In The Honor of Oldest Profession

     Beauty of Fallen Women in Literature

Let us begin with Buddha and Christ. Two renowned Gods who have shown the path followed by millions. 

Buddha broke the rules of commune and gave entry to chief prostitutes of Vaishali (ancient state of India) called  Amrapali. Well, she was so extraordinarily beautiful that she was officially compelled to the profession so that many could enjoy the virtue of her beauty. The Buddha concluded "Being a prostitute is not an obstacle to enlightenment if she is willing and diligently practices Dharma. In fact, the experience of a prostitute could help her towards enlightenment sooner than otherwise".

Mary Magdalene was one of the most favorite disciple of Jesus Christ. She accompanied him everywhere. Saviour showered her with kisses frequently. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her?" She was present at the time of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Mary Magdalene being a repentant sinner was found more worthy of enlightenment like Amrapali.

Osho after deep contemplation on Hindu philosophy wrote his spiritual marvel "From sex to the super consciousness."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Jenny" rewritten many times is a poem of monologue addressed to dozing harlot in her surroundings.  The anxiety of 'speaker' for exposure to disease and social ostracism is also evident in the poem along with acknowledgement of his own absurdity as his "thoughts run on like this/With wasteful whims more than enough" symbolizes  emptiness of words by thoughtful man.

Elizabethan Era of Poetry was followed by prudish and repressed Victorian Era and passionate emotions were expressed in floral symbols. Even then a book like "My Secret Life" by anonymous author Walter were secretly read by many aristocrats.

After the second World War there was a lot of Holocaust Literature written as memories of sufferers or eyewitness of the holocaust. House of Dolls By Ka-tzetnik describes the Jewish women kept in concentration camps to quench the  carnal thirst of Nazi soldiers. Like Amarpali beautiful Jewish girls were also compelled to serve  the militia.

All over World beautiful women are admired and desired by everyone, but only mighty and wealthy people have a right to possess and consume them.

These fallen women are like "Light House" for the fallen authors (suffering from author's block), drifting in the ocean of life.

Garcia writes "Memories of My Melancholy Whores". May be  Delgadina of Garcia is the Jenny of Dante. Across every Era the characters come back with the same vivacity as if they had never left.

The collective psyche of all authors dead and alive and yet to born creates immortal characters.

Look at Nana by Emile Zola. Or at Adriana of A Woman of Rome By Alberto Moravia.

Adriana confesses "I had taken up a very hard profession..."

They are the women who have washed the sins of others at their own cost. They are the combination of Magic and Mystery. Divine Sinners. Stoic Streetwalkers.

Who could be a better character to suffer from existentialist angst than a whore.

Adriana felt a strange pleasure when money was thrust in her hand for the first time and that kind of description is only possible for Alberto who doesn't write the book as an author but becomes Adriana himself.

 The man from the underground meets Liza in a brothel in Dostoyevsky's Notes from the underground. His encounter with Liza is the climax of the book, after which this beautiful novel ends. As if Author wants to say I have nothing more to say. Liza was once humiliated for having a stained soul refuses to accept money and comes out to be a pure soul.

 Yoshikawa in his book  The Art of War says "People tend to be put off by the idea of selling sex, but if you spend a winter's night with one of them and talk with her about her family and so on, you're likely to find she's just like any other woman."

This idea of treating the all human as normal could revolutionize the gender equation and thus whole society. May be that would be the alternative Society we are looking forward to when what has so far been condemned would get appreciated by society. Imagine how it would diminish the load from society to tackle the repulsive crimes of illegal trafficking, and authorities who handle law and order would be profitably deployed for protecting the society in the real sense.

How does it matter what you sell? Your mind or your body?

Selling body for physiological needs, like hunger and sleep could be  less heinous  than selling your mind.

Golden has fictionalized the character of Iwasaki's true life story in "Memories of a Geisha" to the extent that the beauty of a literary figure is lost in the wave of overtly dramatized plot.

On the other hand Poly Adler makes most honest confessions in "A house is not a home". She says "It is traditional that prostitutes are a sentimental lot, and in the main, that is true." And "What it comes down to is this: the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the merchant, the landlord, the druggist, the liquor dealer, th...e policeman, the doctor, the city father and the politician--these are the people who make money out of prostitution, these are the real reapers of the wages of sin".

And who is the female who is not a prostitute and who is the male who is not pimp?

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/

*Some quotes are from the forthcoming novel by the Author "From Under the Carpet"