Halloween, Diwali, Kali puja
all contrasting, no? No!
Halloween’s fixed date is Oct 31. Today has also been officially declared as Diwali by ultimate authority VHP, nixing wannabe Nov 1. ‘The East is Red’-tongued: Kali puja has to be on Kartik Amavasya, which too has fallen on this day. This perverse alignment of light and dark seems like an astronomical aberration. It bothered me even as a child. No Halloween then, but it was disorienting to drive into Bengali paras from our predominantly Gujarati area – doubly Diwali-ed by being electrical goods market as well. North Calcutta’s scary Kali puja pandals were a planet, not just a few kms, away from our fireworks and fairy lights. Ram’s return to Ayodhya multiplied the mix. But for my Gujarati trader-neighbours, Diwali was only about Lakshmi, goddess of wealth. So what was this dark and fierce deity doing in the company of fair and benign Devi L?
Now i know Lakshmi and Kali aren’t as contradictory as their looks. That, in some legends, Kali emerged from the forehead of a Durga overwhelmed by raging bloodlust; that, as embodiment of power, she can slay more demons than Mahishasura Mardini herself. Lakshmi, too, is not only Durga’s daughter, but sometimes her predecessor: in the eponymous Tantra, Lakshmi becomes ‘Durga’ after killing Durgamasura.
Hindu mythology can iron out any dissent, but what about the alien intruder in today’s serendipitous trilogy? Being non-Sanatan or any dharma/varna, dare i find commonality in the ghoulish imageries of Halloween and Kali? Link former’s childish skull masks with goddess’s grisly garland? Say that if Halloween is solemnly celebrated at graveyards, Kolkata’s most venerable Kali puja is at Keoratala burning ghat. Postal zone? Kalighat. As atonement for perceived sacrilege, i could add that while the foreign festival celebrates dark forces, Kali liberates her worshipper from negative energy – of every Kal.
Impossible to conflate gay Diwali kandeels and grimacing Jack-o-lanterns, no? Instead let’s take the imminent assembly elections. Aspiring netas have seized Halloween’s ‘trick or treat’. But their treat is just a trick.
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Alec Smart said: “Unable to take stand on seat distribution? Sign of electile dysfunction.”
Disclaimer
This article is intended to bring a smile to your face. Any connection to events and characters in real life is coincidental.
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