{"id":6417,"date":"2016-06-13T12:19:31","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T12:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=6414&preview_id=6414"},"modified":"2016-06-13T12:19:31","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T12:19:31","slug":"devi-shakti-how-the-kumbh-mela-taught-me-to-invoke-the-power-within-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=6417","title":{"rendered":"Devi Shakti: How the Kumbh Mela Taught Me to Invoke the Power within Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When I’m not writing stories for the good people at Vagabomb<\/i>, I’m often out shooting. Not the pheasant or criminal sort of shooting (though I’d probably enjoy the latter), but the “has the makeup artist arrived?” variety. It’s not challenging as such, but it does require a great degree of patience, especially when the hair person forgets you too are a person, and your scalp a living thing. It takes some imagination too, because how else do you hang on to your dignity when sheathed in, say, a lime green sequin covered spandex dress, and twisted mercilessly into a position you didn’t know your limbs could actually create? Lastly, to create; through a combination of good fortune, talent, timing and teamwork, something lasting, it often takes stepping completely out of your comfort zone.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, I say yes, when owner of a Mumbai-based store, Parvati Villa, Ileshaa Khatau, calls and asks if I will accompany her to the Kumbh Mela<\/i> in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. Ileshaa and I have never met. I like her voice, and her attitude on the phone. And I absolutely love the things she makes. Ileshaa crafts brass and gold into bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and whatnot, that say, very simply, words like ‘shakti<\/i>,’ ‘devi<\/i>,’ ‘yogini,’<\/i>\u00a0and ‘shanti’<\/i>\u00a0in the Devanagari script. Her delicate jewelry is already, only two years into her venture, wildly popular among urban women with voices. What’s not to love? My mum wears it.<\/p>\n

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Karuna (L) with Ileshaa\/ Image source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We fly to Indore with photographer and friend, Ishaan Nair, and hop into a sweaty cab that takes us to Ujjain, after which we are informed there\u2019s no way a car can enter the grounds. The grounds are 90 percent of the city. We find an info booth manned by shockingly with-it Indore University students who ask if we have the Kumbh Mela<\/i> helpline or app. We don\u2019t, and Vodafone simply does not exist (seriously, how is this still a legitimate phone company?). So we finally hop into an auto with two guys, who claim they know every alley in Ujjain. Turns out they do! We\u2019re five bags and five people in an auto, with an aux cable. It\u2019s riveting. After a certain point even our knights in shining velvet say, \u201cNow you walk.\u201d So we walk. We pick up our bags (Ileshaa\u2019s trolley’s about to take a beating), and march with the stream of human traffic towards the ghats to find our camp and tent.<\/p>\n

On day two we are finally comfortable enough with the tent-life to go out and shoot. I am draped in a flowing white linen kaftan, my hair coiled up Shiva-style, and wrapped with a generous amount of rudraksh <\/i>beads. My face is painted golden. My lips, forehead, and eyes are gold dust. I am David Bowie and George Harrison, all rolled in one. Around my neck are put two huge gold necklaces spelling out the words ‘devi’<\/i>\u00a0and ‘shakti<\/i>.’ I decide to go barefoot \u2013 the storm the night before has turned the ground to absolute sludge. I\u2019m nervous, and I tell Ishaan and Ileshaa so. They agree that at the first sign of any Hindutva-style hostility towards me, we\u2019ll turn and make a beeline back to the tents.<\/p>\n

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Image source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ghats are crowded, as people line up in the thousands for their holy evening dip. I am attracting an uncomfortable amount of attention, and try to make as little eye contact with people as possible. All of a sudden an elderly man with a completely glazed look on his face makes a beeline towards me. It\u2019s happening too fast for me to cry out, and then the man is upon me. And before I know it he has bowed down, and is touching my feet. \u201cOm Namo Narayana<\/i>,\u201d he mutters feverishly, and then disappears into the throng. More people come up, asking for blessings. I am now caught in an unfortunate place. I look at Ishaan, he says, \u201cJust go with it,\u201d and I do because the alternative, I suspect, is a mob lynching. I don\u2019t say a word. I just walk barefoot through the mud, and nod sagely at people. Some ask Ishaan, \u201cdevi mata ka ashram kahan hai<\/i>?\u201d and he innovatively tells them I have an ashram <\/i>abroad. Some point and say, \u201cthe Golden Sadhu <\/i>has arrived,\u201d others simply say \u201cRam bhakt<\/i>!\u201d or \u201cJai Shri Krishna<\/i>!\u201d All of them read the words around my neck and mutter, eyes down, backs bowed, \u201cDevi Shakti, Devi Shakti.<\/i>\u201d It becomes a slow chant around us. And truly, I think no woman in a crowd of 10 million people (and at least 400 visibly exposed penises) in India has ever felt this safe, or this powerful.<\/p>\n

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Image: Ishaan Nair<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I could laugh, and put the incident down to this nation\u2019s inane religious fervor, but something about it gnawed at me. Back to the city, I was reading Sheryl Sandberg\u2019s glorious feminist manifesto, Lean In<\/i>, when a line jumped out at me. Quoting Alice Walker, she said, \u201cThe most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don\u2019t have any.\u201d I went back in my head to a little experiment I\u2019d read about, where water in bottles labeled with different words responded differently over time. Could it be that by simply ‘labeling’ me with the words \u2018Devi Shakti,<\/i>\u2019 Ileshaa had caused some sort of massive eruption of feminine power and energy? I\u2019m not certain, but I figure it\u2019s worth a try. Maybe we begin by saying it to ourselves in the mirror every morning: \u201cYou are the power.\u201d Hell, maybe we tattoo it if need be.<\/p>\n

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Image source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In perfect synchronicity, that same day I saw artist Shilo Shiv Suleiman reflect on her experience of the Allahabad Kumbh <\/i>in 2012. She says, \u201cInstead of waiting for patriarchy to liberate us or to be worshipped, maybe one has to make an active effort to liberate oneself, and see the strength of the goddess archetype within oneself.\u201d Devi Shakti<\/i>. I couldn\u2019t agree more. What a scary, yet beautiful thought. Maybe our powers have been within us all along. It\u2019s time to call them forth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

Devi Shakti: How the Kumbh Mela Taught Me to Invoke the Power within Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: Devi Shakti: How the Kumbh Mela Taught Me to Invoke the Power within Me<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I’m not writing stories for the good people at Vagabomb, I’m often out shooting. Not the pheasant or criminal sort of shooting (though I’d probably enjoy the latter), but the “has the makeup artist arrived?” variety. It’s not challenging as such, but it does require a great degree of patience, especially when the hair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1159],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}