 I'm Raga Olga De Silva or totally out now as you know me. It's 4 p.m. in London, 8.30 p.m. in India. A very warm welcome from the other side series of Speaking Minds, India's largest International Speakers Bureau. I'm the co-founder and director of Speaking Minds. As you know, we bring together thought leaders, motivational speakers, industry experts, performers, trainers. We also do both bespoke curated events for our corporate clients in India and around the world. In the current pandemic and stay at home environment that we're all currently in, we have continued to offer our clients support through a huge repository of talent that we manage. Now, today we have a topic that most of us shy away from. There are topics we feel comfortable talking about, and there are topics that causes much stress, but we are unable to talk about for whatever reason, personal reasons. We are in lockdown, confined, for some of us, or for many of us, let's say, space is a luxury that we don't have. If our partners are with us, and I'm hoping that many of us are with our partners, we are now stuck with them 24 by seven. What seems romantic at one time now seems like, can seem like an irritation, not for all, I'm sure. But what happens to romance? What happens to intimacy? What is happening during these times? We have with us by popular demand, Seema Anand, mythologist, storyteller, and expert on women's narrative. Author of the Arts of Seduction. If you recall, her talk on the Arts of Seduction has received over 9.5 million views on YouTube. Who better to talk about intimacy and relationships during lockdown than Seema Anand? Seema, welcome. Thank you, Raghav. Hello, good. Thank you, my dear. Thank you. Uh-oh, we've frozen. Hi, Seema. Sorry, I think there was a bit of a technical glitch. I could see your beautiful face, but I couldn't hear you. That's okay. You'd frozen as well. Hi, Raghav. Hi. It's good to be back. It's interesting to pick the subject that you've picked today. I just want to know why are we so hot today? Is it London or is it because I'm in your presence or is it because of the... It's got to be me. To see the world. It's got to be me. Yeah. Listen, we've got a whole bunch of people who have joined in. Rima Sanghwi. Hi, Rima. Speaking mind says, hey gorgeous, she says. And I say, hey gorgeous as well. Saurabh Dhanik says, hello, ma'am. Hello, Seema ma'am, he says. And we've got a whole lot of questions for you, Seema. But the most important question for me to start off with is what is intimacy? So I think the dictionary will give us a very basic meaning because I find that these are English words and they belong within an extraordinarily tiny framework of meanings. In the Western vocabulary, we have a very tiny framework of words that describe the idea of love. And in our background, India has a culture in the world that has observed the idea of love as minutely as we have. We have observed and analyzed and categorized and studied it so closely. So for us, intimacy is an entirely different thing. I think intimacy is a physical relationship that you share with a surrogate in the Western precepts. It's generally a sexual relationship. Let's go one further. I think it is more about the, it's a sense of belonging. It is a sense of comfort with each other. It's a sense of pleasure in each other's company. And finally, it is that idea of being physically together, which is an extremely important part of any relationship between two people who, I won't call them married people, but you know what I mean, two people who are together. So two people together could be partners together, right? People who love each other, people who feel safe, people who have respect for each other. So I'm gonna ask you a question. Is intimacy physical? I like the idea about feeling safe. You just said is it, we were just discussing that a moment ago, isn't it, that this idea of feeling safe with each other, because it's only when you get to that feeling that when you're physically together, does that lead to pleasure? Otherwise, it's not really pleasure if it's not safe, if there's no safe space. So I think intimacy is an extremely important word and very, very, it should be very big in our minds when we actually think about our own relationships. So good. So when we talk about intimacy in relationships, we talk about being together, right? In the most vulnerable way that we can, whether it is emotionally vulnerable, whether it is sexually vulnerable, whatever. So that's when we feel safe. That's when we are intimate together. My question is what is the difference between intimacy and sex? Well, I think it's literally that, like you said, if intimacy is about vulnerability, it's about feeling safe. Sex, if you take the word, let's just take it as, or at base value as it comes to us, you know, the first thing that you think of when you think of the word sex or you think of the word intimacy, intimacy is already a softer emotion. It's something that makes you feel like you belong together, like you belong with that person. And it's something that is, it's a choice. It's a desire. It's a pleasure. Sex is been stripped down to its bare bones. It's a cold hard word. It needs something to make it personal. So let's say one is personal, one is impersonal. There's an interesting comment that's come through Seymour on our public page which says from Akihito, I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. Intimacy doesn't need to be between partners. Intimacy can be the bonding, the connection between one spirit to another. Okay, true. Yeah. Some kind of bond, some kind of connection. Something that links you. You know, it's funny you should say that because if you think about it within the ancient Hindu idea, sexuality and spirituality have always been connected. And to me, I know that a lot of people say, oh, you find all these images of sexual intimacy on the outside of temples, ancient temples in India. I don't, and a lot of people say, oh, it's because this is the sort of thing that you have to leave outside before you step inside. I think that that idea of coming together physically was an analogy of the union that was desired between the soul and the divine, that it would be as beautiful and pleasurable as that. So yeah, I agree. Intimacy can be the bond between spirit and et cetera. But I think in this case, in today's session, we are generally focusing on the challenges that people are facing when it comes to, so we are looking at intimacy in the physical sense of the word and certainly looking at the challenges that we're facing today. Are we not? Yeah, so Seema, we've been having various numerous conversations on this, right? Over the last few weeks, we're all in situations where with the partners, some of us in long-term relationships, ship ships, some of us have just met our partners and we are now confined together. So tell me, how do we cope? I mean, what is really happening out there? You know, the funny thing is that actually this desire that is inside and it is inside four of our beings. Some of us are more aware of it at the moment. Some of us have suppressed it. Some of us don't want to think it at the moment. But we're all stuck to this point and we can't actually, we don't have a choice. Normally we have choices. We have a choice in terms of I can get out and do other things I can meet with other people and so on and right now. And what I've discovered from all the questions and the emails that I've been receiving is that a lot of people are suffering hugely because this is something that's coming up when you're stuck at home or whether you're not. Either way, this is something that continues through your mind desire and arousal and needs do not go away just because we have a pandemic at large. But we're being made to feel guilty about it. You know, it's funny because I've had questions like I had one person write into me and say, I'm a devout Hindu. Is it okay for me to have oral sex with my wife? And right now, it's almost as though there's somebody else who wrote in and said, is it a sin for me to masturbate in front of a mirror? Now, I mean, I just, are you there? I'm sorry, I thought you froze for a second. So just repeat it. If you freeze, just repeat that just in case people lose it. So as I said, a lot of people wondering whether it's a sin to masturbate. He went so far as to say that it's a sin to masturbate in front of a mirror, which I was a little bit taken aback by because I haven't had a question like that before. But a lot of people who actually written them saying, is this pandemic a punishment from God? Because we have been masturbating and this is against God's desires. And you know, it's just really, it amazes me how much we have made the world believe that this is a bad thing, that this is sinful. That we actually have people coming forward with questions like this, actually thinking that they have brought this upon the world because they have gone out with a sexual act that has given them pleasure. Interesting. And it's just, I just think it's the day that we have brought upon the people, upon the world. And like I said, this is a, it's really amazing for me because recently I've just been collecting more material for the next set of writing. And I was with the Raghunis, okay? So the music, the rags and, you know, so there are, as you know, there are rags and then there are offshoots of those rags called the Raghunis, which are smaller harmonies. And a lot of these are based on what we call the shrink hard dress, okay? Or the erotic sentiment. Again, you use the word erotic, immediately there's only one thing that comes to mind. But in ancient India, they believe that every single feeling. So you have three pillars of life. You have dharma, which is your interaction with society. So that's an outside thing. You have art, which is your success in business, which is again an outside thing. And finally you have karma. Karma is up for your partner. It is all feelings because all feelings arise from that one word love, love for whatever. But everything, so you know, generally when you listen to musical harmonies and you listen to the Raghunis, we are supposed to think of it in terms of different ideas of love. And generally you hear about the heroine who is so happy because she's, or the heroine who's so sad because they're separated. But actually it's much more intense than that because everything, even hatred, was a permutation of love. Hatred in the Western sense is a separate emotion, not in the ancient Eastern sense. It was a permutation and it's not immutable. You might hate somebody today. You did not hate them yesterday. You might not hate them tomorrow. So the idea of exploring intimacy was just so different in times gone by that we actually, you know, we were talking about the pandemic. We actually have instances of this that they talk about at all times. Like I said, we're the only culture that's categorized the ideas of love so carefully, so minutely. So you have Raghunis where, you know, the Nika and the heroine, the heroine are together and they're in love and everything is wonderful. You have the Raghunis where the heroine is at home, the lover is away and she's so sad. But you also have the heroine who is with her lover and she's now bored with him because, frankly, he's just been so loving to her and so nice to her and she's bored and she wants to change. We have Raghunis which depict heroines which who fed up with their lover because even though they're together, he is not a very nice guy. So there's this beautiful Raghunia I was looking at which I think is an offshoot of the bear of Ragh which is where the story goes that, you know, she starts off in the morning, so it's sung in the morning and she does all her housework and she's so happy and it's a wonderful relationship. But the man is one of those people who is very, very jovial and happy and outgoing and as the day goes by and she gets tired and she hasn't had a good day, but in the evening he comes to her and he's still so happy and loving and, you know, trying to flirt with her and she thinks, why is he so happy? He's obviously been having an affair on the side with somebody else and the anger that she feels that she wants to get away from him. There's another Raghuni which talks about how she has the hero and the heroine have been together but now she's bored of his love making, she wants to be with her girlfriend, she wants to get away. So we actually have this thing about understanding that just because you're together, things aren't always going to be fantastic. So this is what I want to come back to Sima, it's like the situation right now as we know is like I was saying, people are confined. Like we have at least larger houses in London, right? And some of us in India and other parts of the world also have large houses, but most of us are confined to a very small space. You have, maybe you have the mother-in-law, you know, you have the in-laws, you have your children around and you have each other. So one problem is you have too much of togetherness. How do you deal with that? The other problem is that even if you want to be intimate, you can't because you've got so many people around. I heard one couple who we've known very well recently on another chat show, talking about that they have, because of the pandemic, they've had the in-laws, the mother-in-law, the father-in-law, the mother, both sides of the family staying together, they have a young child and they don't have space to be together and they're missing each other. So that is also happening. But my question to you today is about how do you manage too much of togetherness? So I think that it's actually both. Like you said, there are people with very limited space and they have absolutely no time together. For a lot of other people, it's also this, there's an underlying fear of what is going on. This uncertainty and insecurity, we don't know whether we're going to survive even this whole pandemic. And so for, I mean, I've been talking to friends and I'm talking about single, one says that she is so desperate to have sex at the moment that she just can't think of anything else. And the other one says that she's so off it that if anybody comes near her, she'll probably sort of scratch their eyes out. She doesn't want to have anything to do with it. And I realized that in all this, I mean, even talking from personal experience, my children who are all grown up have suddenly come back home during this time. And all I'm doing at the moment because I'm trying to keep everybody happy is I'm cooking a lot because this is the one thing that keeps everybody happy. We can't do anything else food and nice food and different food all the time. And I personally have realized, like we were saying, this whole idea comes from within us, this desire for intimacy and so on. It's so much a part of us that it is that that needs to be settled. If you can find the balance just to have that little bit of time with your partner, it's amazing how much Sukunat will give you. What is the word I'm looking for for Sukunat? It's amazing how much balance it will restore to your life. It is amazing how much comfort. No, it's also the comfort. It's like it'll actually lay some of the fears to rest, but we don't have the time to do it. So I was actually going back into the kamasutra. I was actually going back into the kamasutra about this, funnily enough, because we keep saying that the kamasutra, the philosophy of life. Nobody really knows what the philosophy of life. And this is why I brought this whole thing about the Raghunis, that we have so minutely categorized the different feelings of love, that this is a text that actually explains what you do in different beings, in different situations. And one of the things that I discovered in my reading again was the need for humor. In the original, so they say that when the world is first created and Brahma creates the men and then finally the women are created. And he says to them, he says, go out and now multiply. And they have no idea what to do. So they turn to Shiva and Shiva says, oh my God, now this is going to be a long thing. I can't sit here and try and explain the whole thing to you, but I'll tell you what, start by tickling each other. Immediately your inhibitions will drop, your desire will be aroused and everything else will come naturally. And it's an instance, it's a little episode I really find delightful because in the kamasutra, it constantly says that sex is a very tiny part of what actually happens. The build up to it is what we call intimacy or joy. And it's got to be joyous. And again, in that whole thing, it's about creating a platform of happiness to make the other person feel happy, feel good. So one of the things that I have been recommending to people who've come to me is actually go out onto YouTube or even onto your television together, watch as many comedy programs as you can together. The idea is to change your mood just slightly. It's amazing because to be able to laugh together is to have a connection. Sure. Even on some goodness gracious me. Yeah. That's one thing. The idea of humor will bring you so much. It's like just creating a little tiny cocoon for yourself. It's just a shared moment. Tell each other bad jokes. What we call dad jokes. The really bad jokes, which my husband who's now 68, he tells really bad jokes. We call them particularly dad jokes because we don't know. We would. But the thing is that this is the time when we actually need that because it makes me feel like things are okay. It kind of brings us back closer together again. The other thing, number two, let me go through a couple of these things and ask me a few questions after that. The second thing that the Kamasutra says is the idea of having shared words when you cannot be intimate with each other. You have little words that you share with each other, what they call the secret language of the lovers. Things that will just trigger a memory in your head take you back to a particular point. You may not be able to do that at that point, but it creates such a bond. They say in modern psychology, they say that couples who have more words for nookie, for intimacy or for sex between each other, actually have healthier sex lives. They have healthier relationships because it's like a little inside joke. It's a space that only the two of you share. It gives you so much to co- it just kind of comforts the soul a little bit to be able to go there. It's quite amazing. And the third thing, which is the simplest thing of all, but we don't generally do it, just hold hands. Oh, just hold hands when nothing else is possible and not just quick sort of grab in this thing, but actually give yourself the time to hold hands. Time it, give it one minute. One minute is a long time in certain spaces. Just hold hands, give yourself enough time to just feel the other person's skin on your skin, bare flesh to bare flesh. It is incredibly comforting. Seema, this is amazing because this is what I was talking about, right? So we're talking about little secrets and little pleasures that we can get when there is conflict happening around us, right? Uncertainty. I mean, I've got, see a child crying in the background and 24 by seven, I have to manage other things in my life, which I wasn't managing. I came home from work typically or my husband was away from work or my partner was away at work or I was away at work and I came back in the evening and I had that little time together, right? For some reason, those things are getting lost right now and we know the reasons, right? So how do we, while this all sounds fantastic and it's great tips Seema, but practically how do we incorporate? I would love to hold hands with my partner. I'd love to have a secret language with my partner which brings back memories, but how do you manage when you have certain things out of your control? A child's crying constantly behind, wants your attention. How do you bring intimacy and sex into that? Well, like I said, particularly at that point when you're that frustrated, we're talking about holding hands for maybe a minute at a time. It's maybe the other things just can't be done right now but trust me, at that point, if you can get even a palm around the shoulder, a hand, even a finger in the comes through, we have this whole chapter which is a very exciting chapter called the art of the curved finger which has a whole different meaning to it. Right now the art of the curved finger is very different. It's literally about, yeah, linking a curved finger even for a moment. Your child is crying, it is something that you can do. You still can do that. One of the other things, you know, I just find that it can't do it 24 by 7. You cannot have your partner at whatever time you need them but you need to feel that you could have them if that was the case. You need to feel that they're there at whatever point your crying child stops crying or that moment comes that you have them at that point. It's just, you know, it's an amazing thing but it's just about how you can calm your mind and keep your mind focused. It's just about making sure that that's, because it is about the channels in your mind. It is all about how you actually think this through because we are getting frustrated. Things are pretty bad at the moment and we are speaking from a point of privilege in a way. We are not in the really, really bad places. There are people with far greater difficulties. So I am at this point talking to people who have the privilege of at least knowing that they have their partner over there with them. But knowing that is not enough. You need to be able to know that you have them and their potential intimacy. It's suddenly the opportunity should present itself. And I think that that's the really important thing just to be able to get to that point. Sure. Let me read some of the comments that are coming through. Seema. Okay, sorry. Beautiful comments. Sorry, sorry. So Rupa Lutzenberger who we know very well from the Indian women in London. She says, I absolutely agree. Memories holding hands, stroking, all these make our intimacy beautiful. You need to slow down in life to have these. Totally agree. Lockdown is giving us more of these, she says. And Sartaj Chaudhary says, love the pucky Dr. Anand. Saurabh Dhanak says, ma'am you both are very knowledgeable people. I'm really liking the session. You know that's my, this is my first one. Rajeev Trivedi says, Seema ma'am, you look beautiful. Okay, so there are lots of comments coming through. And let's, if there's somebody's asking and this is something that you and I discussed Seema is about this whole emotional infidelity. At this moment, more so. We, you and I also discussed about how apparently people are having more, you know, online. And I'm like sexting and flings, like we said, there are romances happening, which are blossoming online. I mean, can you tell us more about this? Why are we still looking out? Why are we still seeking out? Is it because it's 24 by seven with a partner? Shouldn't it bring us closer now? No, I think Raga, that's actually not something that we could do. You know, we've always said we, when we talk about this in normal times, we always say that human beings were never meant to be completely monogamous. Most of us understand that that is the rules of society and we stay monogamous. Doesn't mean that in our minds, you know, we do, we fantasize, we think about other people. And it's interesting because believe it or not, we have a lot of ancient myths in the Hindu mythology where you have a lot of women who are punished by their husbands for thinking about another man because that is considered a sin even. You know, what we're saying right now. In those days, they didn't have text messages. So the idea of thinking about somebody, fantasizing about somebody or even listening to somebody, saying nice things to you and feeling happy. And the woman is then told, we have the story of Ahalya. We have various stories like that. That for imagining, well, in Ahalya's case, of course somebody else rapes her. But in the case of another hero in like Renuka who sees a young man walking along by the river and she thinks, oh, he's good looking. And her husband says, you have been unfaithful to me in your mind. And so she's punished and she's actually killed for that. He gets his son to behead the mother because she has been unfaithful. So these stories have come up and I have a story that we tell about how Kamdev reiterates a lot of the, because this is with the rise of patriarchy that we start to think that this is so bad, and we start to put down limits on the mind as well, on fantasy. And Kamdev reiterates some of the ancient philosophies which says that there are three types of sin. There's the sin and the mind for which you say a certain set of prayers and you're okay. There is the sin of voicing something by saying something. So you have thought it and said it, but you haven't done anything. So he says that these are all sins and there is a way of redeeming yourself from each of these so-called sins. So is it something that we should still be looking at as so bad when we are in lockdown? We still have fantasies. Your partner may not feel like sex at this point, but you might feel like it. To force your partner at this point is the worst thing that you can do. We don't want to do that. So for that person. Who really needs to de-stress, who needs a release, what do they do? So is it good or bad? Is it right or wrong? Is there some way of judging this? If they think, if they sext, the sext texting, if they have online affairs where they're doing certain things, is it as good or bad as watching porn? Is watching porn a sin? Because you're still getting off on it and fantasizing about it. So is the present-day online affairs, is it the same as, is it a slightly less aggressive form of porn? What is it? It's a very new phenomenon at the moment, but it isn't really when you think about it because in times gone by as well. Like I said, with this whole idea of the secret language of the lovers. We had stories about how people would carry on entire love affairs by literally meeting in public places and there would be different ways of touching your ear that would send one message, different ways of doing this, which would send another message and so on. Different ways of giving porn that would send love messages to each other. Is there a huge difference between the two? And is it a really bad thing to be sexting? And for the partner who is not doing it. So let's say my partner is doing it, for me. I don't want sex at this point. This is driving me crazy. This whole situation is terrible. What can I do? What should my reaction be at this point if my partner is doing this to de-stress? Because at the end of the day, my partner is not actually going out to have a physical affair, but do I call this an affair? I don't know. In different spaces you think of it in different ways. And at this point in time, I'm seriously wondering whether this is one way of keeping your sanity intact. So sexting you're saying is all right. If that's bringing them pleasure. I don't know. I mean, there's no answer to it. I know, like I said, there are no answers. Absolutely no answers. Because we say that this is a human instinct. So again, like I said, we have stories in our Hindu mythology which say this is a human instinct. We say that people think it, they may not actually be as bad as to go out and actually have that affair, but they think it, they want to talk about it. They want to fantasize. Let's see, this is what Dr. Simi said earlier. So emotional infidelity. Does it mean it's emotional infidelity? Right. So that's the question we ask. And does it matter as long as with your partner? Because we all fantasize. So like I said, I think that it is a human instinct I think that in an ideal world, one would not be desirous of going anywhere else, but what happens if you do, and if it is just for this time, if this is part of the pandemic, it is almost like a tonic during the pandemic. Is there something that we say, okay, it happened, we got past a problem? Because if that is kept inside you, it can manifest in so many other ways. I don't want to be the one that says this is fine, frankly. But I know a lot of people at the moment who are going through phone affairs. It's a phone affair going on. And I had one woman say to me that actually she's now bored of it, but the guy that she's with who is, he's so into it, but at least obviously getting off on it and he has the same old routine. And she says it's getting so boring now, that she actually tied his cupboards while she's doing it. And there was a slightly, yeah, and then she said the other day, the cupboard door creaked and he said, excuse me, are you doing something else while I'm making love to you? I was really quite funny. But on the other side, there are people who, so there's this young boys actually in India. And one of them says that he's actually, his family doesn't know that he's out yet. And it's a small house and he can't even let alone see his partner. He can't even speak to him. They can only message each other. So he's really, really caught in. So I think just being able to talk to somebody at the moment could be a huge release of tension. And India, as you know, you can't even get out for exercise. So you're completely stuck in. Well, I agree. But you know, Seema, I mean, in my experience, okay, whatever little experience I have, people are different, right? There are some of us who will go out anyway, regardless of a lockdown or not. So finding ex-partners, sexting, having online affairs is something that we don't even, I'm thinking we as in some of us don't even bother about. There's some of us who are very loyal no matter what. So I mean, I think the lockdown hasn't really changed anything. It is the kind of personalities that we individually have. I would, maybe, maybe in some cases it has changed a person and they've gone out and so on. But you know, we are not here to judge, right? We're just saying, hey, if it feels right for you, you do it. If it doesn't feel right for you, don't do it. But you know, there's something that someone, so I hope Shreejit Kutanraj, we have answered your questions. Joy Louis says some points on masturbation. I'm gonna give you three, four comments and then because you don't have that much time. So Joy Louis says, please share some points on masturbation. Neeraj Trivani says, what's your opinion on sexting an ex-partner during lockdown? That's exciting. So I think a lot, sorry, yeah. Rupa says, is it possible to feel incomplete even if you have a completely healthy relationship with your partner, but yearning for more? What is your opinion on this? How do we tackle it, huh? So let's just do this. Let me just do this. It's a big question. So when it comes to masturbation in completely short, I will say that, you know, it is not sinful. It is a release that most people require and it is actually the healthiest form of release rather than going off and watching violent porn to try and come on it or whatever. It's probably the healthiest form of release, okay? If you feel that you need to masturbate, it is not a bad thing to do. This is from a medical point of view, okay? Or even from a psychological point of view. We used to be told in the days gone by, if you masturbate, it's evil, it's bad. You go blind if you masturbate. Yeah, a lot of the Christian texts said that. It's not, I heard this stand-up comedian the other day saying this, this white guy. And he said, he said, you know, as a growing up, as a Catholic growing up, my mother would constantly say to me, if you masturbate, you'll go blind. And he said, I have to tell you that I recently took her for a cat perm. What does that tell you about my mother? But on a serious note, we have a lot of young people who come to us saying that they feel very guilty about masturbating. Masturbation is so many different types. You can either have it as somebody who's trying to penetrate and masturbate, as a woman, sorry. Women who do it without penetration, men who will do it in a certain way. So long as you are not, and I stress this, so long as you're not bringing harm either to yourself or to somebody else. Masturbation in itself is not a bad thing. Too much of anything is a bad thing, but so long as you do not bring yourself harm or bring anybody else harm. At that point, I know I was ready to answer a few questions and then you went past them. What is the second thing that we talked about? So what is your opinion on texting an ex-partner? So a lot of people are actually texting ex-partners. You know, there's always been a standing thing saying that ex-lovers make the best friends. Okay, the Kamsutra itself says that the comfort factor that you have old partners, it says that the best sex is always with people who that you have been together with for a long time. So it's not instant arousal. It takes a long time to get there, but it's far better because there's a comfort factor. And as we said earlier, security is a huge factor in the buildup to eventually joyousness. So I think a lot of people are going back to ex-partners either because they don't have anybody in their life at the moment. That can be one reason. The other being that there is this need at the moment, we have similar frozen in our normal lives where we have so much stimulation. Tell me when I come back, am I back? Yeah, you're back, you're back. So say at the moment, we have absolutely no stimulation in our lives, no other stimulation. For us all who have led such incredibly stimulating lives, we're out, we're seeing people, we're going to meetings, we're doing this, we're doing that, even just the simplest task of going down to Starbucks to get yourself a coffee, which has its own level of, you meet the person behind the counter, they smile at you, they say, what can I get you? You say, this is what I'd like. You say, thank you. Every little tiny bit of stimulation has been taken away from us. This is an escape format. A lot of people are going back to it. I think these are unusual circumstances. It is not, it's not for us to judge at the moment. I think that we're all looking for ways of survival. It is a survival instinct. But yes, there is this, I think it's basically ex-partners. I'm sure it's either because you don't have anybody right now or there's a huge comfort attached to it. Sure. So Seema, I'm going to read things that you have. We've run way past our time, but that's okay, it's a best conversation. Oh shit, sorry. We don't know, that's okay, but let's keep on, okay? There's Rupa's. Is it possible to feel, there's lots of, lots of questions, okay, by the way. I want to be able to, for us to answer all of them. And yes, just to very quickly say about Rupa's, is that yes, it is completely okay to feel incomplete because the soul, we have this weird idea in our heads that we have a soulmate. The soul is too big. One person cannot be your soulmate. In a normal average way of life, you would have so many different people that you would interact with to feed your soul, to nurture your soul. At the moment, your soul is not being nourished like it should be. So yes, it is a very empty feeling and we are all suffering with that. So is there anything we can do to tackle that? Literally, like I said, at the moment, it is about survival. So the soul is a long-lasting thing. It ain't going no place. It is at the moment feeling, feeling a little bit hemmed in and a little bit sad and empty. Like I said, weirdly enough, out of all the things that I suggested, the thing that will actually make you happiest is that little bit of humor. Try it. Just try it for a brief while. Either just listen to something funny, plug into your phone, listen to something funny on the YouTube, but actually share some amusing, something humorous with your partner. I just want to say that again, back to the Kamasutra, one of the things that they always say is that when you're trying to seduce your partner, so this is pre-sex when you've just gotten together, the idea was to bring yourself to a point of relaxation. And it was for the man in this case to bring the woman to help her share her inhibitions, to make her forget about all the other things, et cetera. And you know what they recommended doing? They recommend telling her gossipy stories. They say, share gossip. Anything that'll kind of make her go, no way. And actually kind of forget what else she's thinking of and want to interact. Short spurts of gossip and funny things are brilliant. They do create a connection. Top tip from Kamdelika. Super, super, super tip. I do that all the time. Nindara. I remember, I bring in a lot of gossip from everywhere and I make sure I tell my partner. And humor, today I shared with you, we went for an eight kilometer walk and I made my very, very foreign Western partner sing a Hindi song. Teri musta musta do ne. You're a Pirangi. Pirangi just. I'm gonna sing teri musta musta do ne. And I mean, like how weird is that? But really these are things that are bringing us closer, Seema. And so I really agree with you and I understand exactly what you're saying. We have to somehow find that magic for ourselves. Nobody is going to come and give us a magic potion, right? To make our relationships work or help us become intimate. Now, one question from Simi, which is actually coming, it just follows through from what Rupa was saying, is are we monogamous, monogamy or polygamy, which we talk about quite a bit. So who are we as people? I don't think that we can ever define it one way or another. There's no hard and fast rules. We've been told incessantly from the start of time in psychology that we cannot be monogamous, that human beings are not made to be monogamous. However, we live within a society that demands monogamy, at least from a certain sector of people. So you either choose to live within that society or you choose to live outside of it. I personally think that there's a lot to be said for monogamy, but it depends on how you define monogamy. So I think that the mind should, I mean, the mind is faster than the universe and the mind does and should have the right to explore other fantasies because if it cannot, it will actually die of boredom and you are the most unexciting person for your own partner. Sure. So I think mentally we should fantasy. I think it's extremely important. And I think that that is not a place and certainly that is not to be judged according to me. I could be wrong in what I'm saying, but we believe, I believe that even to attain moksha, even to attain nirvana, you have to want, you know, people talk about sacrificing everything, going and then giving yourself over to God, hey, you can't even get to moksha without having a passion for it because it's not easy to get to. Your arousal, your desire, your passion has to stay alive if you are going to stay alive. And much as we would love to think this, one person cannot satisfy all those nerve endings of passion. They cannot. You cannot do it for anybody else and they cannot do it for you. So I think that monogamy is a definition that we put on physical relationships. This is, till now that's how we've defined monogamy. Fair enough, keep to that physical distance and social distancing is a good thing these days anyway. So monogamy of the mind, I think that you should let the mind have its fantasies because you need to keep your own passion alive just to keep yourself alive. Sure, so you're saying that monogamy in relationships is important. What happens behind in your mind? It doesn't matter, right? As long as it keeps your primary relationship active. Well, so it's not something you can control because if you think about it, every time you look at your favorite film star, we fantasize and we say, it's okay to fantasize about George Clooney. But if there is somebody that you have met personally, you suddenly face about that person, that's all wrong. There has to be, I mean, why do we suddenly make that distinction for ourselves? So I think that we do need that little bit of fantasy even to keep ourselves going for our partners. Sure, Seema, I've got lots of questions and some very interesting questions and I think we should try and wind it in the next 10 minutes. So we'll keep it quick, short. Okay. I don't know which one to take but let's talk about Payal Kapoor Nair. If you know Payal, Payal was, Payal acted in a movie called Chapak with Deepika Padukone, very prominent role. So she says, she's a huge fan of yours by the way. So she says social distancing will be the new normal maybe. She says social distancing will be the new normal maybe after the lockdown is eased. Do you think then a phase will come down because of the fear? Certainly initially, we will go back to our normal lives as we knew them where people will be together and then things in a couple of years time, like we did with all the other pandemics before this, we will forget about it eventually. But for the time being, yes, I think that physical affairs, physical adultery will come down. So interesting. So we're saying that there is- Not the mental adultery. Sorry, sorry, I lost you there Seema. Sorry, not the emotional or mental adultery but certainly the physical adultery I think. Simply because like you said, social distancing will be the new norm for a while. Sanjay Medureta, hello and hi. I'm glad you're here, my friend. Fantastic to see you online. Love you too, Payal Kapoor Nair. I hope that answered your question well. I have a very interesting question from Max Peter as Seema for you. What about partners who are perfect in every sense but they're not having sex or there's zero intimacy between them? Good question. So that I guess is just depends on where they are with each other. There could be so many different reasons for partners to not have intimacy between them but I always remember a line from a film. I think it was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. And I think it's somebody telling Elizabeth Taylor that when a marriage is on the rocks, the rocks are generally in the bed. I think that- Seema, can you repeat that? You froze for a bit. P, sorry, can you repeat that? I was saying that there's this line from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I think it's from a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof where it says that if the rocks are generally in the bed. Okay, so I think that two people have decided that mutually if they have decided that not want any physical contact that is a decision that they have both made but it is seldom the case that this is a decision that has come from both people. It's seldom something that both people want. So I think that if there are two people together who are wonderful for each other and they have chosen not to have any kind of physical contact, then it is a choice that they have made. And if they haven't, I think that they need to deal with. And sometimes Seema, it can be temporary, right? Sometimes temporarily you go away from each other physically and then you always come back, right? These are temporary things that happen in especially in long-term relationships, right? It can happen that you go away from each other but in the life that we've always lived till now we've had choices. We've had this thing of the man saying, well, I have my work to go to. I have my golf to go to. I have my friends to go to. The woman saying, I have my kitties. There's been ways of keeping yourself occupied so that there wasn't the need to come back if you didn't want to. This situation has changed that drastically. It is forcing us to look at our relationships again and see whether we want to come back together again. And in this case, I always find that, when people come and ask me about this, I always say that we have a choice. We can reverse any situation, any situation. You can reverse it, but it's not easy. For most people, the moment they say, oh, but she won't listen or he won't listen. It's not about that. If you really want something to change, it's about putting a hell of a lot of effort into it. What always reminds me, talking about this thing about when there is separation and you come back, there's a wonderful story that we tell from our mythology about this woman who goes to a witch doctor and she says, give me a love potion to give me a love potion because my husband and I used to be so close and then he went off to the wars and he's come back and now he's so distant and he won't touch me and I want him back. Give me a potion. So the female says to her, just look, I'll make your potion but I need one ingredient which I don't have which you'll have to get for me. I need a hair from the moustache of a lion but it has to be freshly plucked. So this woman goes off to get it and they show her journey. She goes and lives in the forest. She discovers where the lions are. She gets close to one and it takes months for her to get close enough where the lion trusts her, sits next to her and one day the lion finally after about two years trusts her so much that he goes to sleep with his head near her lap and she pucks that hair and she runs back to the old witch doctor and she says, look, I've got it, I've got it. Here, now make me the potion. And she said, what? The amount of effort and patience you put into that, that's your potion, that's your magic potion. That's what you need to actually change your relationship. You know, it is so simple in a way, isn't it? It is so simple and it is not. It is literally that but none of us actually have the ability to, because we carry so much love. Nobody said this, she said this, I can't. I always think, sorry, I know we're running out of time but I really want you to go away with this one thought. You know, we talk about being stuck with your partner. Now I want you to remember Draupadi. Draupadi was married to five men, okay? She had this thing about and they had separated the times in such a way that she had be with each brother at a time. And during that one year, the other brothers could not come in or disturb them in any way. Now when she lives in the palaces, she's fine because they each have their own palace. She lives with each brother. They go off in the day, they do their job, they've got other wives, she's got other things to do. Then she ends up in the forest for 12 years with all five men together, okay? You're talking about ex-partners. You're talking about present lovers. You're talking about people that you love and you don't love. You're talking about people who turn you on and don't turn you on. She's got all five of them with her and she's alone with them. And what is very interesting is that we are not told that this thing has to be that she's with one partner. Yes, she's still with one brother for one year at a time. But you know what she's given when she goes off into the forest? What is the special gift that she's given? She's given an akshapatram, a pot which will always be full of food because they say, how will you feed these five guys? Nobody thinks, what is everybody going through? What is her mental and emotional state? How will she deal with being with her ex-lover, her present lover? It's all very well to say that you take a purifying bath and now you're with the next brother. Damn it, you're the woman. Can you forget the relationship that you had was this one a better lover? This one isn't all of those things. Can you imagine? I mean, every time I think of what we are going through, you think of that. That is a story that encapsulates our entire life. Totally, totally agree with you, Seema. We've got so many questions. I don't know whether we have the time, but there's a very interesting question. That's the last question guys I will take because we're really running out of time and I'm afraid that Facebook will turn us off. So Shreejit says again, he says if my girlfriend wishes to have sex with another guy, and I'm kind of okay with that since it's a freedom of choice, then I want to know what's running in my mind. So I'm not sure whether you mean Shreejit what's running in your mind or what's running in her mind. So Seema, do you want to answer that question whether what's running in, he was, yeah. In his mind kind of thing. I'm thinking that's what he's trying to say. No, or yeah. I think it's something that he will have to answer. And actually, I think it's a very, very good question, but I really think that if you want to know what's either motivating you to think that or allowing you to have those feelings that you can let her go, I would like you to think it through very, very carefully, not just because it'll be good for you to understand what's motivating you to behave like that because it's not just what happens at that time. It's also about what are the repercussions of this in time to come. I have a lot of friends who have open relationships who now say five years on that we were okay with it then but today that my partner might want to be with somebody else it kills me, it gives me so much pain I can't think straight. So Shreejit has, sorry, has clarified that for us. He's talking about from a society's point of view. This is what the society thinks. So his girlfriend wants to be with someone else. He's okay with that. But what does society think is what he's thinking? Does it matter? Well, society is always going to, if it becomes known, if it becomes public, I always say there's no reason to actually announce everything out of the sphere. I know that we have social media but really there's no need to tell everybody about certain things that go on inside your life. If you are prepared to live with an open relationship most people eventually within your circle of friends will understand that that is the case. But as I said, this is the sort of thing that always has a slightly longer term repercussion. It's never that difficult at the start but I would like you just to put see where you need to repeat, you may need to repeat that a balanced person. So I said that you seem to be a very balanced functional person for yourself. I would like you to take the time to actually think it through, understand what is motivating you, okay? And understand what will be your reaction a little bit further down the line because a lot of people who we know who have tried this in the past, it's been fine for a while, things change. I know several people who are like, we're boys, we love it. I want my wife to tell me about her past relationships. I want my wife, my girlfriend to tell me what she's doing. At some point, because there are two of you involved in this, at some point emotions change, you need to understand better for yourself. Sure, he's commenting as you've been speaking Seema, fantastic answer. He's saying, I'm not worried about this. So he's personally not worried about it. And he's saying, since it's my private opinion, I want people to know it's not a weird case. Obviously people judge and say it is so weird for someone to allow his girlfriend to be with someone else and he's okay. So he's saying, thanks a ton for taking up this, ma'am. Loads of love from this fanboy. Now, there are lots of questions Seema and I really don't know. I mean, we can go on and on. I'd love to go on and on. Maybe we can have a session two on that, but there is somebody who's saying, I want to take this up. Any, Shweta Vagadia says, any book suggestions from Seema, ma'am? Not from me. Books on what? Yeah, Shweta, do you want to talk about, do you want to tell us quickly what book suggestions on what subjects you're looking at? But in the meantime, I'm just going to say, Seema, what a fantastic session. You haven't answered my questions yet. I watched that. Most important thing, I see a lot of my friends talking about this when I call up India, that they are in this confined space. They are with their partners, wives typically, or wives with their spouses, 24 by seven. They don't have time. They're both working from home. They have children. They have chores. So much is happening in our lives. How do they keep their intimacy alive? And I know you gave some tips on humor. You said, let's hold hands. But Raga, it is, I mean, sure. Yes, there is maybe, we're talking about the actual having sex, which may not be entirely possible at all, but there's no reason why you cannot keep your intimacy alive by letting the other person know that that desire for them is very much alive. You have to let people know. And like I said, this is a very gentle form of doing it. Holding hands, you will find that at a time like this, when everything else is not available to you, how terribly exciting that one little thing can be, just the pressure of somebody's hand, just the feel of somebody's flesh against your flesh. You know that whole skin-to-skin feeling, trust me. It is at the moment, I know this is the only thing we can do right now, but it's a very, very, it's a very special way of getting past that. Hand around the shoulders, that's something we can always do. Beautiful, I'm going to come back to that. I'm going to come back to what Shweta said. So that book she was asking for any book suggestion, she's asked on perfuming body. Oh, on perfuming the body, sorry Shweta, but you know, it's amazing how little has been written about it. There are several old texts from Mughal times, either in Persian or Sanskrit, which haven't really been, as far as I know, not most of them have not been translated. You will just be able to find little bits and pieces. Your best bet is to Google articles on perfuming the body. That's literally your best bet at the moment. Somebody presented me with a book called Perfume, which is an old book. Oh, I love that book. It was absolutely, oh my God, it was so frightening and weird and horrible. Yeah, oh my God. It wasn't about what Shweta is asking, it's just about the idea of the perfume of your body. But yeah, if you're into strange and books that can make you feel uncomfortable, Perfume is an interesting book to read. It is indeed. That's one of my most favorite books, Haunting Dark. It leaves you, there are so many questions. Sima, I want to go on and on. I think we should do a part two. I mean, this is amazing. Rupa loves it. Max Peters says, Payal Kapoor Nair, thanks for asking this. Payal is one of your really big fans, Sima, I must say. And her movies, the characters she plays, it's amazing. So I'm glad we have her here. And there's so many, and Chintala Akshay says, follow Sima Anand on YouTube, wonderful videos are available. I agree with you, Chintala. She's got an amazing YouTube channel, full of exciting and interesting stories from mythology. Please watch it, please watch it. And Aayushree says, we are now looking forward for your next session. It's been such an amazing time with you guys. Thank you so much. Rupa says, thank you both so much for your lovely session, Max says. I was thinking about the murder of NG, asked about perfuming. So there's lots and lots and lots of conversation and comments, Sima. I am thinking that I think we should have our intimacy and relationships in lockdown part two. This is very exciting. Chitran Aayush says, thank you for the wonderful session. I feel hopeful, as I said last time also, after your talk. You know, when I talk to you, I always feel that there is hope for people. There's always these things that we get stuck on. Is intimacy possible? Can we, a lot of people have come back to me and asked me this question, like what happens after the lockdown is released? You know, I said this to you, Sima. I think two days ago, I said, like someone said that I don't want to see my spouse for the next 20 years again. I mean, these conversations are happening and for real, but it's not happening with me, so it's not me. But a lot of us are coming closer. A lot of us are actually drifting apart. And somehow I think your tips that you've given, today I feel that simple things like holding hands, sending special messages to each other, remembering those times, finger, I love that. In fact, I'm going to use this as a tag for Sima Anand. Come on, guys. Anybody can take a photo of this, no, seriously. Let's take a photo of this and put it up on these feet, on these feeds. I'd love to see any one of you watching, put a photo of this for Sima and I, and for your partners and that you believe in. The art of the curved finger. The art of the curved finger. This is about intimacy in relationships during lockdown. Let's make this big Sima Anand. I love it. So thank you, Sima. Is there anything you want to say as we leave or are you happy with what you've said? No, just to say that, you know, it is possibly the most difficult time with the amount of pressure that it's being. That it's putting on our relationships because right now we are having to be everything for our partners and they're having to be everything for us. It's not humanly possible, but we're expecting them to be almost like God, you know, it's like this is what you want God to be everything. Suddenly you want your partner who is very, very human to be everything for you. Just try and remember, just try and keep that in your mind that we are all human and this time will pass. You know, we have the Japanese have this thing about repairing cracks with a bit of gold and then they say that when you repair something with a bit of gold, it's even more precious. So right now when everything seems like it's falling apart you get that one moment with your partner, one minute, two minutes of holding hands just to remind yourself that you have each other to look after you. You have each other to look after yourselves that you have somebody repair the cracks right now with, you know, this is, it's a good time to think of this as a good thing. Super fantastic because we will be coming out of it. And I think Seema, whether we come out of it soon or not what you have allowed us to believe in is that intimacy and the magic can remain in relationships if we want to, it's all here, right? If you want it. And thank you for that. It's all here. And according to the Kamasutra it's all about joyousness. Okay. It's all about being happy. So, and magic and pleasure. Whatever makes you happy. And I can tell you, I've been with my partner. Magic, yeah. Yeah, I've been with my partner for 13 years. We work together with the runner business together. We live together 24 by seven. This lockdown has been with me for 13 years and I have had the most pleasurable joyous relationship. No, and you know that Seema and sometimes it goes away and it's okay. Sometimes it's not there. The intimacy is not there and it's okay. It always comes back. Nobody's going away, you know? And absolutely keep rewiring ourselves. Like I love one thing that you said Seema tonight. Most of the thing, everything I love about you but there's one thing that you said that remained with me that you have to work at it. It is not easy. Nobody else on the outside is going to come and tell you this is the magic portion like I shared earlier. We have to make it work. We have to nurture it. We have to cherish it. It is beautiful, right? Magic only remains because we believe in it. So thank you. Absolutely. And you have to work at it. And like I said, actually the, you know use the things from the Kamzutra because it's amazing. Here is a book that says that the actual sex part of it, the positions as people think it's just the tiniest part. It's all the rest of the things that build up to it. Like you said, it's magic. It's learn how to paint each other, do drawings of each other. It's a fantastic thing. Amazing how much. Okay, off we go. Seema, next time we discuss all the 64 skills of the Kamzutra. Let's do that. And how they can be applied right now. How's that? Done. Let's do that. And in the meantime for those who are watching us please know that tomorrow Seema and I are going to do a very interesting banter on intimacy and relationships in lockdown on Seema's Instagram which is Seema Anand storytelling. Please follow us there. 8 30 p.m. India time. 4 p.m. London. And let's get together. Please come up with any kind of questions that you have. Seema will be happy to answer as always. And thank you everybody. Thank you very much. Have a very good evening, good night. And Seema Anand you are the most beautiful person I've met. I'm not saying this to my partner. But thank you very much. Yeah, she's blushing. Thank you. Thank you for your time.