Beloved She
My mother has a breathing island inside;
choked stream all around.
At night leaves glow.
Inside her head a rain frog
seeks a tree to call for a higher mate.
Inside, my dead body seeks
the cold of a dissection table.
My arms far splayed,
I am the God for autopsy.
Inside, the outdoor of our city
awaits Spring. Outside,
her inner blindness seeks my eyes.
Kali -- Y. G. Srimati
In 1690 Job Charnock, the British East India Company's agent and chief in the Bay of Bengal, unified 3 villages on the east bank of the Hooghly river (Sutanuti, Govindapur, and Kolikata), the basis of the city Kolkata. The name of one of those villages was derived from "Kalikkhetrô" (field or area of Kali). Although traditionally identified as Shiva's consort (and often depicted squatting over his corpse devouring his entrails while her yoni devours his lingam), Kali was not generally portrayed as a motherly figure until Bengali devotions in the early 18th century. Bengali devotees adopt the attitude of children who love her unreservedly, attempting to appropriate her teachings on becoming reconciled with death and learning to accept reality. The 18th-century bhakti poet Ramprasad Sen often wrote that she was indifferent to his wellbeing and caused him to suffer in order to make him reflect on dimensions of reality that transcend the material world:
ReplyDeleteCan mercy be found in the heart of her who was born of the stone?
Were she not merciless, would she kick the breast of her lord?
Men call you merciful, but there is no trace of mercy in you, Mother.
You have cut off the heads of the children of others, and these you wear as a garland around your neck.
It matters not how much I call you "Mother, Mother." You hear me, but you will not listen.[tr. David R. Kinsley]
Ramprasad originated a new genre of Bengali music known as
Shyama Sangeet ("Music of the Night"). The theme is also reflected in Rabindranath Tagore's "Jana Gana Mana," the Indian national anthem, and his "Amar Sonar Bangla," the national anthem of Bangladesh, calls Bengal a segment of the body of the supreme mother.