The year of Kali

It was years later that I learnt the way in which Kali is worshipped now, socially, in large pandals and in family homes, is of a far more recent vintage than one would imagine.
For representational purpose.
For representational purpose.

I   am not at home in Delhi. Outside the windows of the ashram-like room we have moved into for a while, in a small town in the shadow of the Western Ghats, there is a field of kaash phool. Tall stalks of wild grass that bear white which sway gently in the breeze, as though they were tall and thin yoga teachers, bowing low and saying namaste all day long.

At the sight of the kaash, I am reminded of my native Bengal, where their appearance, whether in the expanses of the countryside, or in small vacant plots in the cities, signal the commencement of the season of goddesses. Beginning with Devi Durga, who was propitiated out-of-turn by Lord Rama, it concludes with a five-day puja of Jagaddhatri. From my childhood though, of all the goddesses, Kali has been my favourite. Aided perhaps by the fact that on my father’s side, Kali is the family deity. And so, the joke trotted out to all new sons-in-law, is that the girls of our clan are indubitably Kali-esque: not given much to domesticity or femininity, flashing fiery tempers that slay and singe. The husbands must either cultivate a mostly ascetic temperament like Lord Shiva, or, failing that, stay away a lot. I also loved Kali because she was so refreshingly different from all the other goddesses.

For instance, Durga, Lakshmi and Jagaddhatri alike are invariably imagined by the sculptors as golden-hued goddesses, dressed in jewel-coloured silks and glittering ornaments. Ma Kali is burnished-black or midnight-blue in complexion, fierce of visage, and utterly scornful of feminine raiment, preferring to wage war with evil, wearing only her own skin. Her tongue, red with blood, sticks out. And around her neck, alongside the ropes of hibiscus, is a garland of freshly severed human heads. My grandfather had told me the heads represented our vices, greed, anger, delusion, and a few others I’d forgotten. (The kumhars of Calcutta preferred to interpretthese as moustachioed, crazy-eyed men, a cross between Bollywood villains and Mahishasura.) 

It was years later that I learnt the way in which Kali is worshipped now, socially, in large pandals and in family homes, is of a far more recent vintage than one would imagine. For the longest time, praying ritually to Kali was mostly the provenance of aghoris, who hung around charnel grounds and practised vamacharya. (I always asked my grandfather incisive questions about our Kali-worshipping ancestors, but he would only smile mysteriously.) It was in the 18th century that Raja Krishnachandra of Nabadvipa introduced Kali Puja in his own family home, and by the time of his grandson, who celebrated it with great pomp and fervour, other zamindars had begun to follow in his footsteps. 

Even as a child, it was clear to me that Kali was the patron goddess of our communist city. It was not merely the famous shakti peetha at Kali Ghat or the Dakshineshwar Temple built by Rani Rashmoni, the site of Shri Ramakrishna’s worship, that the goddess resided. On the contrary, she reigned supreme in every street-corner temple, and where there was no temple, she sat simply under a tree and people would come every evening and lovingly deposit red hibiscuses by her feet. Even the progressive young men of the local clubs, whose hearts beat to a hammer-and-sickle tune, made an exception to their purported atheism for her. 

I remember the Kali Puja pandals of my childhood were similar in ambience to the Durga Puja ones from barely a month ago—the same pop of toy guns, the swish of saris, the press of jostling crowds, the cotton candy and ice-cream stalls. And yet, though the ingredients were the same, the celebration was in a markedly different register, more sombre, darker somehow.

Durga and her daughters, Lakshmi and Saraswati, were easy to understand. Durga was a harried mother who slayed demons and came to her mother’s home to rest for a few days with her brood and their individual pets; Lakshmi was the star, beautiful, with a handsome husband, bestower of householdy bliss and fullness; and Saraswati, the intellectual, was remote and artistic, the one I faithfully prayed to, every evening, hoping to conquer math and science. 

But Kali? 
She was the one who escaped the frames of reference we operated upon, none of the aspirational stuff that householders desired. She reminded us instead of death and fear and loss—and the wisdom that came from accepting these. After the long night of no-moon, of howling creatures and scary spirits, only after she was convinced of the worshipper’s courage, that her tenderness would descend. 

I didn’t know these words of the Irish-born Sister Nivedita then; now they seem apposite. ‘Strong, fearless, resolute, when the sun sets, and the game is done, thou shalt know well, little one, that I, Kali, the giver of manhood, the giver of womanhood, and the withholder of victory, am thy mother.’

Devapriya Roy

roydevapriya@gmail.com 

Author and teacher; her latest book is Friends from College

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