In the autumn of my life, I realized that I was born in Autumn, in the month of September. In this month, autumn remains soft, the skies go blue as the dark clouds of the monsoons release their water, turn fluffy white, gleaming at the edges at the sun that shines through the air washed by the rains. Now autumn is naive and childlike, wide eyed, ready to break out into the lush of the earth in playfulness. Autumn matures in October, the dawns are dense in the gold of the sunlight, the air gets crispier, the atmosphere defined, everything develops sharper silhouettes and deeper lines. Then autumn disturbs me, it is too definitive, too intense. So many things happen when Autumn enters its prime; strikes, puja bonuses, protests and processions and then the hyper excitement of the festival season.
Here my comfort has always been in Durga. Somehow, I have always loved her. I was born in her month, that week when she was dressed up and prepared for war and on my birth tithi, the 4th day, she received the thunderbolt from Indra. That has inspired me to live the life of a thunderbolt kid; I still am that child, born, like her into entitlement and endowment, empowered by hopes of my parents and encouraged by their faith in me. Like her, I have led a life of a warrior, at the same time being a houseproud homemaker. I never needed to balance because neither the home nor work could have enough of my energies and capabilities, and while I gave all that they could absorb, I did leave them gasping under my bountiful contributions. I have had to pull back more than I had to push on; just like her, one that can give endlessly and because her giving is so generous that she has never had the occasion to ask anything back for herself.
Durga is powerful and hence, unlike Kali, she does not need to be aggressive. Unlike the deities Lakshmi or Saraswati, she does not have a singular defining attribute; Durga is everything, she is not about this or that, she is every virtue found together. This makes her powerful but composed, a woman with enormous punch power but restrained and calm, benevolent despite being at war, congenial despite her kill.
I like her life when she is not at war; she usually lives in poverty though known as Annapurna, the provider of food. She works very hard, through grit and determination, using both brains and the brawn to place food on the table. She is the mother of the world not because of what she has, nor what she produces but the enormous efforts she makes and the huge assurances she provides in all with her ability to work hard.
I like her family too; the gods and goddesses, who had independent existences in the Puranas are now bound to Durga as her children. She has two children, Kartik, the warrior and Lakshmi, the wealth. Both have birds as vahanas, birds of the forests, with limited flight, the peacock for Kartik and the owl for Lakshmi. Ganesh, in all probability is the pet elephant, as Durga is excessively protective about him. Saraswati may be the adopted daughter, as her vahana is the migratory swan. Lakshmi and she don’t get along well at all, and while she is on Durga’s left side with Kartik, both are travellers; Kartik circles the world, Saraswati travels across it. Ganesh stays with the parents, encircling them, knowing them to be his world. Lakshmi never leaves mother either, both she and Ganesh are homebound, live with mother. Ganesh is the God of work and success; one can see that he represents mother’s hard work and success while Lakshmi assures mother of prosperity and abundance.
I like Shiva as the husband; he is not Durga’s protector; he intervenes little in her affairs and provides nothing for the family. He works often contrary to her interests, protects the very demon, Mahishasur who Durga has been designated to slay. He is found in bad company of ghosts and outcasts; he is also an addict. In short, he serves no husbandly purpose and yet he is the husband because Durga is helplessly attracted to him. Shiva finds in Durga, companionship and peace, solace and self-fulfillment, he finds in her, what he finds in no one else, someone with who he can really open his mind up. Durga loves him because she does not need him, she adores him because he can provide her with nothing of material value; Durga does not need the husband for her needs; she needs him for her own joy, just like the opening up of Nature in Autumn, the season when everything overflows with sheer joy, unlike the winter that only yields fruits.
