Ganesh Chathurthi aka Ganesha Habba invokes the usual reverential cliches from devotees—remover of obstacles, provider of solace, omen of good hope, etc. The media, too, can scarcely go beyond amplifying the established caricature of a playful and potbellied but elastic l’il fella.
USHA K.R., the Bangalore-based writer whose book A Girl and a River won the Crossword Prize in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize last year, provides a welcome (feminist) edge to the debate, in Deccan Herald:
“When I grew older and outgrew my childhood need for instant gratification and entered the world of ideas and ideology, I was delighted to find Feminism right in my backyard — the Feminist twist to the creation of Ganesha was most satisfying. Here was Parvati indulging in the most homely of activities, having a bath, and she needed someone to guard the door to her inner chambers while she bathed. And who could be more trustworthy to perform this task than her own son. So, combining the resourcefulness and the literal mind of a housewife with the nonchalance of a Goddess, she brought forth a child from her own body. No natal complications here — she simply scraped off the dirt and the sweat and the pre-bath unguents she had plastered over herself, and fashioned a little boy as if out of plasticine. Then, she breathed life into him and set him by her door, asking him not to let anyone in till she was done. And the boy did just that, with a single mindedness and valour that would bring a secret gladness to every mother’s heart.
“When Shiva arrived just then, after his many wanderings, (with the unerringly bad sense of timing that husbands have, even when they are Gods) and demanded to be let into his wife’s inner chambers, the boy said, Who are you? I recognise only my mother! But I am the Lord of the World, Shiva begged. Nobody says no to me. At which the boy reached for his weapons.
“When Parvati emerged from her bath, she found the world a-tremble, her lord perspiring, stretched in battle, while her newly-born son lay beheaded on the ground. What have you done, she cried. Restore my son to life at once. At which Shiva, instead of saying — What son? Pray how did you come by an eight-year-old so suddenly — was immediately contrite and sent his assistants in haste to return with the first life form that crossed their path.
“They came back with the head of an elephant (Shiva, of course, gave the elephant a new head, as my mother was always careful to tell me) which was fixed on the boy’s head, and there sprang to life Ganesha! But he looks so funny, people will laugh at my son, Parvati persisted, pushing her luck. Then I will make sure he is worshipped first, before all other Gods, Shiva, the good husband, said. And to make sure, he decreed that Ganesha would be Vighneshwara, the remover of obstacles, who would have to be propitiated first, before people ventured on anything.”
Read the full article: Bringing home hope
Photographs: Karnataka Photo News; The Hindu
Also read: What’s in a name? What’s in a set of initials?
churumuri 
nice
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one of my favorite reasons to be hindu is to savor — and recreate, retell, reinterpret — the stories (or the mythology, if you would).
stories, in their interesting variations, make religious tradition, however profound, accessible to one and all.
some variations of this particular story are that (1) nandi the bull, not shiva, lopped off little ganesha’s head, and (2) the replacement head was not of some random wandering elephant who nobly gave it up, but of a demon named gajasura whom shiva took out in a strategic preemptive strike. :)
personally, i think ganesha would be way more fun if he had the head/snout of a pig. but i guess the pig (varaha), or boar, was already appropriated by vishnu in his third avatar!
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A story of a woman wanting a protector while she goes for a bath and a MALE progeny is the result- Churumuri actually calls this travesty an example of feminist edge to a non-existant debate !!
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Oh Yeah ! now Feminists appropriate Shiva Parvati Ganesha story to themselves . But ask them If Rama was real..they will tell you its only
a myth. If Parvati was a feminist why did she create a boy?
from http://www.wemen.us
Feminism has been a very powerful and significant movement engulfing almost all countries and because of the strategic political correctness; it attracts a lot of economics around it as well.
And because of the economics, ultimately – what started with noble intentions of making a woman’s voice heard – was ultimately hijacked by radical gender based extremists who converted the whole movement into male hatred and focused on castration of men rather than upliftment of women.
As a result, crimes done by women were either condoned off or some man was punished for that and in absence of men’s rights the practice became a norm rather than an exception.
Women were given one after another concession by the conservative civil society. The statement of a woman became GOSPEL TRUTH and evidence enough to punish and extort men.
As already explained in what He sees and what she says , about the criminality of lying, however, the irony of the fact is that the society does not consider so. On one hand, where the
society readily punishes the man on a woman’s tongue be it dowry, domestic violence, rape or
eve-teasing, it does not punish the woman when she is found lying.
The mental torture that men undergo, due to the lashing tongue of a woman with which she either keeps portraying him as a villain or nagging him constantly, goes completely
unaddressed, unaccepted, and many a times unreported as well. The society simply refuses to provide any protection / relief to such men who in turn either commit suicides or become Baazigars .
Either way, a woman’s tongue wreaks havoc. When a man commits suicide, the society marks him off as a coward and when he becomes a Baazigar, the society writes him off as a rebel and
questions his fight for his rights. This is the worst abuse that men face and goes unreported.
And still if men do not wake up and start fighting for their rights, the havoc wreaked by a woman’s tongue will continue to grow and more and more men will suffer.
Its time men realize that they are outdated in their role as a PROTECTOR and a PROVIDER of the family and they should now concentrate on fighting for their rights – rights which are being
infringed day in and day out in order to protect the dignity of a woman’s tongue whether genuine
or ingenuine.
For today, it’s the Woman’s Tongue, tomorrow it will be her dreams, how long our men going to pay the price of women’s crimes? Choice lies with men
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Interestingly written post..thanks
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Gaby nicely observed! We need to dig deep and find ‘bra’ burning women from the yore:)
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I fully agree with Mysore Peshva. Undoubtedly Hindusim is the most vibrant and tolerant religion.
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Kaapi Priya!,
Ok I will never sit on a newspaper, a la Paramahamsa style:)
Hey what about all those unary-book religions?!!
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I wonder what happened to the body of the elephant that Shiva’s servants killed. Forget about hinduism being a tolerant religion, it’s more like we need to tolerate hinduism now. Vigneshwara is a induced fear we need to overcome. We can live without hinduism and other dirty religions if we give that option a chance. Anyway the article is well written and is humorous.
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Usha is still a long way from overcoming instant gratification. I would dread reading her book.
It’s a delightful story, no doubt, but even if I were to be pumped with drugs that would want me to agree with everything and everyone, I don’t think there is anything remotely related to feminism in this writeup, unless one counts the immature sounding attempts at male-bashing (with the unerringly bad sense of timing that husbands have, even when they are Gods) or was it an expression of an even weaker sense of humor ?
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ofcourse its feminist .. Parvati created a progeny without male intervention .. that is our future now .. we are not very far from the day when any women with a functional womb can create a clone without sperm.. the fact that ganesh was made from prebath material is just symbolic..
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