Maa Durga
Ravi Valluri
They were a Bengali Hindu family, with roots in what is today Bangladesh. The patriarch of the family belonged to the city of Chittagong.
Chittagong Port is the singular seaport of Bangladesh and is located on the banks of the Karnaphuli River.
His wife hailed from a village named Abhayapara which was in the vicinity of the anchorage city. Their parents of them, had solemnly undertaken that once the children grew up, they would be locked in a matrimonial alliance.
India gained freedom and the country was partitioned. The two families migrated to West Bengal like millions of other Bengali Hindus.
The strapping youngster rose to become a doctor of repute while his wife was a home maker as they settled down in Delhi. They were to raise two sons.
Like all Bengali couples the couple and their children looked forward to Navaratri or Durga Puja, as it is popularly referred to by all Bengalis. Navaratri is the veneration of Mother Goddess which spans over nine nights. The festival is celebrated every year during autumn. The occasion is marked with thousands of pandals (temporary stages) erected in community squares, outside roadside shrines and large Durga temples in West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, eastern Nepal, Assam and Tripura.
Delhi too hosts numerous Durga Puja centres which are marked with festivities, with young and old intermingling, paying obeisance to the Mother Goddess, devouring succulent dishes as doe-eyed women clad in their finery exchange romantic glances with swarthy looking handsome men clad in dhotis.
Over the years the children grew up and had become parents themselves while their parents were now in the empyrean.
Those were tragic moments for the family as the doctor-father succumbed to Alzheimer’s while the mother’s life was snuffed out by abdominal cancer.
The two sons were diametrically opposite in their thought process and by nature. The older one was more of an idealist, not too worldly-wise, but exceedingly talented possessing a deep insight in various fields.
His younger brother was a man in a tearing hurry and effervescent. He was materialistic and desirous of showcasing his talent to the world.
Mother in Heaven in 2020
Goddess Durga’s face was covered as she passed by the mother and slipped into deep meditation. Meanwhile the mother was wearing a mask as she sat in a corner and appeared worried. She was concerned about the safety of her children who were living in Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi as they were looking forward to the onset of the Durga Puja festivities.
A pandemic had swamped the entire globe on account of a microorganism. Soon its tentacles spread across the Universe.
It was widely believed by the citizens in the heavens that Narad mahamuni was the carrier of the pestilence to the celestial world after his foray to the earth. Panic buttons were pressed in the Elysian fields.
Lord Brahma, the Creator, was beseeched by the Gods to provide succour from the ailment. Lord Dhanvantari and Aesculapius, the Greek God of medicine were directed to develop a vaccine to inoculate all the souls and celestials of the firmament.
The mother however continued to fret about the welfare of her children as the virulence of the pandemic assumed gargantuan proportions on planet earth.
Meanwhile her appointment with Sage Narada got deferred as the enlightened and sagacious one was apparently in isolation and not in contact with anyone.
Thus, rumours that the perspicacious one was an inadvertent carrier of the virus gained currency. The mother was directed to meet Sage Vyasa and Sanjaya for grievance redressal.
Sanjaya and Sage Vyasa were animatedly discussing the scene from BR Chopra’s epic tele serial Mahabharata wherein Sanjaya receives the boon of divine vision to witness the battle of Kurukshetra. The celestials heard the concerns of the mother and Sage Vyasa assured her of a solution.
“Looks like it was yesterday. I can see Chittaranjan Park, our house, my bedroom, pictures of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Sharda Devi. It looks so beautiful … And there is the pandal where Ma Durga’s idol is placed with a sprinkling of devotees all wearing masks as we are doing here. I am really worried about my children, hope they are maintaining social distancing and wearing gloves and are well protected,” gushed the mother.
“Oh, what is that – Khokhan and Partho are watching the proceedings through a television,” she appeared surprised.
An angel was to tell her that this was the latest technological development by mankind. It was referred to as virtual conduct of an event or meeting. Mother heaved a sigh of relief as her children were not in contact with any person and were safe.
Mother received the gift of divyadrishti or divine vision like Sanjaya had aeons ago during Mahabharata from Sage Vyasa. Soon she lost the vision once her wish got fulfilled. Sanjaya too lost the divine vision upon completion of the war.
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