Jagadhatri Puja - retracing the journey back to roots

I was quite taken aback when on the evening of 31st October, a bunch of kids from my society came “trick or treat” -ing at my door. I was terribly unprepared for the poorly mimicking Halloween visitors, both mentally as well as a ‘household running aunty’. Barely managed to get over my shock and scrambled around to fetch some of my chocolate stash and sent off the visibly happy kids!! The one thing I couldn’t shake off was my feeling of complete displacement viz a viz to those happy halloweeners.. What was wrong?!

I immediately shared my agony to a bunch of like minded friends group, and a wise one tried to calm me down telling me “it’s alright Joga, in a globalized world celebrations are going to cross over. As far as they celebrate ours properly, that should be fine.” That’s a wise, rational thought indeed.. But I couldn’t pull my “Halloween Spirits” up, for what I see is not a case of - adding more celebrations to our basket of festivities, BUT replacing ours for theirs!! Do we actually see our kids getting as excited to dress up as Krishnas, Radhas, Rams & Hanumans etc for Janmashtami, Dussehra anymore?

It’s pointless getting into the celtic pagan roots of Halloween before it got appropriated like everything else, but in the process of trying to settle my mind I sat down to recollect what other “desi” festivals we celebrate around this same time of the year? In my limitedness of knowledge I reached out to own roots and wham! It hit me… it was the Jaddhatri Puja just 2 days before Halloween. As a kid I remember Ma telling me about this third, yes that’s right the “third” annual Durga Puja celebrated back in Bengal. She told me - the first and the original puja was the Basanti Durga Puja, next the Sharadiya Durga Puja & then was the Jagaddhatri Puja.

Basanti Puja as the name suggests is a spring season puja observed in the Chaitra month of the Bengali/Hindu calendar corresponding to the Northern Navaratri culminating with Ram Navami. Ritualistically Basanti & Sharadiya Durga pujas are the same, the difference only lies in their season of celebration and origins of course. As I’ve been told, it is stated in the Markanda Puran that while wandering in the jungles after losing his kingdom, King Surath met sage Medha and upon his advice performed the first Basanti Puja invoking Goddess Durga and got his lost kingdom back. What Ma told me was, that once Basanti puja used to be celebrated with equal fervor and grandiose in Bengal. But over time the spring festival lost out to the autumn celebrations, and presently only a handful of Bengali households there perform the Basanti Durga Puja.

The second Durga puja in the Sharad or autumn season which now happens to be the main and the biggest festival for Bengalis all over the world, came about thanks to Lord Ram. He performed the “Akalbodhan” (‘Akal’= untimely and ‘Bodhan’= awakening) to invoke the Goddess and seek her blessings before going to war with Ravan. Since then, it’s said that his devotees started performing the Sharadiya Durga puja which kept gaining popularity and relegated the Basanti puja to a limited audience. Though from a non competitive practical aspect, I think the costs involved in carrying out two massive ten day rituals and festivals, especially after the Rajas & Zamindars lost all their show off money, led to people choosing and settling for one of the two Pujas!

The third Durga puja or Jagaddhatri puja takes place exactly one month after the Sharadiya puja, celebrated on Gosthastami. This year 29th October was the date. Jagat-Dhatri or the “Holder of the World” is just another form of Goddess Durga worshipped mostly in West Bengal and Orissa. According to the ‘Puranas’ and ‘Tantras’, this form of Durga is depicted in the color of the rising sun, she has four arms as compared to Durga’s ten. Ma Jagaddhatri is the calm form Goddess Durga symbolizing the ‘Sattva Guna’, while Durga and Kali represent the Rajas & Tamas gunas. Together these three forms of ‘Aadi Shakti’ make up the ‘Prakriti’ or ‘universal nature’. This ‘tri-netri’ Goddess is armed with chakra(disk), conch, bow and arrow and adorns a ‘nagajangopaveeta’ which is a symbol of Yoga and the Brahman. She rides a lion as well and is seen standing over the elephant demon called Karindrasura, which gives her the name Karindrasuranisudini (Slayer of the Elephant Demon).

As far as the origin history of Jagaddhatri Puja in West Bengal goes, it’s disputable and I’ve come across about three to four possible stories of how and who started it. It is said that Ma Sharada, wife of Shri RamKrishna Paramhans initiated the Jagaddhatri puja and so now it is celebrated across all Ramkrishna Mission ashrams. The other two popular yet very contentious origin stories are that of the pujas of Krishnanagar and Chandannagar started by Maharaja Krishna Chandra of Nadia and Indranarayan Roy Choudhury of Chandan Nagar respectively.

Krishnachandra Roy (1728-1782) of the Nadia Raj family was a very prominent figure in the Hindu Bengali society of that period, who is remembered for his resistance to the then prevailing Mughal rule as well as being a generous patron of the Hindu culture and arts. Later he was given the title of ‘Maharaja’ by Lord Clive. Before establishing the Jagaddhatri puja in Krishnanagar, it is said that the Raja was known for conducting grand Durga pujas(sharadiya) in his palace with full ritualistic rigour and pashu-balis and festivities.

So the story around his starting Jagaddhatri puja is - in the background of Krishnachandra’s skirmishes with the Mughal rule of the land, he along with his son were imprisoned by the Nawab of Bengal right before the Sharadiya Durga puja. Knowing very well how fond he is of his Puja,this was a plot to break the will of the Raja and take over his kingship. The Raja was only released on the last day of the puja, but despite his ragged state he ran towards Krishnanagar still wanting to worship Durga in a grand fashion. Unfortunately, he fell unconscious on the way due to weakness from the imprisonment and couldn’t make it for the Durga puja. That night he saw a divine dream in which Durga comes to him and tells him to worship her now in her Jagaddhatri form during the upcoming Kartik Shukla Navami. Maharaja Krishnachandra formally initiated this puja in the year 1754 it’s believed.

Apart from Krishnanagar, the Jagaddhatri puja of Chandannagar is equally famous and often said to be predating Krishanachandra’s puja. Indranarayan Choudhury, the Zamindar of Chandannagar was one of the richest businessmen in Bengal and a good friend of Raja Krishnachandra. It's said he started the Jagaddharti puja at his residence around 1713 and the Raja was a regular visitor. Though neither of the dates or claims can be verified now due to the lack of any written evidence, there’s no doubt that this particular form of Durga Puja does go back to about 250 years in antiquity. There are a few pujas in Nadia, Chandannagar, Hooghly, Kolkata areas which claim to be hundred plus years old and have the originating families still associated with the current pujas. Like the Bose family who used to conduct the Jagaddhatri puja at their ancestral home in Murshidabad in the 1700’s which was later moved to its present location in Chandannagar. The family claims the puja to go back as far as 1640 as per their family’s records.

In popular culture, Ma Jagaddhatri finds mention in the famous ‘Anandamath’ written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee where he shows his protagonists worshipping the trio of Dura, Kali and Jagaddhatri as the three aspects of “Bharat Mata”. In Orissa, the Jagaddhatri mela of Bhanjpur is the second biggest mela after Ratha Jatra in the Mayurbhanj district. The small cities of Krishnanagar and Chandannagar also owe their renown to the Goddess of the whole world, Ma Jagaddhatri!

I share this today to reconnect with my roots, history and culture once more, so that next time no strange borrowed festivals would make me uncomfortable. I share this today to learn and re-learn what I may have forgotten and what I didn’t know at all, so that tomorrow I may pass it to my next generation and when they go out to embrace newer celebrations, they’ll do so with their roots firmly in the ground… The chain unbroken!

Shunning Cinderella.. but NOT the fairy tale - the hypocrisy of hashtag feminism

If I imagine our society as a huge brain, I’d think of it as mostly dormant when it comes to the issues on women’s safety. This dozing brain usually wakes up with a jolt from time to time at the end of heinous crimes committed against the lesser half of the society, churns out short phases of outrages, a few marches maybe and yes #hashtags before comfortably going back to sleep and sweeping the memory of the crimes under a rug.

Right now the brain is awake and this time what kicked it out of its stupor is the Kundu-Barala high profile chasing/stalking case. As a woman I can imagine how scary it must have been for Varnika that night, and as she herself confessed she was lucky to get out of it unscathed. Also she is lucky to belong to an influential family herself that she could create enough noise to get swift action against the equally influential assailant. Vikas Barala is now in police custody under stalking and kidnapping charges and judicial process to follow. Case closed as far as we are concerned.

Now going back to our “brain”, oh yes it's still buzzing but guess what did it synthesized from this case? - a hashtag women’s movement called #AintNoCinderella (ANC). Anyone and everyone worth her salt identifying herself as a “feminist” are splashing the social media with their bold “drinking and/or staying out past midnight” pictures. This is their forceful declaration of not being dainty, dependant cinderellas against the provocative and primitive remark of yet another politician who thinks women ought to maintain curfew times for their safety and...err dignity.

Going by the media projections and glossy supplements of newspapers, ANC is one heck of a cool successful feminist victory(gone international with BBC picking it) with celeb feminists like Barkha and baby vanity feminists of various kinds on Social Media, all joining the chorus, posing and posting. But let me be the pin to the bloated balloon and say this out loud - Ain't No Cinderella (ANC) isn't a women's movement, It's a privileged section movement. I've nothing against the hashtag or its participants, but I've objections to this being touted as a movement for ALL women.

Right after the Chandigarh case, a schoolgirl in Ballia (UP)Ragini Dubey was stabbed to death in the middle of the day, riding her bicycle to school by her stalkers. She was no Cinderella either and I doubt she knew who Cinderella was! She didn't have the privilege of a car (more protection than a cycle any day) to run away, nor other perks of a better life. Now compare the noise this little girl’s death, who could have growup up to become a contributing member of the society (Ragini’s father wanted to make her a doctor) made viz-a-viz the Barala case.

My issue with fancy bubble movements like ANC is that more often than not grave problems around women’s safety like stalking in both these cases, gets restricted to patriarchal idiotic comments made by a few people and we immediately divert all our energies fighting them, while nothing really changes when it comes to women's safety in general applying to the larger population. Last year till now, I’ve been reading cases after cases where women were attacked/stabbed to death by jilted lovers/stalkers caught on cameras in broad daylight in safe places. Shredding down this myth that somehow sunlight protects women from assaulters, it would if we were talking about dealing with Vampires!! But instead of talking about this larger menace the focus gets narrowed down to “how dare someone questioned our rights to be out at night?”

How many of these cases and victims do you remember? How many follow ups has the media done to seek justice and in case it was met report it? Let me refresh your memory with a few accounts (apart from the Ballia incident) that a simple google search threw up -

1. July 2017 - 21 years old woman stabbed to death in broad daylight outside her home in Delhi by her stalker and his two aides. The victim had earlier filed a complaint against the stalker, but guess what.. He ran away only to come back and stab her 28 times! She was an airhostess in the making.
2. April 2017 - A 50 year old woman was stabbed twice in her stomach inside her flat of a gated posh Andheri colony. Thankfully she survived!
3. Dec 2016 - 23 year old Capgemini employee was stabbed to death in Pune while returning from work one evening. This victim too was known to be harassed and stalked by the assailant for a while before the attack.
4. Oct 2016 - A 34 year old woman was stabbed to death on a crowded metro station in Gurugram by a jilted suitor stalking her for months. This happened on a Monday morning NOT night. The assailant slashed her throat, stabbed her multiple times on her neck, chest, stomach and hand ultimately killing her.
5. June 2016 - 24 year old woman was hacked to death early morning while waiting for her train on Chennai railway station. The stalker of this Infosys employee who was allegedly one of her friends, was harassing her for sometime demanding her to marry him and eventually hacked her with a sickle.

How many of the above did you remember? None of these women were defying anything, proving any point but just trying their best to make a good life for themselves despite looming stalkers and daily dangers. Honestly, being part of that privileged section in real life outside the SM bling, I'll not give two hoots about any stupid misogynistic comment made by any two bit politician or self proclaimed “samaj ka thekedaar” and carry on with my life going out at whatever time, doing whatever like all those women putting pics on ANC without explaining my life to anyone.

The fact is,this fad will fade. But personally I can't get over the stalking leading to stabbing of little Ragini and the many before her, because once I wasn't privileged (and safer in my car) and because once I was young n helpless and have been molested and chased down on roads and felt utterly disgusted, helpless, got into accidents trying to flee from stalkers. So why are we so bothered about going up against faceless commentators who we don’t own anything in life by trending silly #hashtags but not collectively raising our voices to question the authorities about this lackadaisical law & order situation, and continue to shout and scream till they answer? Why not demand for stricter implementations and swift justice? Why not also holding society structures like the film industry etc for promoting this stalking culture blatantly in the name of romance? Why are we still taking the easy way out by skimming the surface and soothing our guilt by making such half hearted efforts right before dozing off again till the next stabbing? Why?

Don't get Me wrong that I’m trying to impose that privileged women are safe and their harassment be overlooked or not taken seriously, they maybe just a bit safer overall. That's why whatever the movement it has to be ALL inclusive one and not a factional, fashionable ephemeral whim of a few!!