Nine Lives(29)

DO NOT DEDICATE YOUR DAUGHTER.

THERE ARE OTHER WAYS OF SHOWING YOUR DEVOTION.



and

DEDICATING YOUR DAUGHTER

IS UNCIVILISED BEHAVIOUR.



For all their efforts, however, the reformers have not succeeded in ending the institution, only demeaning and criminalising it. There are currently estimated to be around a quarter of a million devadasis in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, about half of them living around Belgaum. Every year, several thousand are added to their number—estimates range widely from 1,000 to 10,000 dedications annually—and they still make up around a quarter of the total sex workers in Karnataka. For the very poor, and the very pious, the devadasi system is still seen as providing a way out of poverty while gaining access to the blessings of the gods, the two things the poor most desperately crave.

This is why several thousand girls, usually aged between about six and nine years old, continue to be dedicated to the goddess annually. Today, the dedication ceremony tends to happen at night, in small village temples, and sometimes without the presence of Brahmins. When Brahmins do consent to attend, they charge as much as Rs 5,000 to the parents of the girl, because of the risk they now have to take in doing so. A feast is thrown, prayers said, then the young devadasi is presented with her muttu, which represents her badge of office as a sacred prostitute. Her duties and privileges are explained to her. If the girls are dedicated when they are very young, as is usually the case, they then return to a normal childhood. Only when they hit puberty are they wrenched from the lives they have led, and offered out for their first night to be deflowered by the highest bidder in the village, usually for sums ranging from Rs 50,000 to 100,000.



Later that day, I visited the Yellamma temple with Rani Bai and Kaveri. It was a fine ninth-century building, packed with pilgrims from across the state, and we had to queue for some time to get darshan of the goddess. Ahead of us were a party of excitable eunuchs from Bijapur. The girls had recovered their spirits and now chatted away with the eunuchs as they waited. They were clearly happy to be in the home of their protectress.

“I feel very devotional whenever I am here,” said Rani.

“You feel her presence so strongly in her temple,” said Kaveri.

“She is very near,” said Rani.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“It’s like electricity,” she replied. “You can’t see it, but you know it’s there, and you can see its effects.”

When we arrived before the idol, the priests blessed us with a camphor lamp and Kaveri explained that the image of the goddess had emerged from the hillside. “No one made it,” she whispered.

Having bowed before the deity and made an offering, I asked one of the Brahmins whether they still performed devadasi dedications. The priest looked cagey.

“What do we know of these women?” he said, looking around to his fellow pundits for support.

“We used to bless their necklaces,” said one of the older priests. “Then give them back to them. But now that is illegal.”

“That was our only role.”

“What they do is their own business,” said the first. “This is nothing to do with us.”



That evening, after we had dropped off Kaveri in Belgaum, I drove Rani Bai back to the house where she lived and worked, in a nearby town. This was located in Mudhol, in a back alley of the town where many devadasis have settled. More than a hundred worked here in a small warren of streets off the main highway heading to Bangalore.

It was a dark lane, lit by a single, dim street light. Dogs sat next to open gutters, while half-naked children played in the side alleys. It was perhaps the depressing nature of her surroundings that led Rani—always the optimist, always the survivor—to talk up the positive side of her career.

“We still have many privileges,” she said as we approached her house on foot, since the lanes were too narrow here for the car. “If a buffalo has a calf, the first milk after the birth is brought to the devadasis to say thank you to the goddess. During the festival of Yellamma, the people bring five new saris to us as gifts. Each full moon we are called to the houses of Brahmins and they feed us. They touch our feet and pray to us because they believe we are the incarnation of the goddess.”

“Still this goes on?” I asked, thinking of the attitude of the Brahmins at the temple.

“Still,” said Rani. “When we are called for pujas like this, we feel very proud.

“There are so many things like this,” she continued. “When a child is born, they make a cap for the baby from one of our old saris. They hope then that the love of Yellamma will be on that child. If a girl is getting married, they take a piece of coral from us devadasis and they put it in the girl’s mangalsutra [wedding necklace]. If they do this, they believe the woman will experience long life and never suffer widowhood.