Taboo (part one)

My mornings start with grabbing the news paper headlines as soon as I open my eyes. I, then read on the whole paper along with the numerous supplements that come with the daily ‘Times of India’ Mumbai edition. Thanks to my roommate who gets up much earlier and always remembers to keep the newspaper next to my mattress before leaving for work.
And I don’t leave my bed until I am finished with reading the whole of the paper while having my first smoke of the day and a cup of morning tea, prepared by my other flat mate.
Today was also no different; while I was sipping on my cup of Darjeeling tea suddenly my eyes caught the regular ‘ask me’ section in one of the supplements. It is that regular section where the readers mail about their problems ranging from psychological, sexual, legal, marital, physical and blah blah….. While an expert multitasking as a doctor, gynecologist,sexologist, shrink and lawyer tend to provide customized solution to their problems.
As a teenager it used to be quite a fun reading such QnA from the pages of Cosmopolitan or Femina kind of magazines and feel titillated. But now they seem rather funny or made up and I generally avoid reading them unless I am really jobless.
Maybe today was one of those jobless mornings for me that I chose to read the column. The questions were mostly related to sex and the physical aspect of sex as they generally are. Like some wants to increase the size of his little Johnny, someone wants to conceive at the age of 40 or someone wants to try and enter through the backdoor of his partner but does not know exactly how to do it. There were nothing new about this queries and I didn’t even bother to look at what solution the expert provided.
But then my eyes caught one of the queries. It was from a 28 year old woman. She is married for the last five months with someone who is working as an executive in a multinational organization. Though she hasn’t given any details of his educational qualification or ethnicity, she has mentioned that her husband is quite well off and out going in his attitude and she has no doubt of the fact that he loves her. Now, the woman in question is suffering from a strange problem. Her problem is whenever they have sexual intercourse her husband becomes psychologically depressed after the act. He stops talking to her even to the extent of the next couple of days. His behavior becomes erratic, he cannot stand her presence and tries to avoid any sort of interaction with her for the next couple of hours in some cases days. He has reveled to her that after having sex he suffers from a sense of guilt as if he has committed some heinous crime and considers her to be responsible for the act. He also told her that during this period he prefers to be left alone. This is bothering her and she herself has now started suffering from a great despondency. She has asked the expert to provide her with some solution.
I was a little taken aback if not shocked by this letter and though I didn’t want to read what the shrink has to say like the usual ‘you both need professional counseling and help’
But the first line of the experts reply caught my eye, he started his reply with the “it’s true that sex is considered a taboo in many religion, cast and ethnic groups…………”
He was convinced that this victim’s husband is suffering from the guilt of performing this taboo, this original sin.
This word ‘taboo’ suddenly jolted and I think I skipped couple of my heart beats. I could not digest that a young man at 2005 will consider sex as a taboo and suffer miserably for responding to his natural instincts. Then I felt that this has nothing to do with his education, profession, social status, caste, religion or being Indian. Searching the root in the immediacy of his existence will prove futile as this problem has its cause deeply rooted within time, within the course of human civilization. The fact that the driving force behind the evolution of Homo sapiens as the smartest animal on this planet was their power of rational thinking. And thus powered by the ability to think they emerged as the most adaptive creature, this adaptability and rational thinking as proved by Charles Darwin, made the humans the fittest in the struggle for survival.
Now once they had gained the supremacy over other species, it was time to gain supremacy among them. They realized that this was not possible on an individual effort. So groups were formed, family were built, society was structured, nations were built. And this has been a broad course of human civilization. Till today we are fighting, every moment to prove our supremacy over another human, family, group, race, society, and nation. And this fight the beginning of which was just for food for the sake of survival is never going to end because this will keep the wheel of civilization rolling ahead.
Though the weapons with which this battle has been fought has undergone drastic metamorphosis over the period of time from stones to fire, from fire to wood, from wood to metal, from metal to alloy, from allow to light metal, from light metal to fire arms and from fire arms to nukes and nukes to viruses or biological weapons.
But one weapon that has been constant throughout is the human mind and its power of thinking. Mind has helped them rationalize their existence and make it more convenient. The three ‘F’ factor that was considered to be the biggest enemies of the mind were Force (natural calamity, epidemic etc.); Fear (of wild animals, the dark and most importantly the unknown) and Failure (to deliver, to retain the leadership position). If we look at our state of mind today, even after all our processed rationale, our inventions, our progress the biggest enemies of our mind are these three factors.
And to deliver from these unknown, unseen enemies human mind created GOD and unsurprisingly Demon. Whenever the mind failed to explain something due to the unavailability of knowledge or resources, those incidents have been attributed to something more powerful, something more resourceful, and something more fit, more supreme.
Now after having created GOD and Demon it was time for restricting their territories of expertise. God became the savoir, the messiah. Anything that made life easier was attributed to his authority. Demon became the destructor, the fear factor, anything that was thought to be unexplainable; detrimental to human happiness was under his job description.
After creating GOD and Demon and assigning them their roles and responsibilities it was now time for identifying tasks or events that were Godly and those which were Diabolic.
Mostly the tasks that suited the comfort level of a sect and promised it’s supremacy was made godly and those which challenged their supremacy or aroused fear were acknowledged as demonic. Generally these were the tasks performed by some rival group, or some weaker part like the women of the own group.
To attain, retain or regain their domination these actions were made ‘PROHIBITED’
Thus ‘TABOO’ was born.

Taboo today is defines as a ban or an inhibition resulting from social custom or emotional aversion. Over the period of human civilization the definition of taboo has changed. Across time, across geographic location, across political outlook, across religious advocacy, across socio-economical structure the definition of taboo has changed.
Every society or country however rich, educated, enlighten or progressive it may be has it’s own set of ‘predefined’ taboos…..some society has provision for delivery after performing a task considered to be taboo. The methods for this delivery have been and are in many forms. Some customized to the human comfort level like confession, donation, prayer and some are brutal like corporal mortification, purification with fire, confiscation or amputation, stoning to death.

I need to take a break now as I feel that unless I stop here I will go on. But I am saving it for the future. I will surly write about the different taboos across different part of the globe and try to find out an explanation for them. Until then …..adios. Before ending this blog I am listing down some popular taboos, region wise.

Country or peoples Taboo
Australia --> mentioning the names of the dead

United States of America --> Passing Flatulence

Nearly universal --> Incest, cannibalism

Jews and Muslims --> Eating pork

Arabs --> Displaying the soles of the foot,
touching shoes, eating with the left hand

American men --> Public display of affection, crying

India -->Public display of affection, kissing in public, addressing elders by first names, smoking/drinking in front of one's elders

Chinese -->men and women Kissing in public, addressing elder by first names
Chinese women--> Appearing in public in late pregnancy

Mountaineers --> Stepping on climbing ropes, even when not in use

Jews -->pronouncing the personal name of God

Evangelical Christians,Devout Muslims and Jews --->Homosexuality, Having anal sex

United States White Americans, Asian-Americans --> Saying the word "nigger"