In a league of his own

For nearly two decades, he has been waging a solitary battle. At every step, he confronted the same dead end -- taboos, taboos and more taboos. People were shy and reticent. The medical fraternity remained cautious for the subjects of sex and sexuality were forbidden from being discussed openly. Yet, the pudgy medical practitioner, who pioneered the concept of sexual medicine in the country, went about his crusade undeterred. Dr. Prakash Kothari is peeved at the fact that for a population of more than a billion, there is only one department for sexual medicine in the entire country. "A great irony in the land of Kama Sutra," he told T. LALITH SINGH in an interview during his visit to the city.

"NOBODY WANTS to talk about it. And this lack of awareness on the subject spells disastrous consequences," cautions the Head of Sexual Medicine Department, K.E.M. Hospital, Mumbai. With the distinction of being the lone sexologist in the world to have attended to more than 50,000 patients, Dr. Kothari says in the absence of proper and scientific sex education, "street corners have become libraries and laboratories for gaining knowledge on the subject".

The scenario was not the same a few centuries ago. "Believe it or not, till the 13th century, free sex education was offered in the country. It was the invasion of colonial powers and imposition of their moral values that is to be blamed for the present state," Dr. Kothari says.

He shifts into different languages -- from Hindi to Urdu to Marathi to English -- with a rare ease and laces the discussion with lots of `shayari'. Quotes from religious books are also effectively used to drive home the point. "Before, the Indian society never considered sex as a sin. It is a recent phenomenon. You take either references in Bhagvad Gita or the works on temples, it was treated with a deference that it deserves," he says.

A series of international events -- Sex Congress, conferences on orgasm and sexology -- that he organised in the country did help in breaking the barriers to a certain extent. He is contended too. "These events did succeed in pulling the hush-hush discussions on sex from the backyard to the drawing rooms. And from there to Parliament," he smiles talking about the draft proposal on the National Sexuality and Health Education Programme which he was asked to devise.

Dr. Kothari, who was presented with a gold medal by the World Sex Congress for his original research on Vatsayana's `Kama Sutra', calls for immediate incorporation of sex education in the school curriculum. That's the only way out for the country to combat the problems posed by the population explosion and the AIDS. "We need to spend a whopping Rs. 18,000 per month to treat a single AIDS patient. Will our nation be able to afford this kind of expenditure?" he argues.

When he started delivering a little publicised talk on `Sex, Sexuality and Ghazals' at a city auditorium, the crowd was to be seen to be believed. People thronged in large numbers, occupied the aisles when the chairs got filled, then squatted on the steps and also nearly half of the dais. All eager to listen to Dr. Kothari. Must be a heartening scene for Dr. Kothari. "Curtains on taboos seem to be lifting...slowly though," he muses.

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