Kali

Here in Kolkata, the major god that people worship is Kali. Or Kali ma or Kali goddess of time, death and destruction. She is a complicated god. she supposedly saved her "children" by drinking the blood of a demon. this sent her into a wild killing frenzy and her husband took the form of a dead man and she tripped over him and was awakened from her blood lust. is you have ever seen a picture of her she is depicted as having blue skin, wild hair, many arms, her tongue out, and has a chain of heads around her neck. she is rather scary looking.

i am telling you this because i had a weird experience today. we met a new girl named R. she was sold by her husband when she was a teenager into the trade. she had lived there ever since. we noticed all these cuts on her arms. when she answered we were a little shocked by the story. she broke her arm when she was really young. her mom did a puja to Kali (she made some kind of worship) and her arm was healed. at this very young age R make a pledge to Kali. so every year during Kali PUja she cuts her arm open and fill a gold cup with her blood and offers it to Kali. We asked her why she does this. She told us that she is scared that if she doesn't do this she will die. She thinks that by doing this sacrifice her life will stay good. So the root of it is fear. Crazy eh?
So we get to keep going to see her. she wants to leave the trade now. pray for her. she is really sweet. she has one son whom she loves more than anyone in the world.

i love that i just wasted about 20 minutes looking at pictures on line of the screen guild pictures. i love that when i makes list i usually remember things...why i don't make list more i don't' know. i love that tomorrow i get to go to sb. i love that on friday we are going to see bikram gosh...a famous tabla player.