The Isha Foundation released a cryptic statement, “We believe that adults have the freedom and wisdom to choose their path.”
Recently, the Supreme Court intervened and paused a Madras High Court order that allowed 150 police officers to descend on self-styled godman Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation in Coimbatore to conduct an inquiry. A retired professor had filed a petition alleging that his two daughters, Geetha Kamaraj, 42, and Latha, 39, were being held captive, and that the organisation was brainwashing individuals to become monks, and restricting contact with their families.
“Why is a person who had given his daughter in marriage and made her settle well in life encouraging the daughters of others to tonsure their heads and live the life of a hermit?” said Justice Sivagnanam of the Madras HC. Deviating from procedure, a three-judge Supreme Court Bench headed by CJI D Y Chandrachud did a video conference with the sisters who said they were living in the ashram of their own free will. Meanwhile, the Isha Foundation released a cryptic statement, “We believe that adults have the freedom and wisdom to choose their path.”
Wise words indeed that unfortunately don’t resonate much here. The ‘sacrificing’ Indian parents who set aside their own ambitions to ensure their children’s success are an established stereotype but not enough is said about what is (quietly) demanded in return. There is an unwavering expectation that because they so painstakingly curated a life, an adult offspring is morally bound to socially validate them by obediently following convention: marriage, kids and so on.
Culturally, controlling parents are the norm, so we take suffocating interference in our stride. Love is something contingent, not unlike a deal where goods and services are exchanged. Consider the baffling logic of this professor father. To go to court against your kids is an unusual and threatening move. He must have been really desperate to make this last-ditch effort to scare his daughters back to a more traditional lifestyle.
However, even the Madras High Court somewhat sympathised with his humiliation. To have not one but two daughters who reject everything you stand for, is by Indian standards, the equivalent of a resounding slap in the face, deserving of condemnation. A little sobering introspection might make room for the thought that filial duty isn’t divinely ordained. Maybe that’s beyond the scope of the imagination of a previous generation that philosophically (if grudgingly) accepted that being a responsible adult meant coming to terms with becoming what one had resolutely planned to avoid. Family life is simply part of that journey, whether one wants it or not is inconsequential. Not to sound overly bleak in this festive season but even those of us who are lucky enough to have had full agency over our choices are, at some level, resigned to a life that falls tragically short of our hopes. So who’s to say how one’s better off? A pragmatic person recognises the inevitability of disappointment, and suddenly, carving out a challenging path free of societal constraints may not seem so attractive anymore.
Bourgeois life, lived easily, isn’t all that bad. There’s weekends, annual holidays, the comforting rhythms of friends and family. But with prosperity and education comes existential angst; there are many, even in India, who dreamily believe that being human means seeking something beyond the ordinary. How should I live? Is this peak high enough? What now? In the end, these are the right questions to ask. Urban youth nowadays relate less to formal religions with their complicated rituals and promises of a flowery after life but that doesn’t mean they’re not looking for spiritual guidance. There’s good reason that Sadhguru has 12.1 million subscribers on YouTube. His videos on “letting it go” and “living in the moment” skillfully package blissful liberation for the internet era. Pop salvation? Perhaps. But any trek inwards, is a step forward.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
