“Characterless”

 Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I came across the word for the first time in my teens, in M. Hiriyana’s Indian Philosophy: God is ‘characterless’. What he meant was attributeless, what we call “nirguna”, that is without the social predilections of qualities of head and heart unbiased and uninvolved in personal preferences. But my, the then understanding of character had made me laugh: If less means a quantifying word (adjective, noun, adverb) then God is without ‘character’. I too was biased by the proverbial precept, “… if character is lost everything is lost.” Today, however, I have no regard for that and such percepts which are half witted utterances of elders to confine the human essence in sexuality. Foucault would have laughed at such things while pardoning Hiriyana for bad English.

Character has several shades of meaning. It means the handwriting or even alphabets; an identifying trait of a personality. In literature, especially in fiction and drama, character is the emergence of a personality in his actions: the protagonist’s attitude, his intellectual and emotional response in a crisis, his decisiveness or withdrawal, his sense of responsibility, the language he speaks in critical situations, and particularly the values which he upholds or flouts comprise his character. If he makes his destiny by his own actions we call him a worthwhile character. There are also some men and women who are inflexible, rigid and stubborn, thereby displaying static traits. Some spit and scoot (hit and run) jokers are also referred to as characters in a negative sense- oh! What a character. But down the centuries character is associated with sexual purity. A philandering bum is not called characterless but if a woman jumps the medieval virtues she is immediately denounced by patriarchy. One may be honest, hardworking, sincere and truthful but if she loves a man outside the charmed circle she is called a slut. A whiff of suspicion ruins the reputation of Sita. No one, including her great husband Ramchandra appreciated all her virtues of purity in devotion, total commitment to her husband, her cultural grace, feminine majesty and refinement; the moral balance tilts against her in irrational suspicion of her ‘character’ – she becomes characterless as if all her virtues are not even fig leaves to cover Royal shame. In the American novel The Scarlet Letter, the heroine is shamed and condemned for adultery. Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl (the most lovable bastard) too is abandoned by the society. But the ‘Love‘ which she lavished is decimated by hate.

 

The human society has no place for love. The most hateful value is love. Human hypocrisy is boundless. Jesus is worshipped as he preaches love. Krishna too is worshipped despite his riotous sexual indulgences: the argument is Krishna is a God, the most brilliant, divine redeemer. His character is gold. All greats in the world are judged by their contributions to humanity. Their greatness never gets the moral tag, “characterless” even if they deflower thousand virginities and spend nights with voluptuaries in their heavens.

 

In the entertainment industry character does not matter. The affairs, escapades, public flaunting of frivolities are materials for glossy magazines which the laity pours over with pornographic curiosity. They are the new gods and devis. In the lower stratum of the society none bothers about character. In the high flying society none has time to think about chastity. The powerful conquer character, the weak lose it in one night.

 

But strangely people accept a liar, manipulator, cheat, rapist, arsonist as a leader. The seat of power it seems purges all sins and transforms the leader into a divinity. There too character is above sexual purity. A typical case is Rose Beauharnais who later in life became the paramour and wife of Napoleon; and by virtue of her marriage to Bonaparte sat on the throne as Empress. And once that happened none remembered the star of fashions, the orgiastic sex doll which Rose was before right from her puberty.  Before she attained her new name Josephine and her new status she was under everyone’s sheets. She slept with the rich and also with the servants. Love was not her profession but Rose professionally utilized her physical charms to rise the socio-political ladder in Revolution battered France.

 

Character should not be defined by sexuality. A person may indulge in the passions but if the nightly transgressions are transcended by life changing virtues the improprieties of the body are not remembered. But the hypocrisy of the human mind is so obviously biased against women that genuine love is hated as crime. Meera was poisoned but Radha (an imaginary damsel) is adored as Goddess of love. The patriarchal double speak is now more prominent in social media where tongues wag in taxless libertinism. If I say Trump is a character people will agreeably smile, none would have dared to call him characterless. If you remember the famous saying- Elizabeth was a virgin behind her back – people will raise eyebrows scratching their cheeks. A wit may whisper, leave the other things to their biographers’ footnotes!