Saturday, January 22, 2011

Sex, death and the gods: the Devadasi prostitutes of South India...


Parvatamma is a devadasi, or servant of god, as shown by the red-and-white beaded necklace around her neck. Dedicated to the goddess Yellamma when she was 10 at the temple in Saundatti, southern India, she cannot marry a mortal. When she reached puberty, the devadasi tradition dictated that her virginity was sold to the highest bidder and when she had a daughter at 14 she was sent to work in the red light district in Mumbai.

Parvatamma regularly sent money home, but saw her child only a few times in the following decade. Now 26 and diagnosed with Aids, she has returned to her village, Mudhol in southern India, weak and unable to work. "We are a cursed community. Men use us and throw us away," she says. Applying talcum powder to her daughter's face and tying ribbons to her hair, she says: "I am going to die soon and then who will look after her?" The daughter of a devadasi, Parvatamma plans to dedicate her own daughter to Yellamma, a practice that is now outlawed in India. More...

Don't miss:
  1. Devadasi, the temple slave prostitutes of India...
  2. Nepal's former living goddess is now a software engineer!!!
  3. Sikh priest in India caught filming a woman taking a bath!!! 
  4. The prostitutes of Calcutta and the virtuous soil for Goddess Durga statues...
  5. Hindu priest in Tamil Nadu had sex escapades in the temple's sanctum sanctorum !!! 

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