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Make or break!

Gauri
There it was, another family celebration and another tête-à-tête with my favourite uncle. Whilst the rest were immersed in their revelry, we were pretty engaged in our own private discourse - with him looking for someone to impart his 85-year old life experiences, and I, just listening and sometimes trying to tease more out of him. This time around, we discussed the role of the significant other in the family, among many things. This post is what transpired out of that.

They say that behind every man's success, there is a woman. Many are quick to quip that behind their every fall, there is another, the other woman. Women have the uncanny ability to create as well as to destroy.

With the biological assets that they are endowed with, they can create, nurture and sustain life with their tenacity and ever-embracing progestogenic demeanour, like a mother hen, able to hide her chicklings under my wings away from the prancing eagle. And they will protect their little ones with the last scratch of their claw from hissing predator snake.

Mahishasura Mardini.

They can choose what they want. They can be Gauri, the epitome of peace and happiness comparable to the bosom of a mother, the all-embracing embodiment of calmness and purity, depicted by the all-white attire and an equally composed vehicle, the saintly cow. As Gauri, she plays the role of peacemaker, a rock of hope and anchor to hold an institution steady to traverse the uncertainties of life.

When the situation warrants, she needs to assume the role of Mahishasura Mardini, the slayer of the buffalo demon, Mahishasura, who, with the boon of indestructibility, terrorised the Universe. She took this fiercest form of Durga, with the Trident of Siva, to bring equilibrium to the system.

It may appear that the illustrative embodiment of shakti, female power, can act unilaterally with no control without the need for its counterpart, the male energy, Shiva. Not really. Harmony is achieved with the inclusion of both powers. Notice that Shiva's representation appears in both Gauri and Durga form of the female divinity - Trident, to protect and attack. Unbridled power, it seems, is also counterproductive.

Kaali
Remember the instance of Kaali, intoxicated with the taste of blood and energy of invincibility, she was on a rampage. Only Shiva could pacify her. His prostration in her path subdued her. In embarrassment, she let her tongue out, more of an admission of mistake rather than an intimidating posture. This tongue-letting image is often depicted as that of fearsome Kaali. In reality, it is not.

It takes two to tango. Both parties have to nimble and agile to produce an eye-soothing display of this Spanish light-spirited variety of flamenco.



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Location: Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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