, and moksha— finally point to spiritual gain." He says in the larger scheme of things, these four goals of life are connected to each other, in reverse order. "It is in love that you forget who you are, your ego, your caste, your bank balance, same as in spiritual enlightenment," he says, giving an instance to drive home his point. —MF
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