Today is Shoshthi, anyone who was born in Bengal, east or west, whatever religious belief they have or do not have, understands the meaning of the word very clearly. But for those who were born outside that circle, I can try to explain the significance of that word. The word shoshthi literally means the sixth day, in the Hindu calendar, it describes the phase of the moon, so it could be either the sixth day after the full moon or no moon of any Hindu month. But as I already said for all Bengalis it just means the sixth day after the no moon of the month of Ashwin (autumn), the day the Goddess, the Mother and the Daughter comes home after a long year. Looking at the Goddess as the divine Mother is not a very new idea anywhere in the world, for ages all the Pagans have done that, but looking at her as the Daughter is something that needs some explanation here.
The soft soils and the green fields of Bengal and the rivers and paddy is said to have made anyone associated with this land emotional, and soft to the core. Most of the time I get really annoyed with this description as always being soft and emotional have been equated with being meek, which I refuse to believe we are. But somehow we do tend to be “softer” than most of northerners. Somehow for everything we need the association of family, the pain of separation form our close ones. And hence even our concept of Divinity has also been shaped by this. To us our beloved gods, who are essentially the female Goddess in her most extreme form, Kali and Durga, come as our daughter. We have not changed their Puranic iconography although in transforming them from their divine role of the slayer of evil to the daughter in pain and poverty. I will not go into the detail of the concept of the Bhakti movement in all over “India” (which was beyond the present geographical boundaries of the present day India) and will not debate that this movement was not confined to Bengal (how can I possibly forget Meera), but this became immensely popular and mundane in Bengal for sure.
The story of Sati, one of the manifestations of the Goddess, the daughter of Giri (the Himalayas) and Menoka, sister of Mandar, was narrated to me by my great grandmother when I was around three years old, like many other kids growing up in this region. The story goes like this, Sati, the divine mother was in love with the god Shiva, who is the lord of the outcast, a stoner, who lives in the cremation grounds and who befriended the ghosts and pishacha. She being the princess, this love was considered preposterous and even impossible by many, including Giri. And hence when she married Shiva, she was abandoned by her own father. The story sounds like the progeny of many Hollywood and Bollywood blockbusters, and tells us how strong ingrained is our “socialistic” view of love for ages. Anyway the story ends in a very violent note where Sati, unable to bare the insult of her husband Shiva, in a Yanja organized by Giri, will die and this will enrage shiva and he will destroy the universe. But we do not need to go to the death of Sati, we will talk about two women here, a mother, Menoka and her daughter Sati. Caught between the egos of their respective husbands, Giri and Shiva, they suffer. The mother, laments every moment for not being able to see her daughter, and because of her poverty. Amazing and heart dissolving songs, by Ramprasad et al. These songs describe the transcend of Durga and Shiva beyond the divine, all powerful and intangible world and make them real human beings. Durga becomes the ill-fated daughter, who grew up in affluence, the daughter who is as impeccable as a dew on a blue lotus, but is married to a drunkard, a man who sells all the jewelries of his wife to buy ganja and to dance with his outcast friends! I quote here the amazing lines
“Jao Jao Giri Anite Gouri
Uma boro Dukhe royechhe
Ami dekhechhi shopono
Narodo Bochono,
Uma ma ma bole kendechhe
Bhangor bhikhari jamai tomar
Shonar Bhromori gouri amar
Amar umar joto boshon-bhushon
Bhola tao beche bang kheyechhe”
If I try to loosely translate this:
Oh Giri! Go and fetch my Gouri,
She came in my dream and cried.
My Uma is like soft and fragile
And your Bhola is a drunkard
He has no limits to his audacity
And hence have sold all of Uma’s jewelry.
Oh Giri go fast and fetch my Uma.
If these lines do not touch your soul, the fault is mine and my lack of knowledge of English, but trust me when you hear these words in bangla, you can but just cry. If you notice in this song, as I mentioned above, Uma (Sati or Durga) is no more the goddess who kills the demons and protects the universe, and remains even when there is no universe, she is a daughter, who in spite of being able to cure everyone’s agony as a goddess cries like a baby calling her mother to save her. Here Bhola (Shiva) is not anymore the Devadidev, the god of gods, but just a worthless drunkard. A story we live and hear every day. They are ours and hence the charm of Durga as a daughter to us not as a goddess. As a goddess she can rescue her, but she never touched our sould. But when she became the vulnerable one, the one who goes through the same pain as you have gone through, she becomes mortal and lovable. I will use two more songs that strongly express the skepticism in the divinity of both Bhola and Durga and through that skepticism makes them closer to our hearts.
“Ebara mar uma el ear umai pathabo na
Bole bolbe loke mondo karu kotha shunbo na.
Jodi ashe mritunjay uma nebar kotha koy
Maye-jhiye korbo jhorgo jamai bole manbo na”
Once Uma comes this time, I will not let her go,
Will not heed to what the rest thinks, I will not send her back.
If, Mritunjay, the one who has crossed death comes to take her,
Mother and Daughter will quarrel with him and will not give her back
Once again this song clearly reflects a mother’s skepticism and denial to understand and abide by the rules laid by the society where she is supposed to let her daughter go back to her husband’s knowing she will be in pain. Menoka refuses to give Shiva the respect the society demands for a son-in-law, here the one who has crossed death, and hence clearly refuses his divinity. What other way a woman in Ramprasad’s time (18th centurry) even in her thought could revolt against the male domination?
I end my long essay with another song of this kind, one of my fevourites, once again reflecting the pain a mother goes through just contemplating the poverty her beloved daughter has to face.
“Kamon kore horer ghore chili uma bol ma tai
Koto loke kotoi bole shune prane more jai.
Mar prane ki dhoirjo dhore, jamai naki bhikha kore
Ebar nite ele pore bolbo uma ghore nai.
Chitabhoshho makhi onge jamai fire nana ronge
Tui naki ma tari shonge shonar onge makhish chhai?!”
“How did you survive in that house of your husband’s oh my Uma!
I hear terrible things from, I hear your husband is a begger.
I hear he decks up in ashes from the cremation ground
And dances wherever, whoever he finds with.
And I hear he makes you wear the ashes too!
Oh my Uma is that true?
If he comes this time to take you, I will never let you.
Once again I point to the skepticism and disbelief of Menoka, Uma’s mother, on the highly philosophized role of Shiva as a beggar as the one who adorns himself with the ashes as he represents time and end of time. Menoka, Uma and Shiva once again become the everyday characters, poor, destitute and in pain. And this self-identification, this bringing down the gods from the pedestal of omnipresence and divinity makes Durga Pujo so close to our hearts.
