I had a very dear Bengali friend in my class at St. Anne’s High School – Rupa Ganguly, daughter of the late veteran actor, Ashok Kumar and wife of actor Deven Verma. I think of Rupa every year on Dassera because once she had told me (in Std. VIII) that when you look into Goddess Durga’s eyes with devotion and sincerity, she comes alive. Motes of chalk-dust settling down slowly in a ray of sunshine through the window sealed this conversation in my subconscious forever.

Since then, year after year, every year, whenever I saw a statue or a photograph of Durga in any newspaper or on television, I watched intently, waiting for her to blink, smile or wave one of her ten hands at me – in vain! Durga is the female aspect of a Deity which has motherly personifications in all religions and cultures. Every civilization has honoured and worshiped the female principle (prakriti), personifying it as a loving mother eg. Osiris in ancient Egypt, Athena of Greece, Kwan-Yin of China, the Christian Madonna, Avan Ardvisur of Zorastrianism, Vasundhara, Amba, Lakshmi, Ekvira, Parvati, Jagdamba, Saraswati to name a few.

In Bengal, elaborate statues are made of Durga who destroys all negativity. This ten-armed Devi rides a lion armed with Shiva’s trishul, Varuna’s conch-shell, Vayu’s bow, Indra’s thunderbolt, Kubera’s club, Shesha’s snakes, Surya’s quiver, Agni’s dart and Vishnu’s discus to vanquish evil! She’s the deity who bashes up the baddies.

From an impressionable school-girl to a middle-aged grand-mother of grown-up boys, who loves to write and lecture on spirituality, my life has come full circle and I am sure so has Rupa’s. Its Dassera time once more and newspapers are full of photographs of Goddess Durga. One particular photograph seemed to reach out and say something. What a joy! At last, after all these years, I waited and watched the Divine mother intently with devotion, sincerity and awe!

Like the painting of Mona Lisa at the Louvre, she looked right back at me. I can’t say she smiled or twiddled any of her fifty fingers but she looked with compassion and love as though her eyes were saying: “I have known that conversation between Rupa and you all through the years!”

This brings us to the esoteric significance of Navratri. Nav means nine and Ratri means nights. The first reference to these nine auspicious nights is found in the Rig Veda which says that prior to all creation there was a void (shunya). Out of these dark nights, creation began with the sound – vibration of the basic primordial sound the word, the SHABD, LOGOS or SAROSH NO NAAD, which was AUM. Even the Upnishads refer to these nine nights of non-existence and nothingness (neti, neti).

On the physical plane, these nine nights occur when the Sun is vertically overhead at the Equator. To energise the human body and ‘centre’ the emotions, there is a special nine day meditation in which the Beej-Mantra is recited throughout the night. By doing this, a certain principle of Yoga is accomplished viz. energies return to their primordial source to speed up human evolution. Thus the body (Pinda) becomes conscious of Supreme Reality (Brahmand).

Why nine nights? Why not eight or ten? Because numerically, just as number one stands for one cosmic energy, number nine represents the process of creation (the 9 cosmic-wombs). A foetus takes 9 months to gestate in the womb. There are 9 categories in Nature, three each of creation, preservation and destruction. The human body has 9 openings as well as 9 psychic energy centres. Then again, there are 9 gems, nav ratna, to be used to cure physical and mental disorders in accordance with the aura of the individual. In Indian classical dance forms, there are 9 delineations (navras).

During the nine months in a mother’s womb, a foetus absorbs nine types of cosmic rays like solar, planetary, elemental, electrical, mental, karmik, hereditary, spiritual, etc. for its full development. If for any reason, some rays are not absorbed, or ill-absorbed, the child is born with physical or mental limitations.

And now we come to the most enjoyable part of Navratri – the garba and the dandiya, which are always danced in a circle to signify diversity in unity and unity in diversity. The circle also stands for the cosmic womb from where all forms of life emanate and where they return on destruction. The singing and dancing denote that life has to go on in spite of everything and the going round, dancing in circles is a metaphor for the rounds of births and deaths that a human soul undergoes, until it gets enlightened enough to qualify for salvation. Thus even within the circles of our lives, we dance the circles of the years, the circles of grand loves and petty hatreds, the circles of attachments, relationships and interactions.

We come and we go, again and again, unchanged, clinging to non-essentials while our hands clap, join and un-join in love and hate, joy and grief. Thus the garba of life goes on while we remain mere spectators of the divine dance of life during the nine auspicious nights of Navratri!