http://www.indiatimes.com/national/a-concise-history-of-indian-sex-12257.html


You probably think this article is inspired by the three poor gentlemen Lakshman Savadi, CC Patil and Krishna Palemar ,  who lost their ministerial jobs trying to sneak a quick peek at some porn while assembly was on.

It’s not their fault at all – they were hard at work trying to figure out exactly how rave parties work.  Or maybe, I should just say they were hard….. at work.

But actually my inspiration came from a totally different source. It was when Ravi Shastri called R Ashwin a compulsive hooker that I decided that there was a story that needed to be told.  It set off a train of thought that started in ancient India – and continued right up to my friends in the Karnataka assembly. And inspired..
Back breaking stuff from a compulsive hooker, Ravichandran Ashwin

A concise history of sex in India.

300BC. Chandragupta Maurya is the first king who figures out that women make much better fighters. He is surrounded by 700 female body guards, specially recruited from forest tribes, who are supposed to be excellent at guarding, among other skills. The Greek general Selucus Nicator is so impressed by them that he immediately offers his daughter, Cornelia, in marriage to the Mauryan king. Selucus also decided to give up trying to conquer India, and scared the hell of the rest of Asia Minor with the 500 war elephants Chandragupta presented him.

200 AD.The first definite sexual text; the Kamasutra, which is believed to have been written or compiled by Vatsayana from Orissa. And while chapters 1,3 and 4 deal with general remarks, acquiring a wife and her duties an privileges of a wife, it’s really chapters 2,5, 6 and 7 that set western pulses racing – discussing amorous advances, other men’s wives, courtesans and occult practices. It is thought that more British civil servants in India have died of a heart attack from trying a Kamasutra position than from malaria and other local diseases

900 AD. The Khajuraho temple are built  by the Chandela Rajputs. The 10% of figures that are actually erotic serve to provide a body type of Indian female that is next achieved by plastic surgery in the late 20th century. And it served its actual purpose, the subjects of at least two neighbouring states rebelled, claiming that they  also deserved the kind of lifestyle shown on the carvings.

1605. Jehangir succeeds his father as the emperor of India. For a man already besotted by young Anarkali, a court dancer, and later his favourite wife, Nur Jehan, Jehangir had plenty of libido to spare. The annals of the day record another 299 wives, 5000 female concubines and a thousand male concubines.  This despite Nur Jahan being an able huntress who was reputed to have killed six tigers. No wonder the Mughals were treated with such respect.

1856. Wajed Ali Shah, the Nawab of Awadh is deposed by the British. The Nawab not only kept an elaborate history of all his sexual conquests, he wrote it in verse – no small effort. His specially designed sherwani allowed him to flash his nipple at his courtiers. Despite his  ‘busy’ schedule, he helped revive Kathak , wrote some haunting songs and even added  the potato to the Kolkata biriyani.  Film lovers remember him as the Nawab in Ray’s Shatranj Ki Khilari . In less intellectual circles , he is honoured by a medicine named after him.  ‘Goli Wajid Ali Shah’ – the Unani remedy for ‘exhausted libidos, functional impotence and lack of vitality’. Great man.
1892 The Indian empire strikes back.  Scandalmongers go to town when Queen Victoria, who started the most repressed and boring era in British sexuality, is believed to be very close to her exotic Indian servant Abdul Karim.  Their correspondence has letters which queen Victoria ends with ‘a flurry of kisses’ and Abdul  had a special Urdu phrase book made for her which included ones like: ““You will miss the munshi very much” (Tum munshi ko bahut yad karoge). And: “Hold me tight” (Ham ko mazbut thamo).  Obviously, the first empress of India in not as boring as she looks. Abdul, though, is a spoilsport, and refuses to tell all even when the queen passes on in 1901.
 
1920s. To quote Freedom at Midnight. "Until the end of the century, it had been the custom of the Maharaja of Patiala to appear once a year before his subjects naked except for his diamond breastplate, his organ in full and glorious erection. As the Maharaja walked about, his subjects gleefully applauded, their cheers acknowledging both the dimensions of the princely organ and the fact that it was supposed to be radiating magic powers to drive evil spirits from the land. "
 
If the Nizam of Hyderabad was known as His Exalted Highness, the old Maharaja of Patiala was called his Exhausted Highness. He had a prodigious harem and a considerable part of his activity was the acquisition of young ladies to freshen it. The wily old Maharaja managed to avoid all charges, and is today chiefly remembered for donating the Ranji trophy. And we think Navjot Sidhu is strange!
 
Next time: Sex in independent India. Sharmila’s bikini , Protima’s streak, Madhuri’s choli ….. and why ND Tiwary should be a national hero!

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Sunny Leone a true Canadian DESI now back in India !.

Concise history of Indian sex-part 2
by Joy Bhattacharjya , posted ON 24 Feb 2012 AT 13:45:51 , last updated 8 hours ago BOLLYWOOD LOL

http://www.indiatimes.com/bollywood/concise-history-of-indian-sexpart-2_-13810.html


In case you missed it, here is part one: http://www.indiatimes.com/national/a-concise-history-of-indian-sex-12257.html

Apologies for the delay, but research has kept me really busy. And while it has been a really difficult job - somebody has got to do it. The editors also told me that stories with the word 'sex' in the title do much better, so I am going to shamelessly extend the series by just focusing on the history of sex in Hindi films.

It all started in the 30s, where Devika Rani tried to run off with all her leading men, forcing producer hubby Himanshu Rai  to cast his lab assistant as her next hero. Since that assistant was Ashok Kumar who subsequently dragged along his younger brother Kishore to the movies, Devika Rani's glad eye is probably  responsible for bringing us some of our best memories of Bollywood.  Who ever said sex does not pay!

Devika also had a four minute kiss with her husband in the film Karma - must have been trying to make up for all those leading men.

After independence, it seemed that the only way you got any was to rescue your leading lady. It worked for Dev Anand who saved Suraiya from drowning on the sets of the film Vidya and was suitably rewarded before the religious angle stopped things from going too much further. Dev saab consoled himself by inflicting himself on his leading ladies for the next fifty years.

It also helped Sunil Dutt  land Nargis  after he rescued her from a fire on the sets of Mother India. He must have been really brave to make up for the obvious disadvantage of playing her son in the film.

The sixties was the decade of amorous bees and flowers, since that's all you ever got to see when the hero and heroine got close to any action. And a secret pact between the film industry and the government towards population control ensured that the heroines had waistlines that resembled the China border.  And in tacit support of the Soviet bear in international politics, the heroes had chests that put shag carpets to shame. One look at Rajesh Khanna or Manoj Kumar's chest line should have been enough to put you off the act for the next year. Obviously, it did not work, considering we continued to reproduce and grow at a healthy six percent clip.

The late sixties and early seventies were also the years of instant pregnancies. From Aradhana to Asha Jyoti to Man Mandir  to Aa Gale Lag Jaa, all a heroine needed to get pregnant was to freeze or get wet, and have the hero warm her up - just once. It never failed to deliver a healthy son nine months later. Small wonder gynecology was not a paying profession those days.

The seventies started with the first ever half time movie in Indian film history. Conrad Rooks' Siddhartha featured Simi Garewal in the role of  Kamala the courtesan, who teaches a young Siddhartha (Shashi Kapoor) the facts of life, among other things. Since it was one of the only films to show nudity, droves of young ( and old!) men flocked theatres to see what a female body looked like. Remember, this was 25 years before the internet, with 'educational' films like Gupt Gyaan as the only competition. And since Simi died before the interval, most people left immediately after the first half.  Poor Simi was panned for her 'boldness' - probably not half as reprehensible as featuring Siddhartha Mallya as one of India's Most Desirable forty years later.

The late seventies saw the sexual action shift southwards, with Silk Smitha ruling the Tamil and Malayali roost. While it didn't to much to North Indian libidos, it definitely changed the garment industry, with Nylex Nalini,  Cotton Kamala, Rayon Revathi and Polyester Padmini soon to make the Ambanis the richest men in India.

In 1978, the censors finally allowed a kissing sequence; Shashi Kapoor kissed Zeenat Aman in  Satyam Shivam Sundaram: Love Sublime. This triggered major protests around the country, notably from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran who claimed this was an insult to Indian cinema. Obviously kissing a woman in a film was morally far worse than maintaining a second wife.  Specially since Jayalalitha's batman capes have since proved to be the worst fashion move since Balenciaga's sack dress.

The eighties  started with the Rajesh Khanna Tina Munim romance..which would have been fine except for the toothbrush story.  In a fit of candour, Tina claimed that she and Rajesh were so close that they shared the same toothbrush.  That did it for young Tina;  nobody could see another of her films without wondering about how she cleaned her pearly whites.

The eighties and nineties were also the decade when the villains were as nasty as their screen portrayals. Leading the way was Shakti Kapoor, who proved that Stanislavsky's method acting, specially in his chosen specialization of assault and rape was still the done thing. He was famously filmed offering to promote the career of an actress if she slept with him. In the video clip, Shakti  said: "I want to make love to you ... and if you want to come in this line you have to do what I am telling to do." No wonder he rarely needed a dialogue writer.

The nineties also heralded the start of a tradition. Shilpa Shetty's gyrations in "Main Aai Hoon UP Bihar Lootne" in Shool was the first time the media  referred to Shetty as an "item girl" and the scene as an "item number". Bollywood has never been the same; and an entire generation of actresses realized that as long as you had something to reveal, having the acting skills of an introverted penguin was no hindrance to a film career.

Not airbrushed, only doctored....God bless

And while I could write another twenty pages about Mallika, Sherlyn and the new item girls - sex has become far too commonplace in the 21st century to elicit any interest. I leave you with my favourite Rakhi Sawant quote ""Jo God nahi deta, woh doctor de deta hai." Jai hind!

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Sunny Leone a true Canadian DESI now back in India !.

R

With VM bhai around..you never know whether you get 'hard-hitting' posts or 'hard-**' causing posts

Great article, by the way.

R.