VEMANA MENDS HIS WAYS

Subjugation of the Senses

The more one yields to desire, the more insatiable it will become.

-THE MAHABHARATA

Vemana (seventeenth to eighteenth century a.d. was born in Andhra Pradesh in South India. A prolific poet who traveled widely, Vemana wrote over 3,000 simple quatrains with deep wisdom, which are still taught to school children today.

VEMANA MENDS HIS WAYS

"Vemana, though I am your sister-in-law, you know that I have loved you as a mother. That is why I must say the truth even if it is hurtful. You have become addicted to gold, wine, and women." Subbamma's honesty was fired by several years of praying for her prodigal brother-in-law to reform.

"It is not true that I love only gold, wine, and women. I care equally for all pleasures," Vemana chuckled. Seeing Subbamma wince, he quickly added, "You are the most precious thing in the world to me. So you see, I do love something more than my vices."

"Then for the sake of whatever feelings you have for me, please mend your ways before you become so depraved that you no longer recognize yourself."

"I wish I could heed your advice, but I am who I am.

This is my nature, and it is fruitless to fight it. Would you ask the sun to stop shining or the wind to stop blowing?" Vemana was pleased with his irrefutable logic. "And now, my beloved sister-in-law, I must go, for I have an important engagement."

Subbamma's heart darkened, for she knew what kind of pressing appointments Vemana had. His days were spent on the outskirts of town in caves with alchemists trying to turn lead into gold, while his evenings were passed in a drunken daze in houses of ill repute. Though Subbamma tried to look beyond Vemana's indiscretions to see the sensitive boy who had been orphaned as a child, her sympathy of late was in short supply. If her husband, Anuvemareddi, a minister who served in the king's court, were to learn that his younger brother had stolen money from the royal treasury to finance his escapades, the family would be ruined.

And so Subbamma began to weep because she had failed to be the mother that the boy had needed. Vemana, meanwhile, had already forgotten the conversation, for he was consumed with the newest object of his affection: the prostitute Kamakshi.

"Was there ever a woman like Kamakshi?" Vemana sa­vored this thought with a smile as he made his way to the brothel. It gave him unending delight to fantasize about her bewitching banter, the shapely lines of her legs, and her hen­naed hands feeding him betel leaves. She was all grace and el­egance, he liked to imagine, though in truth he knew she was a coarse woman.

"I have a special favor to ask of you, my darling," Kamakshi rooed after they had been together. She frequently asked Vemana for money and presents knowing that he came from an affluent family, and he always obliged.

"Anything for you. Ask the world and it shall be yours!" Vemana heroically exclaimed.

"Your sister-in-law, Subbamma, has the most exquisite jewels. I would like to wear them for a day." Before Vemana could object, she continued. "Just think how beautiful I will look wearing them. I will be your pleasure princess! I know that a powerful man like you can do anything."

"I cannot ask Subbamma for her jewelry! They were her wedding presents!" Vemana loved to ply Kamakshi with gifts, but this request was too outrageous for him to even consider.

"Then I cannot see you again."

After several minutes of threats from her side and supplica­tions from his, Vemana conceded. Once they had professed their mutual, undying love, he left on his errand, utterly at a loss as to how he could convince Subbamma to loan him her jewelry.

As he neared his home, he remembered all the times his sister-in-law had indulged him, and he calculated that Subbamma's generous nature would not allow her to refuse his request. "I will tell Subbamma the truth," he thought. "I am in love with Kamakshi, and she desires to wear your bangles am) rings for one day." As soon as Vemana began to talk, though, his rehearsed speech sounded hollow, and shame nearly stran- Ij gled his tongue. Subbamma listened incredulously, for such request could only mean that he had become Kamakshi's pup­pet and that she was using him to snatch the family fortune.

"If I lend them to you for one day, will you promise that you will never speak to me again about your mistresses' fan­cies?" Subbamma hoped that if Vemana could no longer provide Kamakshi with gifts, she would quickly lose interest in him.

"Yes, yes, whatever you want! I promise."

"Don't speak so lightly! Lending my jewelry to a prostitute is unspeakable, but I will still do it. Here! Take them! Remem­ber, this is the last time I will help you."

Puffed like a peacock, Vemana brought his loot to Kamakshi and triumphantly presented it to her. She greedily grabbed the glittering ornaments from his hands, put them on, and preened in front of a mirror. At the end of the day, with a histrionic show of tears and tearing of pillows, she grudgingly let him take them back to Subbamma.

Hardly a week passed before Kamakshi made an even holder demand: that Vemana fetch Subbamma's wedding necklace. Once again the drama of threats, concessions, and reconciliation was played out. Kamakshi shouted. Vemana equivocated and, finally, yielded. .

"My beloved sister-in-law, I have come to you for another favor," Vemana said. Since he had flippantly promised not to ask her for more gifts, he assumed that Subbamma would know this and oblige him one last time. After all, had she not been tolerant of his foibles thus far?

"You ask for my wedding necklace?" Subbamma gasped in horror after Vemana had finished speaking. "Do you not reailize that it is the symbol of my marriage to your brother? Without it, I will be considered a widow or, worse, a fallen woman."

"Kamakshi demands that I bring it to her if I am to ever see her again," Vemana said, deaf to his sister-in-law's distress.

"I cannot agree to this. You are breaking my heart."

When Vemana arrived at the brothel, he showered Kamakshi with caresses and flattered her with unctuous words. Scarcely concealing a weary impatience, she tolerated his af­fections for a little while and then pushed him away to ask if he had brought the necklace.

"My sister-in-law refuses to part with it," Vemana com­plained.

"You have come to me without Subbamma's necklace?" she roared and slapped him. "You say that you love me, but you fail to fulfill my slightest wishes. What kind of a love is that?"

"I will buy you a more expensive one," Vemana offered, hoping to placate her.

"I don't want a nicer one. I want hers!" Kamakshi's face became mottled "with rage. "Are you too dumb to under­stand? I need her necklace if I am to walk among decent peo­ple without them snickering at me. Get out of my presence, and don't return until you have fetched it for me!"

"But ... but ... Kamakshi!"

"Get out! Get out!"

Mad with despair, Vemana stumbled out, his mind in­flamed with anger, self-loathing, and a thousand other blis­tering emotions. He broke into a run, not knowing where he was headed, and he stopped only "when he found himself in a gloomy forest far from town.

"Those lips, those eyes! Never mine again. How can she be so unreasonable! All this fighting over a stupid piece of jewelry! And Kamakshi says she loves me? Why can't Sub-bamma part with it? Her and her self-righteous lectures. Yet, she has always helped me and would give it to me if she could. Oh, I wish I could die and be through with all this!" His chaotic thoughts tumbled in such quick succession that they left him panting.

Morning found Vemana in a crying heap at Subbamma's feet. She saw in him a man on the verge of insanity. His clothes were soiled with sweat and dirt, his face tight and grim, his eyes bloodshot and wild.

"I know what your necklace means to you, but I cannot" live without Kamakshi!" Vemana sobbed after he relayed to her the events of the evening.

After a moment of thoughtful quiet, Subbamma said, "Oh, Vemana, you must be tortured to ask me for such a thing! So I will give my necklace—not so that you may win the affections of this horrible woman but because I fear that if I don't, you will resort to some madness."

A pathetic smile lit Vemana's tear-stained face.

"Meet me in three days at the ruins of the old Siva temple near the cremation grounds on the outskirts of the city. There you can take it from me."

The intervening hours -were sweet for Vemana. Kamakshi slavishly attended to his every whim and fancy, and his agony in the forest quickly seemed nothing more than a disturbing dream. On the third day at dusk, he bid Kamakshi farewell, promising to return in a few hours with the necklace.

Humming a tune, Vemana made his way to the ruined Siva temple. When he saw its crumbling pillars, the overgrown weeds feeding on its walls, and the vandalized stone statues, the song died on his lips. Walking in the gathering gloom on sacred grounds where the dead were once honored was so disturbing that he was jerked out of his intoxicated stupor. The smell of Kamakshi's perfume lingering on his silk shirt caused him to shudder and remember Subbamma's warning that depravity would pervert him beyond recognition.

"Subbamma, Subbamma, where are you?" Vemana called nervously, the sinister meeting place filling him with dread.

Following her instructions, he entered the temple. He spied candlelight at the end of a corridor and quickened his pace. In the flickering light, he saw a figure swathed in a long robe. It was Subbamma, as pure as ever, but her coun­tenance was ghastly.

"Vemana, my son, I am here as promised," Subbamma's voice was distant. "You have asked for my necklace. You know what it means to me. If you still want it, you will have to take it yourself." As she finished speaking, she cast off the robe she was wearing and stood naked before him.

"Oh, my God! Subbamma, what are you doing?" Vemana shielded his eyes with his hands as his knees crumpled under him.

"Take my necklace and you will have stripped me of everything. But take it if you must!" Her words were as a knife twisting into his heart.

"What a sewer of iniquity I have fallen into!" He had be­lieved he could keep company with the degenerate and re­main untouched. Now he knew that he was one of them. "For lust of a prostitute, I have defiled the sanctity of your marriage. I have betrayed my brother and humiliated you. I am an ungrateful wretch who has returned your motherly love with deception and selfishness. There can be no re­demption for a sinner like me!"

Subbamma moved to console him.

"Mother, my lust has turned me into a beast! Please do not come near me, for I am all corruption and am afraid to con­taminate your purity. I must kill my desires before they will kill me."

Vemana rose up abruptly and fled. Finding a small cave, he sequestered himself in it and mercilessly bore into his soul until the cause of all desire stood revealed. When he returned to Subbamma many years later to ask for forgiveness, she looked at him and began to cry tears of joy, for she could see that there was a new light in his eyes and that temptation had a hold on him no longer.