What Goddess Durga teaches us about the strength in being everything
Society expects women to be ambitious yet gentle, independent yet available. Embracing Goddess Durga's multifaceted nature offers a powerful roadmap to letting go of impossible expectations.
In the many avatars of goddess Durga, we see images of ourselves. We see our softness and find our resolve, our responsibilities, our wants and desires, and the quiet strength with which we navigate the world around us.
Ma Durga arrives every year not just as a symbol of power, but as a daughter returning to her mortal abode. We celebrate her arrival with garlands, music and good food, and feel sad as the hour comes to bid farewell only days later.
And in that cosmic cycle, there is something distinctly human.
Durga is the warrior mother, daughter, and protector. She embodies qualities that we have long associated with womanhood but it is perhaps only recently that we have learned that she challenges the idea that a woman must possess only one identity at a time. Because no woman is only one thing.
She can be a goddess and still be the loving daughter that feels like a child in her heart when she returns to her parents’ home. She can be a mother who spends her days looking after the needs of the family, and yet have ambitions of her own.
She can be managing deadlines like a professional, and still be that one friend who always remembers details that everyone else forgets. She can be a loving partner learning that compromises are a part of every companionship, or simply she can be the person still trying to grasp what she wants from her own life!
None of these identities cancel one another. They coexist, sometimes comfortably and sometimes in conflict. That complexity is at the heart of “I am every woman.”
Society moves with a fixed perception and for generations, woman have been handed a long list of expectations, which is perhaps impossible to live up to. Women are expected to be caring but at the same time, they cannot be self-sacrificing. Of course, they should be independent but they cannot appear distant in their everyday lives. They must feel confident without seeming intimidating.
Society still believes that women must be beautiful but she cannot seem preoccupied with notions of beauty. She should be traditional but her new role cannot have her seem old-fashioned. She must be ambitious but without allowing her goals overshadow her life.
These contradictions of societal expectations can be exhausting because ultimately there is no single version of womanhood that satisfies all these. There cannot be, for we are looking at the wrong definition of womanhood.
Human existence, and womanhood for that matter, does not need to be a perfectly balanced equation. It can and does very well contain contradictions.
A woman, like any other person, can be independent and still wish to be cared for. She can love the traditions she grew up with while questioning the roles that sometimes come attached to them. She can be certain of her life expectations one day, and be miserably confused the next. We must acknowledge that there is strength in all of these selves, rather than pretending that only one of these deserves to be seen.
As the autumn air fills with the familiar anticipation of Puja, dhakis begin to beat the drums ushering the arrival of the mother goddess. As we welcome her and seek to see a reflection of the divine in our mortal selves, we may look at the her as an embodiment of strength but also as a reminded of the multiple identities we see within every woman.
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Fashion Direction & Styling: Sonia Yeasmin Isha
Jewellery: Shoilee
Wardrobe: Tangail Saree Kutir
Makeup: Sumon Rahat
Hair: Probina
Location: Studio Crane, Dhaka
Light Gaffer: Selim Ahaned & Shakil
Set Design: Billal Hossain
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