Each year early in the month of Ashwin, comes the festival of Navratri when from Bengal to Uttarakhand, goddess Durga is believed to come down from Mount Kailash to visit her natal family over the next nine days. Navratri meant a long holiday for us in school and we looked forward to it because our mother too would visit her mother with us. Each day we had to celebrate one of the nine avatars of Durga because our grandmother said we hill women were also part of her natal family – the Prathamam Shailputri. The Devi’s first form was that of a girl of the mountains, a fact that was exciting. But the question was impenetrable to me as a child. Why were we related to goddesses and not to gods? Grandmother, after avoiding to answer several times, said because God had ordained it thus.
That, as they say, was that.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Who is Durga really? In Bengal they address her as Ma, in Uttarakhand she is worshipped as Devi and protector of the region in her incarnation as two high Himalayan peaks: Nanda Devi and Sunanda Devi.
Semantically, Durga means she who is hard to access – Durgena gamyate. If I turn to Bhimsen Joshi’s famous rendering of “Jai Durge Durgati Pariharini”, she also stands for the rescuer of humans from every mess (durgati), man-made or otherwise.
As Nanda Devi, Durga is indeed hard to access. In her form as Vindhyavasini, also, she is located in the midst of one of the most intractable and wild forests among the Vindhya mountains.
In Vedic literature, a host of muscular, free-wheeling and violent Vedic deities (Indra, Varuna, Pooshan, and Mitra-Varun to name a few), rule the pantheon and battle dark forces. There are no militant goddesses there. Durga or Kali, as a prototype of self-seeding and wild female power, perhaps entered our pantheon from the Shabaras in the tribal belt.
Some years ago there was a bit of hoo ha over the Mahishasur Mardini form of Durga. There were allegations that she was actually an Aryan creation and her attack on Mahishasur played out the Aryan decimation of the culture of the dark-skinned natives. But among the tribals, the mother goddess had been worshipped as a protector of all, including the marginalised ones and heretical sects: tantriks, whores, thugs and dacoits. Greater mystery is how the female slayer of the dreaded buffalo demon Mahishasur, by a many-armed Durga slowly entered the male supremacist Aryan pantheon over time. She also brought with her many non-Aryan traits: a rude defiance of male power, a fondness for flesh, alcoholic beverages and even blood. In contrast to glamorous Lakshmi and a philosophically aloof Saraswati, Durga, when she vanquishes enemies, breaks into an uninhibited victory dance with her exclusive battalions of ululating female soldiers.
A powerful woman surrounded by her trusted pack of women warriors brings Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa and Indira Gandhi to mind in our times. With their capable army of women parliamentarians they long posed an unwinnable challenge at the centre and later in Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Even men bowed to them, for times were changing and challenges many.
The Bengali poet Nazrul Islam wrote in early 20th century:
“Wake up, Dark One
Come dance in this cremation ground
Because I want free air to breathe
I want energy
Wake up Shiva lying surrounded by corpses..”
Ironically the Ma has no biological children. Men even in our times have always mocked females who bear no children like J.D. Vance calling Kamala Harris a childless cat lady. It cost him dearly in ratings. As did the heckling of Mayawati, Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee to many male rivals who underestimated the pull of the great mother figure.
Times have changed and we are different, today’s Sanatani brigade of politicians might say. ‘We respect you, mataon bahino betiyo! Look at the Navratri celebrations we have ordained for Mata Rani!’ However, Delhi remains divided between worshippers of the dark goddess and the benign Mata Rani, a queen mother in red silks and gold.
Change is everywhere. Even in Pujo pandals something seems to be shifting. The Durga images still carry the weaponry and show her sitting on a lion, killing the dark Mahishasur but all around her is commercialised pomp and glitter. The spirit of Durga: never submissive, roaming about from smashan to kabristan, as commander, drinker, slayer of demons is missing. But look around the metro cities and the world of higher education, banking, IT, sports and entertainment, an embryonic but very palpable female power is lurching forward once again.
This Durga is no creation of the united colours of gods that are our market and media managers. Like a great female general, she will in time create her own fierce female armies who would love to join a good fight like #MeToo, when they see one. Together they will, over time, defy all norms sought to be imposed on them by a society that underestimates women. Vinesh Phogat to farmers who sat on dharna around Delhi for months. The second coming is on the horizon.
Also read: A Durga Puja Like No Other: R.G. Kar Protests Cast Shadow over Festivities in Kolkata
In places, the Devi’s devotees today do show her riding a tiger but tend to treat her only as a married daughter visiting her natal family. This newly sanitised avatar of Ma as a gentle traditional female who loves bangles, bindi, mehandi, cosmetics, and good red silks, limits her to her role as nourisher and mother of sons: Ganesh and Kartikeya. But then the Chandi Path begins. Once again through the verses we are reminded that the goddess is chandi (militant), and still standing armed under the shrine called Chandi Mandapa, no matter what decorators make it look like.
Stories women tell further strengthen the reality: the daughters wish to work instead of getting married as teenagers. In villages daughters-in-law no longer wish to be submissive gatherers of fuel and fodder, fetchers of water and caretakers of the old and the children. Whether the old ones like it or not, women are hankering to be mobile. “A mass migration of married women is taking place,” confirm our hostesses at the home stays in hill villages.
Down south they had realised this nascent power of the Mother much earlier. Even the austere ascetic Adi Shankara, the founder of Sanatan Dharma, was moved to create the sonorous lyrics of Saundarya Lahari, the great hymn to the goddess in which he concedes that the mighty Shiva is a shava (corpse) without Shakti (the goddess).
A joke comes to mind. The husband asks his wife, “How could the lord create you as a creature so bewitchingly beautiful and dumb at the same time?”
The wife answers, “The lord made me beautiful so you should be attracted to me, but he also made me dumb so I would be attracted to you.”
As the Durga Pandals and Golus come up, and bhajans blaring from loudspeakers urge Sheranwali Mata to come save the world, outside our borders bombs fall and shrapnel flies, women migrate willingly or otherwise and climate change coupled with joblessness is churning the atmosphere and nibbling at old bastions of male power.
In such a world Durga Pujo is a metaphor for the dilemmas faced by present day India. Here, two cultures, aggressive male and stoically stubborn female, merge for nine days and will part after the immersion, thus re-creating the duality at the heart of political culture: plutocratic and male-lineage centric but totally dependent on women for legitimacy of their progeny. Can the two be reconciled and involved in governance as genuinely equal partners?
Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.
