Here’s to diversity of spiritual pursuit

Lovers of systems and order would forever be miffed by the sheer, incongruous variety in matters godly across this vast land, even among those who would gladly identify themselves as Hindu. As people in the East celebrate the killing of a demon in the guise of a buffalo by Goddess Durga, over days of feasting, foraging in neighbourhood pandals and yet more feasting, they leave bemused fellow devotees of the female spirit in North India, whose devotion is leavened by austerity in the consumption of food over the same period of worship.

Why don’t you forsake meat and fish, at least for these few days, some of them ask their eastern cousins. These selfsame folk are similarly confounded by the Malayalis’ celebration, during their biggest festival, Onam, of a demon king who had been pushed into the netherworld by an avatar of Vishnu. Why don’t you celebrate Vamana, instead of Mahabali, whom Vamana punished, they ask.

At the same time, a tiny group in rural Jharkhand celebrate the same buffalo demon whose killing is a source of joy for Pujo. Followers of Shiva in the South see Ravan primarily as an erudite disciple of Shiva rather than as an embodiment of unalloyed evil, foil to Lord Ram. Perhaps it is best to celebrate unity in diversity than to bring all of India’s little traditions under a single great one.