Would Ma Durga be eligible for the Mrs India beauty pageant? The organisers, Bombay Dyeing and Gladrags, are looking for a woman with ?an electrifying personality who is more than a little talented?, who has ?extra charisma?, the kind of woman ?that husbands and families are extra proud of.?
On these grounds, the Mother Goddess would have effortlessly earned her rhinestone tiara on October 16, the day the North India regional selection round was held in Delhi. Any woman who can take on the likes of Mahishasura and a horde of lesser demons where a battalion of male gods failed would qualify as more than a little talented. Given the hordes of worshippers she attracts every year, we can agree that she possesses all the ?extra charisma? she needs. And I can?t see either Shiva or her children being less than proud of a 10-armed mother and wife who contains a host of other manifestations of Shakti within herself.
Perhaps the only quibble might be over Ma Durga?s age, since the competition is open only to married women under the age of 50. Forms of Durga have been around from pre-Aryan times, so some might argue that she?s too old, by eons. Others might argue that Ma Durga?s age, as she is celebrated during the Pujas, hovers anywhere between 20 and 50 years. If a goddess is only ever as old as her worshippers think she is and given the affection with which women all across Bengal and the rest of the country greet the ?daughter? on her visit home, we can safely say she?s eligible.
So here we are: a candidate who fits the bill in every respect. She has all the qualities the judges are looking for and, as Kumartuli?s sculptors testify each year, she would qualify as a beauty hands down. If the Mrs India contest was really about empowering married women, you could easily argue that Ma Durga would be the ideal Mrs India.
Except that, as the embodiment of female empowerment, I cannot see Ma Durga in any of her avatars taking the Mrs India beauty pageant seriously. The idea that a married woman needs a sop to her vanity once she is officially past her prime would strike any goddess worth her trident as laughable. The idea of a contest that rated women on the basis of their cookie-cutter looks would have most goddesses sharpening their battleaxes. (They wouldn?t be mollified by learning that married women are excused from the cattle show that?s the swimsuit round on grounds of ?modesty?, implying that unmarried women can be more ?immodest?!) And they?d laugh their divine guts out at the idea that you?re rated as ?empowered? if you can answer inane questions (?Who?s your role model?? It?s always Mother Teresa, no matter how many women win Nobel prizes for peace or medicine).
If you?re married and looking to be empowered, go figure. Do you want to join grooming classes and simper sweetly on a catwalk, or to locate the demons who?re blocking whatever it is that you want to do with your life and go on a slaying spree? Ma Durga and Mrs India are both married women, but that?s where the resemblance ends.
