Ecstasy [Paperback]

Sudhir Kakar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2003

Sudhir Kakar, a renowned psychoanalyst and the author of the acclaimed The Ascetic of Desire, brings a penetrating understanding of philosophy, religion, and the human psyche to his evocative second novel, Ecstasy. Ram Das Baba, as his devotees call him, is the son of a devout Brahmin family. He spends a lifetime seeking spiritual knowledge and his journey is filled with illuminating visions, severe tribulations, and an unwavering faith. His destiny as a highly evolved Sadhu is fulfilled through ordeals of monastic bliss, tantric awakening, madness, and transexuality. But as his life nears its end he meets a young man who belongs to a very different India and a profound relationship develops.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in 20th-century India, yet based on the historical narratives of 19th-century mystics, this intriguing bildungsroman is a free-floating excursion into the psychological paradoxes of the pursuit of nirvana. As Gopal, a young Brahmin and aspiring sadhu (monk), grows up in a 1930s village, his feminine appearance and strong attachment to his mother indicate his ambiguous sexuality. Signs of his saintliness are evident from the beginning as well, and his ascension to the position of Paramahamsa Ram Das Baba is heavily foreshadowed. Jumping ahead several decades, we meet Vivek, a worldly, well-educated student wrestler who visits Ram Das Baba on a whim and is shocked by the warmth and intensity of his welcome. After making it clear that Vivek, too, shows signs of a spiritual calling¢including a keen disinterest in women¢the narrative returns to Gopal's youth and recalls his captivating ascent to sainthood. Central to this transformation are talking bronze idols, tantalizing visions of the sex act, possession by female goddesses and six-week meditation fasts. As in The Ascetic of Desire, Kakar's fascinating novel that doubled as an essay on sex, the author's greatest strengths lie in his ability to portray the emotional conflicts resulting from physical experiences. Simple daily events and godly revelations are narrated in the same gentle, vivid prose. Although Kakar's sympathies and well-honed talent are generously devoted to the exploration of his characters' mystic experiences, his clear awareness of their interpretation in Western culture can border on irony. At times, his half-grounded, half-fantastic narration causes his characters to seem naOve and misguided. Whether this is part of the tangled web Kakar weaves or simply an unfortunate consequence of his attempt to combine story and philosophy remains open to interpretation, like much of this lusciously imagined novel.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Psychoanalyst Kakar is the author of several works of nonfiction and an earlier novel (The Ascetic of Desire: A Novel of the Kamasutra) and is a cotranslator, with Wendy Doniger, of Vatsyayana's Kamasutra. Here he recounts the story of Baba Ram Das, from his early years as the unhappy only child of a Brahmin widow to his renown as a holy figure. It's a tale of unwavering faith in the face of great difficulty and bolstered by mystic visions. Baba's bi- or transsexuality must be read not in modern terms but as a sign of the thin film dividing genders as part of a universal holiness. His disciple, an initially skeptical university student, modifies Baba's teaching and becomes part of a new "manly" Hinduism and the post-partition Indian power structure. Kakar is not a mystic but is obviously fascinated with those who choose this path or are chosen by it. Readers will be helped by a working knowledge of the manifestations of the One in the Hindu pantheon, but close reading will suffice for those new to the subject. Buy for larger fiction collections or for collections where interest in Indian spirituality is high. Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 251 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (November 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585674583
• ISBN-13: 978-1585674589
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,964,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ecstasy, A Review, September 20, 2003

By 

Heidi M. Hawkins "heidimo" (Bellingham, WA: City of Subdued Excitement) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ecstasy (Hardcover)

Sudhir Kakar's novel is a fascinating weave of fiction and history. Beautifully written, ordinary life in India and its ordinary and extraordinary places are memorably captured. Though not a mystic himself, Kakar does a splendid job also of capturing the weird, profound, mind-shattering, and inexplicable path of mysticism. Based on real life stories of real life mystics, the grace, blissful transcendence, horror, and confusion that mystics experience is described in radiant detail. Once began, this engaging book is hard to put down. Excellent reading as both fiction and mystical studies.
~heidimo

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What the BLEEP was that?, March 28, 2007

By 

Marina Amarose (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ecstasy (Paperback)

Sudhir Kakar is obviously a well-repected and accomplished thinker and writer. His non-fiction books include The Inner World: A Psychoanalytic Study of Childhood and Society in India, and The Analyst and the Mystic, among many other "essential writings." His understanding of children and mysticism apparenty runs pretty deep.

So how is it possible that in this novel the rape of a child (the young, semi-hermaphrodidic Gopal--who goes on to become the revered spiritual leader Ram Das Baba) is accounted for in the narrative as no more than the method by which "his Kundalini" was awakened from "where she slept at her seat above the anus"? The child's subsequent painful contraction of his anal muscles to withstand the torture, his weeks of listlessness, dullness, bursts of screaming, incoherent babbling, and glazed eyes, "as if there were no one at home in the body" are never related back to his molestation by the adult tantrik. By this I mean that Gopal never speaks or thinks about what happened to him, and neither, in any sense I can find, does the author.

I'm baffled. These are the possibilities I can think of:
1) Because the novel is based on real historic events, the author may have been following the facts without feeling at liberty to question them further than the real historical personages did. If Ram Das's real life counterpart claimed his Kundalini was awakened with the aid of a helpful tantrik who ordered him out of his clothes and "crushed his will" to refuse, who's a novelist to doubt it?
2) The author may not have realized that the events he relates WERE the rape of a young child. I know this sounds silly, but there is something elliptical and detached in the langugage and imagery, and in how quickly the scene cuts off. Is it possible the writer is implying something else, spiritual and edifying, took place after Gopal lost consciousness?
3) Maybe the book really does mean to allow that on the road to spiritual enlightenment the sexual abuse of a child by an adult is helpful. Certainly, Ram Das Baba's worldview is never questioned as being in any way bogus or over-compensating. He's meant to be read, I think, as the real thing, at least in the eyes of the disciples who interact with him. But his genuineness is never given the chance to stand up to integration with his abuse. Is Ram Das Baba running from something? Sudhir Kakar doesn't seem to want to know.

I've focused on one very brief episode in a complex novel, but I can't help it. I'm drawn back to the question of the child and the tantric in a way that overrides all the interest and pleasure the book might otherwise have provided me.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the answer, January 15, 2009

By 

Jim Richards "mr_grumpy" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ecstasy (Paperback)

I bought this book when I was travelling through India because I had finished reading Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and Dawkin's The God Delusion and wanted something a little more spiritual. This book, well written and very evocative, didn't hit the spot I was looking for. That's not to say it isn't a good book, but for me, at the time, it wasn't it. The book details the stories of two people. Gopal, a mystic, and Vivek, a middle class boy. Gopal's life from early stages through his changes is well detailed. Beautiful details of a spiritual life in both the monastery and through the countryside as he searches for his meaning and place in the world. And a view into Gopal's relationship with his spiritual elder and his own family and followers. This is contrasted with the life of Vivek, also a deeply religious soul, as far from the life of Gopal as East is from West. Vivek is the militant Hindu wanting India to return to something that it might never have been. Vivek eventually also leads an ascetic's life, but so far from the full of life Gopal, that it breaks Gopal's heart. And mine.

So, is this a book for you? Well, don't expect this to be the sort of Indian version of Chicken Soup for the Soul. If you approach it that way, then you'll walk the right path. Otherwise you'll still be hungry.