ISSUE
Friday, August 22, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 73
I vividly remember my grandmother telling me bedtime mythological stories explaining the importance of all the festivals. Her stories of how Goddess Durga killed the demons and of Rama’s victory over Ravana were heard with apt attention by all grandchildren. For me as a kid, what struck the most was the resemblance of these characters to the real people around us.
It is said that Hinduism is a way of life. These characters and stories become just a piece of imagination with no significance if we fail to connect them to our real life instances and personalities. At a time when issues such as domestic violence and harassment of women are on an all-time high, it is important to look at these stories and rituals of our ancestors to find solutions to current day problems.
For example, Goddess Durga believed to have fought with evil during Navaratri and Seeta’s contribution towards Rama’s victory over Ravana, glorifies the contribution of women associated with these stories. The adjectives used to address these characters range from mother to the planet Earth itself. Add to the list, words such as purity, forgiver and patience, you have an ideal mix for the making of a protagonist for a blockbuster saas-bahu daily soaps. So the question here is, are we limiting women’s empowerment to just mythological stories and daily soaps?
Entertainment is a social product of the society and one look at any of the Indian daily soap today depicts the plight of women in India. The ever moist eyes of the women in these soaps reflect the inability of majority of Indian women to fight back injustice. Although few do stand up against the odds and get counted, the number raising their voice against gender inequality is inadequate.
Unlike mythological stories, rarely do we see a woman taking up a fight against their oppression.
Goddess Durga herself has many hands and has multiple personalities. But, if one understands the symbolism of the depiction, it becomes clear that she is an amalgamation of many women around us. She is a representation of working women, a housewife and a full-time mother. It is up to us to seek blessings from the goddess to help us understand her different incarnations around us in the real world. Probably our world would be a better place to live if we start to see every woman with respect that a goddess within her deserves. Merely praying to an imaginary God will lead us nowhere.
I vividly remember my grandmother telling me bedtime mythological stories explaining the importance of all the festivals. Her stories of how Goddess Durga killed the demons and of Rama’s victory over Ravana were heard with apt attention by all grandchildren. For me as a kid, what struck the most...
I vividly remember my grandmother telling me bedtime mythological stories explaining the importance of all the festivals. Her stories of how Goddess Durga killed the demons and of Rama’s victory over Ravana were heard with apt attention by all grandchildren. For me as a kid, what struck the most was the resemblance of these characters to the real people around us.
It is said that Hinduism is a way of life. These characters and stories become just a piece of imagination with no significance if we fail to connect them to our real life instances and personalities. At a time when issues such as domestic violence and harassment of women are on an all-time high, it is important to look at these stories and rituals of our ancestors to find solutions to current day problems.
For example, Goddess Durga believed to have fought with evil during Navaratri and Seeta’s contribution towards Rama’s victory over Ravana, glorifies the contribution of women associated with these stories. The adjectives used to address these characters range from mother to the planet Earth itself. Add to the list, words such as purity, forgiver and patience, you have an ideal mix for the making of a protagonist for a blockbuster saas-bahu daily soaps. So the question here is, are we limiting women’s empowerment to just mythological stories and daily soaps?
Entertainment is a social product of the society and one look at any of the Indian daily soap today depicts the plight of women in India. The ever moist eyes of the women in these soaps reflect the inability of majority of Indian women to fight back injustice. Although few do stand up against the odds and get counted, the number raising their voice against gender inequality is inadequate.
Unlike mythological stories, rarely do we see a woman taking up a fight against their oppression.
Goddess Durga herself has many hands and has multiple personalities. But, if one understands the symbolism of the depiction, it becomes clear that she is an amalgamation of many women around us. She is a representation of working women, a housewife and a full-time mother. It is up to us to seek blessings from the goddess to help us understand her different incarnations around us in the real world. Probably our world would be a better place to live if we start to see every woman with respect that a goddess within her deserves. Merely praying to an imaginary God will lead us nowhere.
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