Goddess Durga’s Family Vacation!

If you have been a regular reader of our blog, you must have realised by now, that we do have an inclination towards mythology and we never miss a chance to cover travel stories of the Gods either. Here comes another one, after all, its Durga Puja!

Since, these two weeks would be full of celebration, food, fun, friends and families, we can keep all the history and facts aside.

There is a popular belief as to why Durga Puja is celebrated. It is their vacation time and Goddess Durga visits her parent’s house, along with her four children ‘Ganesha’, ‘Karthik’ ‘Lakshmi’ and ‘Saraswati’ while Lord Shiva stays back at Kailash. This is like all of us visiting our maternal families during summer vacations.

Well, for the kids, it is a little different this time as they are not willing to accompany their mom and they have their reasons too!

In these artworks, Aniket Mitra has beautifully illustrated the reasons behind their unwillingness and tried to capture the issues we face everyday with a bit of humour. The dialogues in the artwork are in Bengali (regional language), but we are translating them for our readers, hope you like them 🙂

1. Lord Shiva has come to the Airport to drop Goddess Durga. He says “You are going to your father’s house, please do not make any strong political comments out of aggression or it would be difficult to get Visa for the next year!”

2. Goddess Durga is asking ‘Ganesha’ to come along but he is extremely sad and doesn’t wishes to accompany her. He says “I tried everything, but I am just not loosing weight. Leave it Mom, I would not go this time. People taunt me, they call me fat.” He is upset with the body shaming that he has to face all the time!

3. Goddess Lakshmi is considered to be the Goddess of Wealth and she doesn’t wants to come along either. She is saying “All the offerings I had received last year are scraped. All my money is now inoperative due to de-monetization. Mom, I am completely bankrupt now.”

4. Lord Karthik is depicted as an IT employee, and we can totally relate to it. He is video chatting with his mother and saying “Mom, I am not getting leaves during the Puja. My clients would have long vacation in December and we would have to finish all the work in this period. I tried a lot, but they did not approve. Sorry .”

5. Goddess Saraswati is famed as the Goddess of Creativity (art, music, literature etc.). Although she is packing her bags with laptops, sound cards and auto tuners, she is extremely sad and says “Mom, I am really scared. Veena, Tanpura, Harmonium, these days people do not need any of these. Not knowing singing is also ok, everything is auto-tuned. Whom would I teach, mom? I don’t want to go.”

6. The demon doesn’t wants to come along either, he says, “Mother, don’t you think it’s been enough? How many times will I have to die? You will have so many options on the Earth. I am just a demon by name. There are many actual demons on Earth..many.”

7. The last one in the series is when Goddess Durga’s holiday is over and she is leaving back for Kailash. She is saddened by the mortals and says ” Best Locality, Best Puja, Best Pandal, you all are happy with these awards only. Where is the affection? Whatever, I will take your leave now. That old man’s house in the mountains is much better for me. You all stay happy – Maa” And she leaves with tears in her eyes!

While you enjoy the illustrations, let us know your experiences of the festival. And just in case you are visiting Kolkata for the festival, you can keep our blog post Queen of Calcutta bookmarked.

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