Lopamudra’s dedication to the icon of Goddess Durga, the creative feminine force at the core of our religious, cultural and mythological milieu, is a poem that attempts to transcend the image and metaphor of Durga and represent her about ‘every woman’ of our times. Here’s her verse in Different Truths.

Markandeya Purana: “Durga came into being. The unique light, pervading the Three Worlds with its lustre, combined into one and became a female form.”

Let me be the Goddess in shining armour,
Let me be the surreal creative feminine force,
Let me regain my ten mighty arms, my fiery red clothes, my infinite power.
Bring me back my thunderbolt, my trident, my lion and lotus flower.
The cosmic rampage, the reign of terror is back,
Unleashed on earth. All forms of human–horrifying, grotesque,
Clenching, hungry–surround me, threaten me, mock my prowess.
A nemesis is here, an invisible cauldron, boiling along with
Black sins of human demons. Today, as the world invokes me
In temples and pandals, inside sacred places,
Let me creep inside the being of every woman,
Let me be the burst of elemental energy inside all of them,
Let me break my proverbial omnipotence, my impetuosity
Into thin slices, and bestow each one with a handful!
Within each of them, Durga, the unique light, the synthesis
Of beauty and power, would be dancing, rippling in waves,
Sputtering in myth and mystery. Amid the abysmal darkness
Of diminishing humanity, let me rise thus, from my ashes
And be the ‘Every Woman.’

Picture design Anumita Roy, Different Truths

Lopamudra Banerjee

Lopamudra Banerjee is a multi-talented author, poet, translator, and editor with eight published books and six anthologies in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She has been a featured poet at Rice University, Houston (2019), ‘Life in Quarantine’, the Digital Humanities Archive of Stanford University, USA. Her recent translations include ‘Bakul Katha: Tale of the Emancipated Woman’ and ‘The Bard and his Sister-in-law’.