Yayati Complex

The Hindu narratives glorified one who submits to the will of father, society and tradition. The obedience is the highest virtue. The good son is who obeys. Father knows best, Father is wise, Father is tradition and he must succeed. The Father must win to keep the cultural values intact. We hear this sound right in our home. The Father generation always reminds us how they were obeying their father and how we should obey them, surrender to them, and submit to them. The mindset is called as Yayati Complex! Why?

The two stories from Mahabharata are illustrative: 

Yayati, Chandra-vamsi king, was married to Devyani, daughter of Sage Shukra. Devyani has a maid Sharmishtha, who travelled with Devyani to the palace of Yayati. Soon, Sharmishtha caught the eye of Yayati. The two got married secretly and even had children.

Found about this, sage Shukra cursed (Shap) his son-in-law Yayati, ‘You will become old and impotent’. But it was soon clear that the curse had its worst impact on his daughter Devayani only. He couldn’t reverse his curse. So he modified (U-shap). He told Yayati, “If one of your sons accepts the curse on your behalf, you will regain your youth and potency’.”

Yayati immediately sent for his sons. His elder son, Yadu, refused to accept curse on his father’s behalf. But younger son Puru, born of Sharmishtha, agreed to suffer for his father. So Puru suffered old age while his father enjoyed his youth.

Devavrata was 8^th son of Puru King Shantanu by Ganga. He grew up to be a handsome prince and a skilled warrior. The people of Hastina-puri loved him and hoped for a day when he would be king. But this wasn’t the wish of destiny.

His father Shantanu had fallen in love again, this time with Satyavati, a fisherwoman. But Satyavati put a condition: she wanted to be sure that only her children would be his heirs. This put Shantanu in awkward position as Devavrata was already declared as crown prince and he couldn’t possibly satisfy Satyavati’s condition.

Learning about the cause of his father’s misery, Devavrata went to Satyavati and said, “I renounce my claim to the throne. I shall never marry. I shall never father children”. This terrible vow brought him the title of ‘Bhisma’!!

Artist Ravi Varma's depiction of Bhishma abdicating the right of his throne to secure the hands of Matsyagandhi, a fishergirl, in marriage to his father Shantanu. Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore from http://www.kamat.com

Devedutt Patnaik in his book ‘Jaya’ written that:

“In Greek worldview, dominated by the Oedipus complex, it is the next generation which inherits society, while in Indian worldview, dominated by the Yayati complex, it is the older generation which always dominates society..”

The Yayati complex can be seen everywhere in Indian society. From politics to sports, from cinema to family. I remember the Indian cricket team on 1990s. Despite some splendid performance by young players in Ranji, we always relied on some great ‘experienced’ players for long. Experience has divine sanctity in our selection. When it came to selection for Australia or England tour, older players came back. We lauded their ‘experienced’ performance. Even now, in the great debate about Sachin’s retirement, a large chunk is batting for his ‘experience’ rather than his talent, his utility in current team.

In politics, it is older generation that is dominating the scene. The politics of India still imprisoned in the old Nehruvian logics. We refuse to see the 21^st century through new vision, new vigor, through the eyes of youths. The Congress is trapped in its old Nehru-Gandhian thinking. The BJP is struggling to come out from Atal-Advani leadership. The Shivsena refused to shed Bal Thackeray’s shadow. Karunanidhi is pulling the string from wheel-chair. The so called ‘Young Turks’ are from the families dominated by the older generation.

Bollywood movies are best example of this Yayati complex. The angry-young man theme is popularized in Indian cinema is nothing but the son fighting for his father’s cause and taking revenge of his father’s killing. The son is devoting his complete life for the happiness of his father’s soul. There is another theme popular in Indian cinema. The Govinda-Kadarkhan duo was chief anchor of this theme. Bad father, so good son fought, struggled to have a good life for his father. There were departures from these themes with the dawn of love stories (QSQT). It ran like - girl and boy falling in love with each other, then defying their parents, defying whole universe for the love.

Is it good or bad, difficult to answer. There is no answer. There cannot be any answer. The tradition of respect and glorification of old generation has its Demographic dividend. The demographic divided of this Yayati Complex has yielded a mixed result. We kept our family system, our age old cultural values and our ‘Indian-ness’ intact, but lost the dynamism of culture to rigid customs and traditions.

Let us see how this 21^st century ‘demographic divided’ find a way through this ‘Yayati Complex’!