He offered a cure for everything from low libido and erectile dysfunction to premature ejaculation. He had seven wives and fathered 50-odd children across the country. M.S. Sarkar, the sexologist who was born in Karachi in undivided India, sold dreams of virility to thousands of Indians, is no more. His family estimates that he is over 90 years of age.
"He died peacefully at our home in Thiruvananthapuram. My mother, sisters, and myself, were present there," his youngest son Sher Khan told THE WEEK. S.K. Sarkar, as he is popularly known, is now running the clinic, which was once thronged by people who came in search of solutions for their troubles in bed.
Twenty-four of his sons, from across the country, arrived for the last rites. In the journey from Karachi to Uttar Pradesh to Kolkata, Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, his progeny were the only trace Sarkar left behind. "But nobody knows exactly how many children he has fathered,'' said his youngest son.
Sarkar left Karachi in the early 1940s. Then he was Mohammed Syed; his grandfather Haji Nawab Ali Khan was a royal physician. The story was that Syed left Karachi after a tiff with his grandfather, who opposed his love affair.
Syed drew from his Unani roots and established the first clinic in Uttar Pradesh. It was there that he first got married. By then, partition happened and communal issues flared up. Sensing that a secular-sounding name would be better for his practice, Syed took on a new name—M.S. Sarkar. His business flourished.
But he did not stay there for long. He travelled across the country before finally settling down in Thiruvananthapuram. He married everywhere that he established clinics.
Was he trying to be a living, breathing model of male virility? What exactly was his mission? One cannot help but wonder. "Nobody really knows why he married so many.... nobody dared to ask him that,'' said his son S.K. Sarkar.
Once he set up his clinic in Thiruvananthapuram, his business exploded. His advertisements started appearing regularly in Malayalam dailies, offering solutions to all male sexual issues. His face was prominently placed in pocket-size ads. For the orthodox Malayali society in the seventies and eighties, they heralded something of a sexual revolution; the ads offered solutions to many issues that were discussed in hushed tones till then.
"I still remember looking at those ads stealthily during my younger days. He looked very handsome... We, as young boys, felt a mix of jealousy and curiosity,'' said a writer who did not wish to be named.
According to him, Sarkar's ads did bring in the much needed openness about issues related to sex.
"The Kerala society finally accepted the sexology profession, and that there was nothing wrong in seeing a sexologist,'' he added.
People flocked to his clinic in the outskirts of the city, though in a clandestine manner.
"My father helped many overcome their sexual issues and even helped thousands of couples in siring offsprings,'' said S.K. Sarkar.
But he never learnt Malayalam, despite staying here for more than 50 years. "He would say it was the toughest language on earth,'' said S.K. Sarkar in chaste Malayalam.
Sarkar was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. "He forgot everything, including his Pakistani roots," said his son.
The sexologist was finally laid to rest in Thiruvananthapuram.