A Pure Ask

As a young girl it used to be a very eventful moment for me when I would get a chance to visit ‘Durga Pooja Pandal’ with my mother. I used to be intimidated and goose- bumpy whenever I found myself surrounded by the aroused, frenzied and incensed atmosphere of these ‘Durga Pooja Pandals’ The smoke filled air used to burn my eyes and pungent, acrid, spicy smell of flowers, burning ghee and oil , ‘agarbattis and dhoop’ would irritate my nostrils and give me a hard time. Clinging to my mother’s ‘pallu’ I would be dragged into the festive revelry of devotion, worship and spirituality. Its not that I was not excited and nervously animated to be the part of a Durga Pooja Pandal visit and all the festivity around, in fact I was in awe of ‘Durga; and all that it symbolized. The figure of a woman riding a tiger, trampling demons and having large, impressive , penetrating eyes, exuding power and radiating feminine capacity used to make me hopeful of my own potentiality even at that time when I was a mere seven-eight year old girl! Secretly I wanted to befriend Durga and learn all the tricks of the trade from her, but she would look so still, only a statue, and that would really disappoint me. My grandma used to tell me many stories about Durga and her bravery. I wanted to ask Durga myself about so many things. Things like, Do I have to fear you and be in awe of you and worship you or should I try to become as brave a warrior like you? When I used to see my mother’s face radiating faith and constancy and totally surrendering herself to the spirit of Durga, I would sincerely search for some ‘Durga’ in my mother. At that time, I made up my mind that perhaps there is a bit of ‘Durga’ in all women. But I had also noticed in my mother’s eyes fear. Fear of making Durga angry. Fear of making some mistake while performing a ritual. Fear of not following the ritual of fasting in entirety, as if some doom would befall us all if she made some mistake of making ‘Durga’ angry. And during those times my awe and admiration for ‘Durga’ would change into doubt and dilemma. How can someone be so unfair to punish people for trivial things like not following fasting rituals? May be my mother takes it too far on her and does not understand the ways of “pooja” I used to wonder. During such times I used to really wish ‘Durga’ to come in front of me and talk to me face to face. Why does she have to be so elusive and still wield so much of power on people, I care about, we are not Mahishasur?  In fact, I am a just little girl who wants to be like you, Goddess Durga. “Would you please come down that stage for once and talk to me?” Used to be my constant appeal on many ‘Durga Pooja” occasion. I wanted to ask ‘Durga’ how did she get her name Durga, did she really kill an asur ‘Durga’ to get her name? How did she kill Mahishasura? What is it about her that Lord Rama and Lankapati Ravan , both are her devotees? I wanted to ask and confirm every story about ‘Durga’ that my grandma told me, from ‘Durga’ herself!