I look forward to
three insane events every year. In no particular order, they are: my
birthday, New Year's eve and the five-day long festival of Durga
Puja.
“Is your Puja
shopping done?” I asked Sas, one of the dozen Bengali girls in my
class. I adore the girl, because, with her, it's almost as if
everyday is Durga Puja.
“No, barely,”
Sas responded glumly. “I still have so many clothes to buy.”
“Care to explain
that a little?” Gigi joked.
“Alright, alright,
I bought a few clothes,” Sas admitted.
“By few you mean
seven,” Gigi added.
“No, eight.”
This is one of the
reasons why Durga Puja is Durga Puja.
Goddess Durga is the
most popular incarnation of Devi and is one of the main forms of
Goddess Shakti in the Hindu pantheon. The name, Durga, translates
into “the inaccessible” or “the invincible”. The festival was
introduced in my state by the Ahom rulers thousands of years ago.
(Little known mythological tidbit: Lord Rama, the hero of the epic
'Ramayana', was a devotee of the Goddess. Before going to war
against the demon king, Ravana, he had invoked the blessings of the
Goddess who had blessed him with the secret knowledge on how to kill
Ravana. On the day of 'Ashvin Shukla Dashami', Rama and his army
rescued Sita and defeated Ravana.)
I was taking a walk
with Ira the other day and we came across several huts of artisans in
the process of creating the murtis (idols) of the Goddess and her
children. They were nowhere near being completed but the sheer sight
of the tall structures standing in all their glory, was overwhelming.
Even the structure of the demon and the buffalo were being made with
passion and sincerity.
“I can barely
wait,” I admitted.
Ira laughed, “I
know, the days are seemingly getting longer instead of shorter,
aren't they?”
She was right and
she knew it. Every day seemed to be dragging by.
The entire process
of the creation the murtis (idols) is sacred. Right from the
collection of clay to the ornamentation of the Goddess. Arguably the
most important event is the painting on of the eyes of the Goddess
(and her children). Starting with the Goddess, the eyes of the idols
are painted on 'Mahalaya' or the first day of the festival following
several rites and rituals. The artisans fast for a day before this
event and eat only vegetarian food. The three eyes or 'Triyambake'
(three eyed Goddess) represent different things: the left eye
represents desire (the moon), the right eye represents action (the
sun) and the eye represents knowledge (fire).
Ira stopped to look
at a festival-advertisement on a billboard. They were giving 15% off
apparel on occasion of the festival.
“She's just so
beautiful,” she said, marveling at the photo of the Goddess on the
billboard. “No mortal can match her beauty.”
Ira was a little
different than all my friends. She was a thinker and I appreciated
that about her.
“You come pretty
close to matching it,” I smiled at her.
The smile she
flashed back almost rivaled the Goddess's. We stood there, smiling at
each other, under the eyes of the Goddess, in the crisp October
breeze.
The Goddess's
vehicle is a lion. It represents power, will and determination. The
Goddess riding the lion symbolises her mastery over all three of the qualities. This suggests to the devotees that one has to possess all
three qualities to get over the demon of ego. The Goddess also has
eight or ten arms. This represents eight quadrants or ten directions
in Hinduism. This symbolises she protects her devotees from all
directions.
“Oooh, look at
these earrings,” Ira gushed, taking a pair of neon green, long, cat
shaped earrings in her hands. We were at the accessories section of a
large store and were expecting to get shoved and pushed around by the
insane number of shoppers who were looking for clothes to wear during
the festival. Not only clothes, let me say. Shoes, belts, earrings,
basically – everything.
“They're amazing,”
I said. “I'm going to get these. An ode to the Goddess's lion
through his younger brother, the cat.”
Ira laughed, “That
fits.”
I flipped through
other colours of the earrings; they were in orange, yellow, pink and
blue. But I was always biased when it came to green. It was my
favourite colour, for crying out loud.
I must say, my
earrings garnered a lot of attention at the check-out counter. Adults
and kids alike stopped to look at the earrings, some wondering how
they didn't spot them, some wondering why I would pick out cat
earrings. Ira swirled her fingers around my earrings, jokingly
warding away all the evil eyes they received.
Goddess Durga is
seen holding different weapons in each of her ten hands along with a
lotus and a conch. Each of the weapons have significance. The conch
shell in her hand represents the mystic word 'Om' which indicates her
holding on to God in the form of sound. The lotus is not
fully-bloomed which symbolises the certainty of success but not
finality. The bow and arrows represent energy; by holding both in one
hand she indicates control over both kinds of energy – kinetic and
potential. The thunderbolt indicates firmness, destroying whatever is
its way without getting harmed itself. The 'Sudarshan chakra' or
beautiful discuss spins around her index finger in one of her hands
and it signifies that the entire world is subservient to her will and
is at her command. The sword in one of her hands symbolises
knowledge, for knowledge is as sharp as the sword itself; knowledge
which is free from all doubts is symblosied by the shine of her
sword. The trishul (trident) which is the primary weapon of the
Goddess – gifted to her by her consort, Lord Shiva – represents
'Satwa' (inactivity or ideal state of mind characterised by awareness
and purity of thought), 'Rajas' (activity or energy associated with
desires, wishes and ambitions) and 'Tamas' (lethargy and stress).
“Is she wearing
red eyeliner?” Gigi asked me, about one of the pretty girls in our
class. She belonged to the LEPG (League of Extraordinarily Pretty
Girls), according to our stats.
I glanced quickly at
the pretty girl and nodded, “Looks like it. I love red eyeliner or
eyeshadow.”
“Are you serious?
I thought she had conjunctivitis.”
“Yeah, that's the
look you tend to aim for with red liner anyway.”
Shree came
screeching near our desk, huffing, “I couldn't find anything when I
went out shopping yesterday. I was literally crying in my car!”
Gigi looked
exasperated, “Try something more ethereal this time.”
“I tried to look
for ethnic clothes but I am too fat to bloody find anything my size!”
“Well, you can't
expect to look like Deepika Padukone, can you, in one day?” Gigi
roared, not holding back any words.
“That's not what I
am saying at all,” Shree said and looked my way. I shrugged. I was
in no mood to defend her and battle a serpent tongued Gigi.
“You could always
just shop online,” Sas suggested, turning around. “It's what I
did.”
“Yeah, there's
that too,” Gigi said. “The world hasn't ended yet.”
Shree seemed
exhausted. “There's not one site left.”
“Well,” I calmly
began to speak. “It is bloody festival time, you can't expect the
sites and stores to keep clothes back for you, hoping you'd show up
and buy everything.”
“This is very
stressful,” Shree finally said, with emphasis.
Mythological story
will be inserted here, read if you want to feel good. Or if you're an
avid reader, or even a fan of mythology and such things:
' After the death of Tarakasur by
Shiva's son Kartikeya, the demon brothers Rambh and Karambh came on
the throne. Their mother Danu instructed them to do penance and
obtain desired boons. Hence, Rambh and Karambh did penance to please
Agni and Varun (Fire/Water) respectively. Rambh started doing penance
in Agni chakra whereas Karambh was being half immersed in river water
while doing penance. Lord Indra took disguise of a crocodile and
killed Karambh while Rambh successfully comepletely his penance and
got a boon from Agni that he will obtain an extremely powerful son,
who will rule over the three worlds in this universe. Rambh fell in
love with Mahishi (buffalo woman) and got married to her. Mahishi
soon got pregnant by Rambh. Once her lover, a Mahish, tried to abduct
her. Rambh came in forefront to protect his wife. It happened so that
Rambh got killed by the Mahish. In the cremation process of Rambh,
Mahishi jumped into the fire, to sacrifice her life to express her
love for her husband. Hence, Yama was stopped from taking away the
soul of Rambh. Hence, Rambh got retained into the womb of Mahishi.
Hence, from cremation fire, emerged two demons namely Rakthbeej
(rebirth of Rambh) and Mahishasur (the child of Rambh). Mahishasur
also did penance and obtained a boon from Lord Brahma, that he wont
be killed by any man. Mahishasur thought that he has obtained
immortality indirectly by this boon as according to him, a lady would
never be able to kill a powerful demon like him. At the same time,
while Mahishasur was doing penance, Parvati too started with a
penance to get rid of her dark complexion, which was developed over
her fair skin, due the penance she had done to obtain Lord Shiva as
her husband. While she was engrossed in her penance, Shiva came up to
her and washed off her face with the water of Ganga (Ganges), due to
which, Parvati's dark complexion shedded from her and got
accumulalted over the plants present there. In this way, Parvati
justified her name Maha Gauri. The very place where she had shedded
her dark complexion was the place, where Rishi Katyayan's wife used
to do gardening and used the same plantations for cooking purpose. In
course of time, Narayani got pregnant. At the same time, Mahishasur
reached the peak of evilness by mercilessly killing human beings, who
were doing worship of gods. All the Gods including Indra, Varun, etc.
and also Shiva and Brahma gathered at the Vishnu's realm to seek help
from the protector of the world as to what could be done. Lord Vishnu
(protector) instructed all the gods to combine their powers. The
combination of the powers of all Gods including Trinity, Indra, etc.
fell upon Mars. The planet Mars directed that combination of that
powers to Katyayan's child who was about to take birth, as it's
ruling planet was Mars. Narayani gave birth to a girl who was named
as Katyayani being the daughter of sage Katyayan. She was the
incarnation of Mahalakshmi as she had the powers of all Gods and
those powers were nothing but brightness and the beej mantra was
'Hreem'. She was so powerful and independent that as she grew up, she
started living in the forest Madamba Kadamba. The only thing that was
missing was beauty as she was born from the dark cell of Parvati. But
as she grew up, all the Gods started praying to her (Mahalakshmi) and
gathered near her. The Sea God presented her various ornaments,
jewelery, beautiful look, a beautiful crown to wear. All the Gods
presented her with the clone of their weapons like Lord Vishnu gave a
clone of his discus, Lord Shiva gave trident, etc. In this way, she
had to develop eighteen hands to hold all the weapons presented by
various male Gods. Hence, she came to be known as eighteen-handed
Mahalakshmi. Himavan, father of Parvati, present a Lion to Goddess
Katyayani to ride upon. Soon the battle between Goddess Katyayani and
demons army started. She created the same number of female warriors
to fight the male demons army. Finally, her army won over the demon
army and Katyayani herself killed many demons like Shichsur, Asiloma,
Vidhan, Vashkaal, Ugrasen, Ramchandi etc. Finally, Mahishasur came in
forefront to battle the Goddess. Mahishasur failed to battle with
goddess without using his supernatural powers, which he had to use.
Finally he kept changing form from lion to elephant to buffalo. At
last, Goddess removed ornaments, removed all pure attributes and
transformed into Chandi (with ten arms, not eighteen) and killed
Mahishasur. She promised all the Gods mainly Indra that she will
reappear at the time, when they needed her again. Afterwhich, she
fused back into Parvati's body. '
“This is
fantastic,” Gigi said.
“Oh my god, Jaya
will be at my Puja,” Ana exclaimed, irritated. “I won't be going
there till noon, problem solved.” She laughed at her own ingenuity.
Puja really does
bring out the best and worst in people. Sas was raging on about how
she'd dance on 'Dashami' all the way to the Brahmaputra and then go
home and feast. Even Ana, being a Bengali, was enthusiastically
counting the days.
The lights were
almost all around the city; neon green, pink, yellow, orange lights,
decorating and brightening the city and those who lived in it. The
'pandals' were almost finished and were standing tall in all their
glory, against all the recent storms and damp and rainy weather.
“It really is
almost here,” Ira said, smiling.
I breathed in the
woody, sweet and fresh October air and smiled back. “Yes. Yes, it
is.”
PS - These photos are from last year, in and around my lovely city.
PPS- Sadly, this year, I won't be in the city all five days of the celebration, so, this is an ode to my favourite festival of all time.
Wish you guys an amazing Durga Puja. Have a blast!
Until next time, take care.
~AB.
