Bav­ina Sookdeo�

Kali–just the men­tion of that name evokes fear in many peo­ple–some Hin­dus and non-Hin­dus world­wide. But what ex­act­ly has led to this re­ac­tion of fear? Ac­cord­ing to Pan­dit Ve­da Per­sad, spir­i­tu­al leader of the Ramjit and Bas­so Per­sad Hin­du Tem­ple in St He­le­na, "There are a lot of mis­con­cep­tions about the Hin­du god­dess, Moth­er Kali, who is an in­car­na­tion of God­dess Dur­ga."

The Hin­du God­dess Dur­ga is the moth­er of the uni­verse and is be­lieved to be the pow­er be­hind the work of cre­ation, preser­va­tion, and de­struc­tion of the world.

In an at­tempt to clear up mis­con­cep­tions about the god­dess, the T&T Ya­tra Com­mit­tee (TTYC), for­mer­ly the Arou­ca Ya­tra Com­mit­tee, will host a Kali Ya­tra from Sep­tem­ber 6 to 13.

"The theme for the Ya­tra is De­bug­ging The Myth," said founder of the TTYC, Rick Ra­goo­nanan, "And for five nights, Pan­dit De­o­dath Vyas will jour­ney through pages of the De­vi Ma­hat­myam, bring­ing to an end the many mis­con­cep­tions of Kali Maa."

But what are the mis­con­cep­tions that mean the mere ut­ter­ance of the name Kali evokes such neg­a­tive re­spons­es? Could it be that many have cor­rupt­ed the wor­ship or are just act­ing based on as­sump­tion or could it be due to the god­dess' fierce and de­struc­tive im­ages?

Moth­er Kali, whose name comes from the Hin­di mean­ing "time" as well as "black," is of­ten seen in im­ages as hav­ing four hands. In one hand she holds a sword-like weapon and in an­oth­er, the head of a de­mon. The oth­er hand holds a tr­ishul and the fourth holds a bowl of blood. Her blood-stained tongue (prob­a­bly the point from which a lot of the mis­con­cep­tions stem) sticks out of her mouth while her red eyes are wide open. The moth­er wears a neck­lace of skulls and draped around her body as a skirt, she wears the hands of demons. In most im­ages, the pow­er­ful moth­er ap­pears to be step­ping on the chest of her con­sort, Shi­va.

Ac­cord­ing to Per­sad, "The god­dess is the re­mover of all neg­a­tiv­i­ty and when she takes the form Kali, it is for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose and that is to re­move neg­a­tiv­i­ty."

Per­sad ex­plained the im­age of Moth­er Kali's blood-stained tongue. "Rak­tabeej, a great de­mon who want­ed to con­quer the earth and de­stroy every­thing, was cre­at­ing hav­oc. He was grant­ed the boon by Brah­ma that no man could kill him and where any drop of his blood spilled an­oth­er de­mon would man­i­fest."

The pan­dit ex­plained that as a re­sult Moth­er Kali had to re­move the heads of the demons and she con­sumed the blood to pre­vent it from spilling thus pre­vent­ing more demons from man­i­fest­ing. "Rak­ta is the seed of neg­a­tiv­i­ty and rep­re­sents neg­a­tive thoughts. There is the idea that she wants blood and an­i­mal sac­ri­fice, but by con­sum­ing the blood it rep­re­sents the re­moval of neg­a­tiv­i­ty."

The founder of the TTYC said in ad­di­tion to dis­pelling the myths about Kali, the pur­pose of the Ya­tra is to chal­lenge pan­dits.

He said, "Peo­ple are afraid and do not know much about Moth­er Kali be­cause pan­dits are not teach­ing us about her. I am here to chal­lenge the pan­dits to come out and teach us."

How will this Ya­tra ben­e­fit the coun­try? Ra­goo­nanan re­lat­ed, "Ac­cord­ing to Hin­duism we are liv­ing in the dark ages known as Ka­lyug. It is ev­i­dent that we live in such a time and Maa Kali is the De­vi of this age. She can ven­ture where oth­er deities can­not at this time and she is the one to re­move neg­a­tiv­i­ty."

MORE IN­FO

The Ya­tra will be held at the fol­low­ing tem­ples:

Kali Pu­ja

Date: Sep­tem­ber 6

Time: 10 am

Venue: Shi­va Ash­ta Sid­dhi Tem­ple, Ari­ma Old Road, Arou­ca

Of­fi­ci­at­ing Pan­dit: Ba­ba Lar­ry

De­vo­tion­al Scrip­tur­al Read­ing on Moth­er Kali

Date: Sep­tem­ber 8 � 9

Time: 7 pm

Venue: Ramjit & Bas­so Per­sad Tem­ple, Mo­hep­ath Trace, St He­le­na

Of­fi­ci­at­ing Pan­dit: Ve­da Per­sad

De­vo­tion­al Scrip­tur­al Read­ing on Moth­er Kali

Date: Sep­tem­ber 10 � 12

Time: 7 pm

Venue: Cal­cut­ta No 2 Hin­du Tem­ple, Freeport

Of­fi­ci­at­ing Pan­dits: Sunil Rag­birs­ingh (Sep­tem­ber 10 and 12), Sathyam Par­manan (Sep­tem­ber 11)

Kali Pu­ja

Date: Sep­tem­ber 13

Time: 6 am

Venue: Ya­tra & Vesar­jan from Freeport to Va­len­cia Riv­er

Of­fi­ci­at­ing Pan­dit: Ba­ba Jai.