“Why do you keep fasting….father died long ago….” her son snaps at her each year on Shib Ratri (night of Lord Shiva) but she doesn’t pay heed to him. Her name means “good” in Bengali and she is a really good human being. Yes of course, sometimes the dishes don’t get completely cleared of the soap and you have to rinse it with lots of water to wash off the lather gathered around the edges of plates, dishes and glasses and cups after she leaves and sometimes the dusting cloth remains less dusty than the surfaces supposedly dusted already but she is the kind of person who genuinely dotes on people, not differentiating between, as they say in Bengali “apon/por” (her own people/others).
At around 70, she still continues to take a local train to Calcutta from her village in the districts of South 24 Paraganas to do domestic work in several houses in city before returning home by the evening express. “I started working when I was about twenty,” she says. She gets up at around 3 in the morning, bathes, eats and leaves the house. By then other women of the village too start coming out of their houses and set off to work in the city. They usually go in a group, walking to the railway station, from where they catch the train to various parts of the city.
This has been her routine for over fifty years. In five decades she has got married, has had two children (a son and a daughter, who are now in their forties), grandchildren and even a great grandchild. Her husband died of alcoholism. Her daughter has got married and lives in another village. Her son too has got married. She lives in their village hut with her son, daughter-in-law and their children. Her son dotes on her and chides her often for refusing to stop working. He is a toto driver who doubles up as a vegetable vendor when the need arises and he tells her that if he can feed his wife and children he can feed his old mother too. She narrates these tales of her tiny village home while sipping tea. Today she has been severely scolded by her son for fasting on Shiv Ratri.
She smiles and says indulgently, “He tells me, ‘Why do you keep fasting….father died long ago. You work…..you do strenuous jobs like sweeping, swabbing and washing clothes so this kind of starvation is damaging your health. And you are also very old.” Goodness Didi (as I refer to her) chuckles toothlessly. “But I tell him,” she says, “ ‘Fasting on Shibrattir has become a habit with me. Yes, initially I used to observe it in order to find a perfect husband. But then the Gods decided to give me your father. He drank a lot but he was a good enough man. Then I would fast on this day for praying for his health. Now I fast for Shib Himself.”
While traditionally fasting on Shib Rattir (also known as Mahav Shivratri) is associated with the quest for a good groom, the practice does have a range of other interpretations in Hindu mythology. “Observed on the 14th day of the Krishna Paksha or dark fortnight, in the month of Phalguna (February or March), it is believed to be night when Lord Shiva married Goddess Parvati,” according to Wikipedia which sources ancient scriptures. The fast, says Goodness Didi, is “nirjola” (one cannot even drink a sip of water). She begins the fast at the crack of dawn and breaks it at dawn the next day.
She places flowers, fruits and bel pata (leaves of the bel tree) at the feet of the Lord and pours milk and water on Him. If today is Shib Rattir, yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Considered the day of love around the globe, February 14 is the day when my father was born. Sharaswati Puja too fell on the day when my Dad was born. He is (I don’t like to say “was” because I know he is there somewhere in a better place) a bundle of love and he has all the gifts that Goddess Saraswati could bestow on a soul: the blessings of knowledge, music and just pure love.
(The writer is Editor, Features)