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Kolkata's Kali
Shoma Chatterji believes that Kali is a democratic and secular goddess. Benita Sen reviews Chatterji's Kali Kalkattewali.
Wasn’t it just a few months ago that she floated a query on the Net for information on the goddess Kali’s Kolkata connections? The next you hear from prolific author Shoma A Chatterji is the completion of her six-chapter commissioned book, Kali Kalkattewali. "I’ll die if I don’t write," she laughs when you marvel at her authorial fecundity.
The associations between the goddess and the city, or the lack of them, are multifarious in the book. Even the upscale café we choose to meet in to discuss her work, she laughs, finds mention in her observation that, unlike several other pilgrimages in India, Kali temples around Kolkata encourage humbler outlets in their precincts.
Kali is truly Kolkata’s very own deity, although the city is known better for its worship of Durga. As Chatterji points out, the worship of Durga is only for five days in the year, and there are few temples to her in the city, whereas Kali is worshipped with great fervour round the year at over one thousand Kali shrines in Kolkata in "every gully."
When UBSPD offered her the title, it was almost a blanket sanction to give the book the treatment she wanted within the Kali and Kolkata link, a freedom few writers enjoy. But then, Shoma di, as she is popularly known within the journalistic fraternity, has 16 other books to her credit and is the only Indian woman to have won both the best critic award (1991) and the best author award (2002) for her second book on cinema. If you think that’s prolific, it takes your breath away to remember that she is also a teacher of Economics and gender activist.
The academician in Shoma shows up in her work, too. She has been documenting paper clippings on dozens of topics for years and is happy to tell you, she is more a documentary researcher than a field finder-out. For Kali Kalkattewali, she has been through several references.
As she went on, Shoma’s focus as the self-confessed non-ritualistic believer, as opposed to a ‘bhakt’, shifted to Kali’s absorption into Kokata’s psyche in every aspect: social, secular and religious.
Kali, she observes, is one of the most secular goddesses since there are records of even the British paying obeisance to her after a victory. An ideological conflict in the worship of Kali that has gripped her through these months is the respect the goddess has commanded among virtually every strata of society, from dacoit to dancing girl, from the devout son of the soil of the stature of Sri Ramakrishna to Anthony Firingee. "She is a democratic and secular goddess," says Shoma.
The book is replete with interesting legends like that which gave the much-lived-in Monoharpukur locality its name and stunning photographs by Nilanjan Basu.
The work has left Chatterji a changed person, raising more questions that she is determined to explore for her personal quest. The issue of ‘bhakti,’ for instance. Or the inspiration for Shyama Sangeet and Ramprasadi lyrics where the reference to the goddess swings from revered mother to wholesome woman.
"I am more confused now," she laughs, but one fact she is certain about is that Kali is truly a Kalkattewali. Like your typical Bengali girl, she has dark eyes, raven hair, and a complexion to set it off to stunning effect. "I find her awesome, fierce, but certainly not grotesque," she sums up.
If you’ve always wondered why Kali is not conventionally robed, or the significance of one foot ahead of the other, or even why she sticks her tongue out, watch out for this book that the author says, is "more about Kali than Kalkatta."
