Of Gods and Parents

Janmashtami is around the corner and the gaudy Ganesh statues arrayed on pavements signal that Ganesh Chaturthi is not far away.

Ganesh is hands down my favorite deity. The elephant-headed god thinks on his feet, loves sweets, has lots of body confidence despite his girth, and merely thinking of him is supposed to be good for procrastinators like me.

He’s cute and chubby and a kid at heart. But when I tell the story of Ganesh to my younger child, her forehead sets in a frown. “I don’t like that,” she declares when I come to the part about Shiva lopping off Ganesh’s head in fury. She’s a funny one. She’ll protest, “Don’t change the channel, I want to SEE that!” when I pound the TV remote as soon as a close-up of a dead body or a gushing wound unexpectedly appears on screen. She stares at the screen with an unblinking interest that disturbs me. But she is troubled by the story of how Ganesh lost his head and ended up with an elephant’s.

I can why this story would be unsettling. What parent – and especially a god, for god’s sake – would do this to a child?

It’s hard enough for a mortal like me to explain this story to my children. However Ganesh’s mother Parvati manage to explain this to him? “Daddy got so angry one day, he cut your head off. But he was very, very sorry and said he would replace it first thing in the morning…. Yes honey, it is an elephant’s head but I want you to know you’re very special, and we love you very, very much.”

I enjoy reading and telling mythological stories to my children. They’re colorful as stories and resonate with layers upon layers of symbolic meaning.

And I find them reassuring and empowering as a parent. I’ve been known to lose my temper and am glad I don’t have a third eye because I would have caused some serious, regrettable damage with it. But compared to Shiva, I’m not doing too badly in the parenting department.

What a wonderful luxury! Our legends provide provide us with the delicious paradox of being able to venerate our gods and goddesses and still being able to notch higher behavior points than some of them. Look at all those gods and goddesses and heroes and the messes they got themselves in and out of. Most of them had such dysfunctional families and complicated lives, yet they all turned out happy and fine and interesting and mostly put together. And people in India have had the scoop on their shenanigans for thousands of years and still worship them.

Look at Krishna. How dissipated and lost he might be in today’s world, although he did just fine in his time. You can imagine a therapist giving him a dressing down: “I know you’re struggling to overcome the trauma of being a foster child. You are addicted to dairy products. Eating so much butter since childhood places you in a high-risk category for heart attacks. You have a history of stalking women. The court order obtained by the gopis states that you must maintain a minimum distance of 50 yards between yourself and them, yet you consistently violate it. And your neighbors complain you play the flute loudly at all odd hours. How can you expect people to continue worshipping you if you exhibit such poor self-control and continue to flout the law?”

A culture that is not afraid to vest its gods with frailties and can see beyond their imperfections and worship them despite their flaws century after century has to be both blind and andar-se strong.

Our gods stuff themselves with laddoos till they burst, chase women, bend rules when they want to. They are extensions of ourselves, but with divine powers. They are our superheroes.

America has Superman and Batman and Captain America and hosts of superheroes dashing about in capes. We have our gods and goddesses. That is why a copycat modern superhero like the flabby Shaktiman in his wrinkled nylon bodysuit is a dud who will never capture our imaginations in the same way.

Our flawed, carbo-loading, multi-armed, third-eye incinerating superheroes rule our imaginations. That is why we haven’t tired of hearing and re-telling their stories for 5,000 years, and my children will pass them on to theirs.