Shakti: The Feminine Divine (26 page)

The mighty wielder of the thunderbolt had sobbed like a baby while at the receiving end of their tender affections. It was to be wondered how exactly he would degrade himself further when made to answer for his sins by the Goddess. ‘We are taking you to the goddess, it is true,’ they informed him with malicious glee, ‘but her name is Kali. And just so you know, neither compassion nor forbearance are her strongest suits.’

The Dark Goddess

K
ALI REVELLED IN
the fact that she was beyond the scope of comprehension or rationale. Everybody wanted to be understood, to find someone who knew everything there was to know about them so that they may find a safe place, where they could be themselves, basking in the delicious proximity of a kindred spirit, who had seen them at their worst and not flinched. Not her.

Love was the real enemy of freedom, as was friendship. A haven, no matter how inviting it sounded, was little more than a death trap, where the spirit went to die. Bonds, even if they were of deep caring, enforced the laws that governed the give-and-take of affection, which demanded that one thought and behaved in a certain way in order to ensure that one was loved. It was far better to be feared.

And the dark goddess was feared, even by the rest of her heart, soul and body. Shakti, for all her freewheeling ways, had a certain predilection for jati, the order that governed all in
the cosmos. As one whose intelligence surpassed all else in creation, it was just like her to set much store by logic and method, adopting their inviolate tenets for running the three worlds.

It was why seeds became plants, eggs hatched to release creatures—winged or saurian—four-legged creatures popped out their litters and humans had babies. Virtue had to be rewarded and vice punished, if not immediately, then in subsequent lifetimes. In keeping with her sense of order as well as the demand for security required by her bratty children, Shakti worked hard to ensure that the contrasting elements and downright opposing forces of nature made a modicum of sense.

Kali, however, was not one for the endless refinement of samskara, circumscribed by a civilization that was obsessed with all things superficial and in denial about the chaos and the rank disorder that actually distinguished existence. The rationale of social order, which tried so hard to control that which was uncontrollable, be it in the realm of the mortals or immortals, would never be able to account for the elemental contrariness inherent in all things.

The old and infirm would live long past their will to survive, whereas the young and healthy would go to an early grave, thanks to freak accidents. Criminals would not be made to answer for their crimes against humanity, but the innocent would be prosecuted. The devas and the asuras had what the mortals wanted and yet they pissed it all away by forever looking for excuses to wage war, out in the battlefields and within themselves, throwing open the doors to misfortune of their own accord.

None of it would ever make sense, which was why Kali
felt that the chaos she represented was the palliative the three worlds needed to shake things down.

Surprisingly enough, Shakti seemed to agree during one of her usual inner monologues, which had morphed into a dialogue with Kali, her wild side. The latter had been less than delighted with her. ‘I told you not to listen to that pacifist Vishnu! You should have gone with your instincts and taken your trident to Indra when he attacked Usas, or when he killed Trishiras just because he could. Or if that went against your finer sensibilities, you should have let me do it, and I would have been happy to stick my spear up his dark places! I said it before and I’ll say it again, your friend Vishnu gets on my nerves!’

‘It is not a secret that you don’t approve of Vishnu, who has always been the master of operating successfully within the paradigms of sacred geometry!’ Shakti had replied, defending her friend, but moderately, to avoid the vitriolic attack Kali would have otherwise launched against him.

‘That is not the only thing…’ the black goddess huffed. ‘He makes the classic case for why I have always maintained that lovers and friends alike are the millstones schmucks like you willingly carry around their necks. Even with his obsession with the truth, he sees of you only what he has chosen to love. In doing so, he uses his admittedly genuine feelings to mould you in his image of the divine feminine, shaving off the rest, including the best parts, like myself. Not that I expect it, but frankly, it is impossible to see him worship at my altar.’

‘Perhaps the fact that you don’t appreciate being worshipped on an altar could have been the deciding factor? Besides, aren’t you being a little harsh on him? It is not his intention to trap me with his expectations. But you seem to
like Shiva well enough, if only because he is always happy to go along with your crazy antics and indulge your appetite for a good fight by taking you when he is called upon to battle demons. Then the two of you can get inebriated on the blood of your enemies and drive each other to the utmost of your destructive capabilities! But despite his deep love for you, he married Parvati, the exemplar of all things auspicious, which is highly revealing, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Oh please!’ Kali scoffed. ‘It is the kindest thing he did for both of us. Marriage would have made us kill each other and between us, we would have destroyed everything else in creation as well. I refuse to be tied down and he did well to remember it. Besides, I’ll take friendship over the tedium of love and marriage every time!

‘Sometimes I wonder about you! Like those overindulgent mothers, who feel the desperate need to give their children what they want in order to win their selfish and unworthy love, you attempt to please everybody. Thanks to you, I am obliged to play the tough enforcer and collect debts through sickness, pestilence, calamity, death and unhappy chance! It is hardly surprising that sometimes you are as lost as the souls you want so desperately to rescue.’

‘Why is being lost such a bad idea?’ Shakti enquired, mimicking Vishnu as closely as she could manage. ‘It is the best excuse to find yourself. Once the mission is accomplished, the experience helps you help others find themselves, wouldn’t you agree?’

Rude snorts emitted by the dark goddess made for a pithy response, which Shakti ignored.

Having registered her displeasure, Kali spoke again, ‘But we are not having this conversation to go over the things we have
analysed between ourselves umpteen times already… You must be out of your mind over the latest indignity Indra has saddled the rest of creation with. It is bad enough that nature, simply by identifying more with women, singled them out to be its biological slaves, foisting the twin evils of menstruation and childbearing on them; now they will also have to contend with the fact that Indra has made them bonded labourers to the male ego, putting them on par with bum boys.’

‘Don’t do that!’ Shakti cut in. ‘By perceiving women as slaves, even if it is to their own bodies, you are condemning them to a life of bondage. In my opinion, these things boil down entirely to perspective. Menstrual cramps and a hysterical uterus may hardly be described as a delight, but it is all part of being a woman. The way I see it, the ability to bear a child is something a female can do and a male cannot, and it is typical of men to belittle women for possessing a skill they don’t have and bamboozling them into going along. A clear case of sour grapes!’

‘Agreed! What makes a woman special is her ability to carry smelly seed!’ Kali replied with a grimace. ‘But as I was saying, Indra is the sort of person who makes me want to rein in every decent impulse I have ever had and go completely berserk! Earlier, I had given him credit for attempting to screw over both men and women without discrimination, in his desperate race to stay in power, but all that changed when he figured out who were the softer targets.

‘Since Vishnu has repeatedly shown him inordinate favour and intervened on his behalf, sacrificing better men in order to maintain the social order he created, this monster, afflicted with the evil trifecta that is brute strength, cowardice and entitlement, whom the three worlds know as Indra, has come
into being. I know that personally you have never approved, but by staying your hand despite your better judgement, a degree of responsibility for Indra’s crimes has to be borne by you. It behoves you to clean up this mess. But short of cleansing the three worlds with his blood, I don’t see what you can do!’

‘You are right about one thing, at least. I do feel responsible.’ Shakti paused, having got that out, feeling a familiar guilt, which clearly had not aged well. ‘This is one of those things that needs time, a whole lot of it, in order to be fixed. The process itself will be painfully slow, even if time itself rolls away with unbearable speed. It is also one of those cases where the cure will be almost as bad as the worst symptoms of the disease itself. But that is why you are here!’

‘I presumed as much, since it is I you are having this discussion with, not your dear friends Vishnu or Shiva. It is clear you are aware that a tender-hearted approach is not going to cut it with this bugger, or his wife with the mighty rod up her backside. Shall I pluck it out and use it to bash them both to pulp? In which case, let us not waste our time with useless talk, which is the enemy of action.’

Shakti sighed and Kali, her constant companion, bristled with impatient fury. Even Shiva, who loved her so dearly, would balk in the face of her savage fury when it was given its head, but not Shakti, because she had dealt with the excesses of her passion for as long as they had both been around. And when the anger, which was quick to provoke, brushed up against her, it felt achingly familiar and she welcomed it.

‘Let us not waste time talking, then. But I don’t want you going after Sachi. Don’t you glower at me, I am not a bloody male to be cowed by your anger issues! She has always been her own worst enemy and we will just get in the way of the self-
destructive powers, which have long enslaved her. Regarding Indra, I ask only that you do what it is you do best, but show some restraint. It is not necessary to counter a destructive and bloodthirsty male by becoming a destructive and bloodthirsty female!’

‘Whatever do you mean? And here I was planning to show him why the female of the species is truly deadlier than the male…?’ Kali teased, her good humour restored, now that she knew that her controlling half was relinquishing power. ‘The plan was to beat him up to within an inch of his life and then complete his humiliation by getting on top of him and giving him the pounding he has deserved longer than most anybody else. It would have helped him get up close and personal with the deceased infants I allegedly favour as accessories for my ears and the fresh skulls that are the talking point of my beautiful necklace!

‘Then I would have personally severed his head to add to my collection and frolicked in his blood. If the night had been young, perhaps I’d have squeezed in some dancing before getting down to the serious business of feasting on blood with my faithful attendants. The whole thing would have gone down in history as the most legendary kill ever!

‘But thanks to the restrictions that have been imposed on me, I’ll go easy on him and kill him with kindness. Isn’t that something you would approve off ?’

Shakti laughed aloud. She loved Kali better than anyone else, even Shiva. She was an essential part of her. She took her away from herself to a place where she could just be, without any of the concerns that always threatened to overwhelm her, against which she had long stood firm, insecure in the knowledge that someday it would be too much to withstand.
But Kali would never ever go down, for she was inexorable time. She could devour all of creation, but none possessed what it would take to consume her. Such knowledge was comforting—so what if you weren’t sure about survival? Sometimes, it was sufficient to endure.

Thinking about it made her laugh some more.

‘I am familiar with the folklore,’ she replied to Kali, still smiling. ‘It makes you sound very interesting indeed and I daresay you have become very popular, especially among thieves, murderers, and every other type of miscreant out there. Too bad that you are nothing like the stories they make up about you after looting their victims, raping the women and killing their men, insisting that they did it all out of love for you and to satisfy your edacious need for blood and flesh, both fresh and festering. Indra is lucky he has to answer to you!

‘I know that you have always been tempted to make the dubious mythology about you come true, and you have always prided yourself on being completely at peace with your androgyny. But this time around, it is my wish that you handle him with the deft touch that has seen you prevail over too many enemies in the past, who sought to humble your pride and take away your freedom. We both know that the trick to helping folks is to give them what is needed, and fool them into thinking they want it as well.’

‘What Indra wants is to be worshipped forever and ever, so that his power never diminishes, and what he needs is to have his useless head plucked out.’ Kali licked her lips in anticipation. ‘I love a challenge! My attendants have already been despatched to pick him up at a suitably dramatic moment.’

While Shakti and Kali were discussing what to do with him, Indra could not be sure if he was dead or dreaming. By his
reckoning he was in a torture chamber, chained to the wall. The restraints seemed to be enchanted for the more he’d struggle, the tighter they wound themselves around him. He had given up resisting a long time ago. But he had by no means given up. Gritting his teeth in impotent fury, Indra waited with the curious buzz he always felt when confronted with the worst sort of danger. Nervous energy surged through him, filling him with exhilaration. It was this heady emotion that had long sustained him, even as happiness had eluded him.

The foul creatures who had captured and imprisoned him no longer assaulted him. Perhaps they were under orders not to touch his divine person, or maybe none of it was real and he was trapped in one of Mahadevi’s fiendish phantasmagorical concoctions. His thoughts wandered.