Skip to main content

Children of Lust


Lot and his daughters - a painting
Self-righteous fool that Iam!  Lot beat his chest and lamented.  His cries rose to the heavens, “Yahweh!  Forgive me, forgive me.” 

Lot’s sin was manifold.  Lust and incest.  He copulated with both of his daughters.  His daughters’ children would not be his grandchildren as it should have been.  How disgraceful!  The mountains off Zoar echoed his laments.

Lot had fled Sodom because of its immorality.  The people were like pigs wallowing in filth: they wallowed in sex and sensuality.  Bored of the women, the men of Sodom sought and found their delights in male bodies.  Left to themselves, their women too discovered their own delights: in the bodies of each other.  Bodily pleasures.  Damnation.  Death.

The wombs of Sodom cried to the heavens for seeds to germinate.  The heavens heard the cries.  Yahweh opened the gate of the heavens and told Lot to move out.

“You have been a temperate man,” said Yahweh to Lot.  “You did not forsake the ways I had ordained for humanity.  So shall I save you from the perdition that is about to fall on your land and its men and women as well as their offspring.”

A dream.  A dream of a man who wanted something more than the body and its pleasures.  A dream of a man who wanted to dream of the heavens.

Dreams can end up people in caves.  Lot wanted to save his daughters from the evil world.  He took them out from the world.  To a cave in a mountain off Zoar. 

Caves narrow down dreams.  Caves shrink one’s horizon.  In the cave Lot saw only his daughters.  There was nothing else to see in the cave.  Young daughters.  Beautiful daughters.  Daughters who should be married off.  Where are the men who deserve to marry them?

The soil longs for seeds even in a desert.  Ova need fertilisation by spermatozoa even in a cave.  Especially in a cave.

“When will we get husbands to fill our wombs with children?” lamented Lot’s elder daughter.

“When will we get men to love us?” lamented Lot’s younger daughter.

We are doomed to die in this cave, they said to each other as they hugged each other.  Their breasts met with the softness of the flesh of each other.  Sodom rose in their groins like a volcano ready to burst.  The heat of the volcano scorched Lot’s veins. 

Lot took out the wine from the cask to quench the thirst of his veins.  The wine flowed in his veins.  Wine mellowed his veins.  Wine infuriated his sperms. Infuriated sperms long to fertilise.  Long to mate.  Long to meet a mate.  Sodom had killed meeting and mating.  There is no life without meeting and mating.  There is no life where the sperm is spilled like swine’s swill.  Where the ovum is thrown out with rags that had been stuck in the foulest places. 

Lot said, “Come my beloved.  Lie with me.  Let my sperm meet your ovum.  Let there be life.”

Lot’s wife was not there to heed his invitation.  She had been turned into a salt pillar.  She had defied Yahweh’s orders. 

But Lot’s girls had heard his mourn.  They took off the rags that had been smothering their stinking bodies.  Let our bodies find liberation.  Let there be life.  They said. 

They lay on either side of their father.

The night passed.  Sodom was burnt out totally by the volcano.  But life was stuttering in the wombs of Lot’s daughters.

“Oh Yahweh!  What have I done?” lamented Lot standing on the mountain outside his cave looking up to the heavens.  I wanted a moral world.  I wanted morality.  Oh Yahweh!  I have spurned a brood of vipers.  Children of lust.  Oh Yahweh!


Yahweh promised a “Promised Land” to Lot’s offspring.  Lot dreamt on.  Lot’s dreams crossed the Jordan river.  Beyond all rivers.  Beyond all oceans.  Lot dreamt of a world where his morality would be in practice.  In practice.  A world of dreams.  Dreams of a caveman.  The Jordan formed a few ripples which died out soon.  The dream of the caveman continued.  In scriptures.  In the same Arab Land.  Dreams.  Dreams.  Dreams of the children of lust.  Oh Yahweh!

Note: This is a fictionalised version of an episode from the Bible, Genesis, chapter 19.  I have taken much liberty with the Biblical version. 

Comments

  1. Does the word 'Sodomy' come from the name of the city 'Sodom?'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Ravish, the word 'sodomy' owes its origin to the Biblical Sodom.

      Delete
  2. Now this is where Sodomy comes from

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lot is supposed to have lived more than 4000 years ago. My point is that the world wasn't much better in those days. Evil is nothing new. Evils coeval with man. Evil of all kinds...

      Delete
  3. Electra complex.....sodomy refers to much inferior activities nowadays...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even in those days, Mani, it referred to those "much inferior activities". Otherwise Yahweh wouldn't have been so angry as to destroy two entire cities. [By the way, I'm not a believer and don't take the Bible literally. I take it as literature and interpret it in my own way.]

      Delete
  4. The children of Lust! Such an apt title for the post and the story is definitely touching. The bible indeed!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Bible has so many instances of the "Fall" of man. Right from the first couple Adam and Eve, there are so many characters in the Bible who "fell" (sinned). The theme of evil never ceases to fascinate me. After Yahweh destroyed the whole human population except Noah and his family, He said that He wouldn't do it (destroy man) anymore though the heart of man is filled with evil. I have always wondered why He couldn't fill it with goodness.

      Delete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. If lust had been interpreted with goodwill, mankind would not have suffered from sexual abuses. The word 'lust' would not have acquired negative connotation. How evil entered this world is still intriguing.

    PS.: Tried to post a comment in the afternoon. Not successful. Ended up posting a comment to the previous blog on Sheldon.

    As usual good read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Can lust be interpreted with goodwill? If excess of anything is bad, lust can never be good.

      Evil is an integral part of life, I guess. I have implied that in the story.

      If you log in first and then post the comment, it works much faster.

      Nice to see you after a long time.

      Delete
    2. Then let me correct it. What I mean to say is that the word 'lust' need not have come into existence at all. That's my wish, precisely.

      Delete
    3. If wishes were horses beggars would ride Madam.

      Delete
  7. I always learn something whenever I visit your blog. This one was quite interesting too, even a little disturbing in some places.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I tried my best to mellow the story, Shreesha. But the theme is such the story has to be a little 'sleazy'.

      Delete
  8. What a scary portrayal... I find even cannibals feasting around a wood-fire less repulsive :-/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, Anunoy, our religions give us more than what we can chew sometimes.

      Delete
  9. Another twisty tale.. and to think this is a spin off from religion!

    Richa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most religious scriptures have such tales or bizarre texts, Richa. If all the people really read the scriptures there would be no terrorism or fundamentalism, no religion itself perhaps.

      Delete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. hmm.. now here is the real question of morality.. I haven't read Bible.. Now I feel like I want to.. But did Lots or his daughters really sinned? I mean who defined incest?? Scriptures?? Who wrote them?? God?? Then how Adam n Eve, just two humans, could grow into such a huge population without incests between brothers n sisters, fathers n daughters.. Does that mean the whole premise of human race is based on incest??? Did the same God not want the humans to grow?? Then why the biology?? The act by the family was a weak moment arisen by circumstances but it might be seen as providence as Taote has written:
    The Tao doesn't take sides;
    it gives birth to both good and evil.
    The Master doesn't take sides;
    she welcomes both saints and sinners.

    Lots truth, tears and lament washes away any sign of lust. I would never judge and still respect people like Lots and his daughters.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Circus called Politics

Illustration by ChatGPT I have/had many students whose parents are teachers in schools run or aided by the government. These teachers don’t send their own children to their own schools where education is free. They send their children to private schools like the one where I’ve been working. They pay huge fees to teach their children in schools where teachers are paid half of or less than their salaries. This is one of the many ironies about the Kerala society. An article in yesterday’s The Hindu [ A deeper meaning of declining school enrolment ] takes an insightful look at some of the glaring social issues in Kerala’s educational system. One such issue is the rapidly declining student enrolment in government and aided schools in the state. The private schools in the state, on the other hand, are getting more students. People don’t want to send their children to the schools run by the government systems. The chief reason is that the medium of instruction is Malayalam. The second ...