Loving like Parvathi!!

We live in a country where life is celebrated everyday by means of various festivals arriving at our doorsteps in one or the other form.  One such festivals is Mahashivratri were people worship Lord Shiva by bathing the Shivalinga, fasting and chanting mantras of “Om Namah Shivay”.

Twenty years ago, it was one such rainy night of late winters where everyone was fasting. The curious kid in me asked my grandmother “Why do we celebrate Mahashivratri?”. And She replied, “Though there are many stories and beliefs that relate to Shivratri, I want to share the one that will always hold significance in everyone’s life. That is the story of love, devotion and most importantly “patience”. They say that on this day Lord Shiva married Goddess Parvathi. And it’s a celebration of their union and the love they possess for each other.”

Ardhnarishwar 

 She started narrating “Lord Shiva was a strong man living a rough life at the top of mountains and always being absorbed in his eternal trance. It is being said that his wardrobe used to be the skin of tiger and necklace made of skeletons with a snake surrounding his neck. And Goddess Parvathi was just another normal girl, being born as a princess. Since her childhood days, Parvathi was attracted to Lord Shiva. As the girl turned into a lady, she decided to marry Lord Shiva. But Lord Shiva was in meditative consciousness and never paid attention to the girl. After few years, her parents got furious and started counselling Parvathi that “Lord Shiva is insulting you from so long and you should not waste your time and energy on him”. Undeterred, she wanted to impress Lord Shiva and prove her worth to him. And just like any other Indian love story, there were compatibility issues where Lord Shiva was possessing superpowers and Parvathi was in a human being form. Therefore, she did “tapasya” (austerity) chanting Lord Shiva’s name for thousands of years as penance. This spiritual discipline of Parvathi made Lord Shiva empathize her and he decided to see Parvathi once.  Even after all those years of sufferings by Goddess Parvathi during austerity, he still decided to test her devotion one last time.  He took a form of an old man and bad mouthed about Lord Shiva to Parvathi. Parvathi after being annoyed, asked him to leave and said, “I know who Lord Shiva is, either I will accept Lord Shiva as my husband or will die unmarried”. Thus, the love, patience and devotion shown of Goddess Parvathi ultimately melted Lord Shiva’s heart. He took his real form and got married to her.”

And to me, Love felt like worshiping. Just like when you worship God, you don’t know whether he is listening, you don’t get the answers of your prayers the very moment but still you do it every day because of the faith you have in him. Love is faith.

But then I tried to relate this with our modern-day busy lives. I tried to question,

” In this self-reliable era, will anyone think of giving their complete self to someone for the sake of love?”

Every now and then we put our ego’s first in many ways “who should call first and who should text first?”. And when we don’t succeed in love relationships, very easily we blame each other. We call them untrustworthy, someone who can’t keep the commitments. But have we ever realized “If love depends on commitment to stay together or is it something that no matter what two souls can’t stay separated from each other? “. Goddess Parvathi stayed devoted to Lord Shiva even when he never paid any attention to her. How many times did we try to question ourselves “have we tried to be their Parvathi?”

“Will anyone wait for their love for years or even months in a life which is being taught to us as precious? Will anyone stay devoted to one person where we always have another option available just a click away?”

Love has lost its meaning in this world of constant comparison, were the people are compared on dating apps just like clothes and shoes on shopping apps. When we love someone, we see them everywhere in everyone. Just like when you worship God and you see God in everything and everyone. When there is love there can’t be any existence of comparison. Goddess Parvathi’s parents and other circumstances couldn’t deter her, because She was focused and was determined to get what she wants. But we in this fast-paced world move to the next best option available, we don’t have patience to give love the time it requires. We forget that everything happens at its own pace.

I hope this generation discovers the lost meaning of Love and devotion!! I hope we all can learn to love like Parvathi!!

P.S: - In a country where “Love is called Worship”, show the required devotion and patience that it deserves. Love is faith!! Love is Hope!!