A wolf in loin's clothing

A recent news item that a 23 year old law college student from Kollam near Thiruvananthapuram, took a sharp instrument to a swamiji’s genitals, lopping off his private parts, has been received with unbridled joy from every corner of the country. Apparently this randy, glad-eyed godman, clearly not a man of God, has been training his roving eye and straying hands, and much else, where they emphatically should not have been so roving and straying. Allegedly this heinous behaviour has been going on since the girl’s high school days.

As the news reports did not, mercifully, dwell on the sordid details of the sexually deviant acts of the saffron-robed charlatan, it is left to our fertile imagination to divine (pun intended) what acts of depravity this bearded Beelzebub was getting up to. The much abused girl was understandably not too forthcoming, as she smartly let her knife do the talking. Investigations are ongoing.

Pictures of the writhing-in-agony pretend-swami, lying on a hospital gurney appeared in most of the print and electronic media, but evoked no sympathetic response from the public at large. His libido thus decapitated, one hopes this licentious fraud will go through the rest of his miserable life reflecting on the folly of his ways. If this pathetic sinner has never heard of the aphorism, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’, he certainly learned of its harsh truth in the most painful way possible. Furthermore, the thought that he would be condemned to a life of singing in the soprano section of any choir that he wishes to join, cannot but fill him with a deep sense of dread. His shrill cries of atonement will be heard loud and clear in the heavenly abode, but it is the raging fires of hell that will be beckoning this lascivious Lothario from Kerala. All this is on the blithe assumption that there are such things as heaven and hell in the after life. Since that is a moot point, the equivalent of perdition must be experienced here on earth.

It has always been a matter of wonderment to me why these so-called priestly men for whom piety is meant to be the guiding spirit, invariably become embroiled in the kind of sexual sleaze that the media avariciously lap up – and who can blame them! There’s only so much dramatic appeal in stone pelting in Kashmir and Thalaivar Rajanikanth’s tilting at political windmills. No sex appeal whatsoever. There have been other swamis in India who, over the years, have been caught getting up to funny business with members of the opposite sex. Not that they are above same sex indiscretions, either. Further, such deviant proclivities are not confined to religious types in India only. Homophobic and bi-sexual priests in the theocratic corridors of the Church of England and Roman Catholic persuasions have been reported on an uncomfortably regular basis from different parts of the world. Books have sold in millions and movies have likewise raked in the moolah with these themes as the main storyline.

One must quickly add that sexual perversions are not the sole province of priests and swamis. Human kind from every walk of life, since time immemorial, has indulged in all manner of unpleasant business. Most of it does not even come out in the open. And the shame and perfidy of it all forces victims to pursue a sealed lips policy. It’s just that when reports come in about men of the cloth involved in shady shenanigans, we frown and raise our eyebrows a notch more than when a commoner is in the mix. The reasons are not far to seek. We hold our religious gurus to a much higher standard, rightly or wrongly, and when they stray from the path of the straight and narrow, we tend to look askance. Like a black sheep gone astray.

So how does one deal with this problem? The short answer is you cannot. At least not in an institutionalised manner, through courts and so on, which takes an age and the punishment too mild to have any real deterring effect. There has been some talk of chemical castration as a possible legal weapon. Presumably this entails the administration through injection of a chemical substance that will render the plumbing system of the punished to become inoperative.

The pain thus suffered, while being a severe psychological blow, will not cause any physical pain. If you’ll excuse the double entendre, he won’t feel a prick! Rather like having your pet dog neutered - the poor creature is perfectly happy, though reproductively a non-starter. No Sir. All this is too mild and gentle for our would-be defiler of a girl’s modesty. Out with the knife I say, and off with his family jewels!

Of course, there will be a section of the misguided populace who will mutter with empathy , that the poor sod had a terrible childhood – sodomised by his father and sexually defiled in school by his Geography teacher. Or some such hard luck canard. He needs to be counseled by a properly qualified doctor so that he can learn from the error of his ways and turn over a new leaf. In short, the namby-pamby approach.

The more effective option of course would be to take a leaf out of our spirited Malayali victim’s book, and bobbitise the bearded bandicoot with a well honed pocket knife. It will make every godman with a 7-day itch, think twice.
(The author is a brand consultant who loves music, cricket and good humour)