I was greeted home by a flustered-looking father earlier this evening.
“Hurry, give me your laptop.”
“I thought you chose my books for me ?”
“There were too many of them to choose from, so I need your Kindle as well. Isn’t your laptop used for your writings ? Hurry, pass them over and go shower.”
Today marks the last day of Navarathri, also fondly known as Saraswathi Poojai where we pay homage to the Goddess of Learning and stack our books/instruments before her as a mark of practice to invoke her blessings. As according to the story aforementioned, my father probably thought that it was wise to keep up with times and not bring down my entire bookshelf, so a laptop and an e-book reader was a pretty ingenious move.
Intriguingly, we focus on Goddess Siddhidatri today, who also happens to be the imminent force of eradicating ignorance and bestows knowledge. A slightly similar affirmation to Saraswathi.
I also asked my father about the significance of this day being known as Ayudha Poojai.
“It was today that Durga recognised and revered all her weapons that were going to deliver Mahishasuran’s final blow tomorrow.”
(ayudham – weapon)
Looking it up, I realised that Ayudha Poojai have a number of various affiliations to it. I also chanced upon an interesting legend that was tied to it too.
The Pandavas were banished into the forest after that insufferable mishap that happened in the courts of Hastinapur and war was already inevitable – twelve years of forest exile and another year of incognito where if one of them are spotted, they have to repeat another twelve years in the forest. Before they retired into the forest as hermits, Arjuna, the third Pandava brother, hid all his weapons of war in a tree. It today that Arjuna retrieved them, hence heightening the magnitude of Ayudha Poojai celebrations.
A ‘weapon’ in this context is also considered as ‘tool of trade’. Like how a farmer’s weapon is a scythe, a poet’s weapon is a typewriter. Both are different in nature but hold the same importance as accountable to the disparate trades that were mentioned.
It doesn’t come as a surprise when I placed a pen on top of the towering pile of blessed books under the altar, does it ?
File Photo : Upasana Govindarajan (Pen and Pencil).
