Comparing Sanyasis and Sex Workers: Abusing Hinduism for Advertisement !

For the past 14 months, film projects have taken me to two extreme edges of the societal spectrum. The documentary is about Naga Sadhvis. These women are clad in saffron, mostly fearless, celibate, Shiva devotees, who spend a lot of time on their own. Communication with them is slow and relaxed and happens usually under a cloud of marijuana smoke. Needless to say, being with them is always uplifting.

The feature film is titled Kotha No 22 – a thriller set in a brothel. Although the sex workers I have met are from various socio economic strata, their back-stories are almost all the same – poverty/no family support/underage/uneducated equals forced into prostitution. Also similar is the fact that they tend to be intuitive, moody and full of stories – stories that go between fact and embellished fact. Once the talking starts, it hardly stops. Being around them is an emotional rollercoaster.

This oscillation between calm and storm and storm and calm, a mental centrifugal force started to blur the two worlds for me after a point, and upon reflection it emerged, that although worlds apart, these women have a lot in common.

The point of convergence for these worlds takes place where the census stops. Where vote bank politics will never go. They are women who live outside convention but at the same time they are the two extremes of how women are viewed. The toss-up between being goddesses and sluts is a frequent female dilemma that Sadhvis and sex workers personify. And yet, on a closer look, neither of them is either of those things.

The Naga Sadhvis are part of a larger male order and are relatively new entrants in the masculine world of Sadhu Akharas. And so their path is quite masculine. Their bodies are covered in ash; they hardly ever wear any clothes, except for a sarong. They smoke marijuana ritually and you will never find them huddled in groups singing paeans to please the lord. Their care of the world and its opinions on beauty, youth and marriage is almost naught. In short – they really don’t give a damn.

Their language can be harsh, direct and profanities drift in and out of their conversations. And still God stands at the centre of everything that they do.

The sex workers have a special relationship with God. She/he comes up more often in conversations – “Thank God today I got three clients” or “God is kind that’s why my life is still going on”. The walls of their homes/brothels are plastered with images of God from all faiths. God has become their constant when all else seems unstable.

The Naga Sadhvis know that their spirituality is a work in progress. That their way to being goddesses is a long way off. And they are making their way to their spiritual destination not by conforming to society’s diktats but actually going right against them – for one they are celibate.

Many of the sex workers are mothers. Most sex workers come into the trade when they are in their early teens. And brothel owners/pimps encourage them to have children early because it keeps them bound. Then there are others who are married. Everyday they go to work to feed their families.

Younger prostitutes spend time trying to seek clients away from home so that they can save the “reputations” of these families. But the older sex workers reject the unfair cut of having to live with shame. They have just stopped giving a damn. Like one of them said “I told them – okay so I am a prostitute. I fuck for money. Now you got something else to say? Cause asshole you’re wasting my time”.

The Naga Sadhvis and sex workers have dropped the confines of shame. The central axis of sex around which the male world spins means nothing to either of them. While the Sadhvis are celibate, the sex workers have no attachment/excitement related to sex.

They are women living within a male construct but bucking its confines and yet keeping them on their knees.

In my films, sex workers and Sadhvis will be in a room together. Personally, it’s a conversation I can’t wait to hear.