To Be Natural Is the Best Form of Discipline

It has become a norm, a standard, a trend over last seven or eight decades to look down upon the alternate lifestyles, especially that of those who are prone to wander around jobless and those who lean towards spiritual practices at a very young age disregarding the established patterns of leading a life. Invariably the elders advise these ‘vagabonds’ to ‘settle down’ in life. By ‘settling’ down it is assumed and understood the life style where a person should go to work, earn money, mate with the opposite sex and beget children. Further lectures would be on the way if one were to resist this advice on any grounds. And those lectures would always be accompanied by a finishing touch – this is the norm laid down and followed by human societies for thousands of years. Curious!

Equally curious are the opposition, especially in the last decade and half, to this stand on alternate lifestyles. More often than not, modern people to rubbish the opposition to alternate lifestyles as ignorance soaked ‘traditional’ thinking or deep rooted ‘religious evil’.  Even Swami Vivekananda, who felt that Indians are leading a routine, timid lives and have become pre-dominantly vegetarian [how wrong he was / is!] society and lays the blame squarely on the heads of Jainism and Buddhism. This mentality has led to incredible shrinking of space in modern Indian literature to vagabonds and hipsters and the number of works focusing on alternate lifestyles has become very negligible.

India and many civilizations have had rich history of people who do not fit into any fixed category as a householder or student or business person or a mendicant etc. So, the opposition to such behaviour is based on religion or religious practices? I do not know what religion that people are referring to. If you take Hinduism, right from Rig Veda [where ‘vatarasanas’ among others are eulogized] to Upanishads [there is even one called as Parivrajakopanishad] to Puranas and extraordinary number of references to vagabonds / nomads in the vernacular language works. In Jainism, from Rishabha Deva [the founder] to Mahavira and through centuries we find a religion dominated by the wanderers and ascetics. In Buddhism, right from Buddha and his sangha to 20^th century works, the religion is full of wanderers and Buddhist travellers. In Christianity, from Christ to nameless wanderers and wayfarers who took the message of God in musical form to remote corners of their countries, we find a religion full of such people. So is the same with Islam.

Here, I have been careful not to mention those group of people in all the cultures who were not very religious in a conventional sense but practitioners of various spiritual practices. Reasons are obvious to be stated here again.

If religion is not the base for looking down upon the alternate lifestyles and vagabonds, then could it be the traditional, local cultural practices sans religion were behind such an outlook? I doubt so. Even in India, a much maligned country as being too religious, we have had hordes of wanderers in every nook and corner of the country for centuries. They were never maligned. Rather, at times, they were patronized and eulogized. Bauls of Bengal, Pathis of Uttar Pradesh, Meenas of Rajasthan and Haryana, Siddhas and Bhagavatas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra, Paridhis of Maharashtra and Karnataka give us ample testimony for their existence within societies. They were not born as such, but were classified later on based on their nomadic behaviours. It is British rulers who were allergic to these wanderers branded many of them as thieves, tribes, riff-raffs and so on in their attempts to ‘teach’ culture and civilized behaviour to desis.

Then what leads to such an outlook? Wandering life has got its own charm and glamour without any burdens of life that the rest of us endure. But it is highly vulnerable and dangerous. There is no security and comfort in leading such a life though it is devoid of burdens and responsibilities. The old age is very cruel for the wanderers. So, it is natural for the parents [especially those of 20^th century where the dynamics of living and economics changed beyond recognition] to have a fear that if allowed one vagabond may lure 100s of their young ones. It is this fear of loss and natural concern of the grown-ups for the welfare and safety of their young ones drove them to a rigid stand of rubbishing and banishing all wanderers as undesirable and dangerous.

The same fear lies at the root of the adults when confronted with the so-called ‘modern’ issue of homosexuality and other ‘offbeat’ behaviours. Ruth Vanita has compiled two wonderful books on the same sex love and marriage from ancient India downwards. Word is that the third in the series may also appear sometime soon. Please go, buy and read those books, especially the ones cited in them. I do not agree with many of the things contained in the books, but she has done wonderful compilations. I need not write as what is the point of repeating that which is already there in the public domain? Reading those is very essential, especially for the youngsters who are all likely to be confronted by these issues. They should deviate from their elders by equipping themselves with knowledge rather than blindly acting out of passion. After all, to be honest, this phenomenon has been there for a long time. Were those people banished from the societies in the centuries before us? No.

Another important book in relation to all this is Ghumakkar Shastra.  As I was writing a critical evaluation, last week, of famous Indian polymath, writer and critic Rahul Sankrityayan for a vernacular journal, I was appalled at seeing a number of opinions that Sankrityayan wrote all such books only as a response to various anti-vagrancy acts that were being enacted in India during the middle of 20^th century. Nothing could be farther from truth than this. One Sankrityayan was too great a scholar to be writing such serious books in response to some stupid non-enforceable laws being enacted by states. Second, his Volga se Ganga was written much before the acts came into existence. He wrote those works simply to de-mythify the very outlook I have been talking here.  In these works Sankrityayan heavily romanticizes the offbeat behaviours, vagrancy and other modes of existence within a human society. He was not advocating renunciation; he was not eulogizing proper sannyasins but Vagabonds, especially in Ghumakkar Shastra [in Tamil ஊர் சுற்றி புராணம் ; in English Treatise on Vagabondage; translations are available in almost all the Indian languages and French and German too] where he makes virtue out of vagrancy, aimless wandering and all related stuff. It is an extreme book where he goes to the length of arguing for the separation of children [both boys and girls] at a very young age and set out for roaming around.

Another book is The Wayfarers, a monumental collection by William Donkin of what he termed as masts [not those who renounced the world, not religious people, but spiritually enlightened vagabonds] in India. It contains details of such people in every nook and corner of India. It is a painful book to read and offers no tangible purpose and usefulness to the reader. Yet, it is a constant reminder that such people did and continue to occupy ‘our’ space and along with us.

I always had and continue to have a dim opinion of the philosophical works of DK (and his chelas too), but he was something that was needed at that time in India. He was a quintessential hipster. He was the guy who loved getting under the skin of as many as possible. He wore bathroom slippers while coming to International Conferences; smoked beedis in pipe holder; pouted contradictory views on almost everything but filled with carefully chosen expletives; roamed the world with the eunuchs, gays, prostitutes. But beneath all the facades he was a scholar and we all remember him for that and not his vagrant behaviour.

          So, dear modern ‘intellectuals’, please do not rubbish the fears and concerns of your elders as ‘traditional’, ‘religious’ and ‘close minded’ stupidities. The elders, please do not thrust your fears and concerns beyond a point on your young ones. For fear constricts the personalities, not only yours but also that of your young ones. Let them be natural. If they can be as they are and natural without deceiving anyone through their lives, that is the best for them and the society in which they are going to live. That is the best, disciplined life you can offer them. As Ramana Maharishi once wrote 

“To be natural is the best form of discipline.”