The festive paganism

The winds blows cooler this month every time she comes down,

She chooses from a horse, elephant or a boat each year.

Wearing her best attire she returns to humans who were once her home.

It seems she grew to be the goddess, but it’s mesmerising

to see someone become a goddess from amongst humans.

Nowadays it’s not what people aspire to become.

Now, we don’t rise so high. Why I ask?

The chains of many hang around our necks,

Pulling us down I say when I look at her each year.

She kills demons- a demon killer she has become.

What do we become here? Painters, artists, doctors, crackers at the max.

But she dresses up gaudy and yet kills demons- neither a saint, nor a

warrior but a warrior goddess altogether, a combination we can’t be.

Thus we pray her, invoke her within us, praying she has mercy upon our souls.

Praying that despite our barren, bold, wanton sins she must forgive us.

But does she? How many of us know it well?

Her third eye is awake, her bright saree is new, her lips are red,

Her hair hangs loose, her soft curls make her face round and divine.

Her smile is ephemeral, her face is softer, petite and round.

But she has killed a demon? In her attire, in her lipstick and blush!

I love to know what she eats, how she lives, how she works.

As a child I was awed by all this skill and I used to think it’s easy

To become a breezy Goddess, sleazy but crazy…

But, no it wasn’t easy to be even a carpenter or a caterpillar.

It is not easy to be a cat or a dog. It is not easy to be a glow worm.

Love is important but so is power that resides within you.

Just if we could not pull others down, some more could reach higher too.

Only she and some like her could harness, to say just a few.