Durga Quotes

Devi-Mahatmayam has special meaning for spirituality,
With illumination, wisdom, strength - to freedom finally!
- 150 - ~ Munindra Misra

The self we wear must be discarded once a while to emerge anew, "Tyaag" to let go "Daya" compassion and "Shanti" must be adorned in the abode of thy heart, only then we shall become true warriors of peace, the lion of Durga and the music of Saraswati. ~ Abhishek Singh

Change, I've come to understand, rises up like nausea: the promise of relief is what makes it bearable. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Nook people are those of us who need solitude, but also the sound of someone puttering in the next room. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Feral rearranging. Letting form ferment. Letting form pass through you. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

I picked up the statue and looked at it from different angles. The eight arms were fearsome. Note to self: in a battle against Durga, run the other direction. ~ Colleen Houck

Tri-guna appears in discourse of Krishna prominently,
To Arjun upon the battlefield of Kurukshetra clearly;

That the backdrop for the Bhagwat Gita surely be,
All three gunas are held to delude the world clearly:

त्रिभिर्गुणमयैर्भावैरेभिः सर्वमिदं जगत्।
मोहितं नाभिजानाति मामेभ्यः परमव्ययम्॥ ७.१३॥
tribhirguṇamayairbhāvairebhiḥ sarvamidaṁ jagat |
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti māmebhyaḥ paramavyayam || 7.13||
World deluded by these Three Gunas does not know Me:
Who beyond these Gunas and imperishable does but be.
(7.13) ~ Munindra Misra

When he was finished, he set his plate down, looked at me, and raised an eyebrow.
I leaned forward and whispered angrily, "I am not going to sit on your lap, so don't get your hopes up, Mister."
He still waited until I picked up a fork and took a few bites. I speared a bite of macadamia nut crusted ruby snapper and said, "Whew. Time's up. Isn't it? The clock is ticking. You must be sweating it, huh? I mean, you could turn any second."
He just took a bite of curried lamb and then some saffron rice and sat there chewing as cool as a cucumber.
I watched him closely for a full two minutes and then folded up my napkin.
"Okay, I give. Why are you acting so smug and confident? When are you going to tell me what's going on?"
He wiped his mouth carefully and took a sip of water. "What's going on, my prema, is that the curse has been lifted."
My mouth dropped open. "What? If it was lifted, why were you a tiger for the last two days?"
"Well, to be clear, the curse is not completely gone. I seem to have been granted a partial removal of the curse."
"Partial? Partial meaning what, exactly?"
"Partial, meaning a certain number of hours per day. Six hours to be exact."
I recited the prophecy in my mind and remembered that there were four sides to the monolith, and four times six was…"Twenty-four."
He paused. "Twenty-four what?"
"Well, six hours makes sense because there are four gifts to obtain for Durga and four sides of the m ~ Colleen Houck

Durga wore a simple sea-green dress and a lei of lotus flowers ... "Take this," it has no special power except that the blooms will not fade, but it will serve a purpose on your voyage. I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die." She placed the lei over my neck. "Dig down and grow strong roots, my daughter, for you will stretch forth, break out of the waters and find peace on the calm surface at last. You will discover that if you hadn't stretched, you would have drowned in the deep, never to blossom or share your gift with others. ~ Colleen Houck

A woman carries her inner life - lugs it around or holds it in like fumes that both poison and bless her - while nourishing another's inner life, many others actually, while never revealing too much madness, or, possibly, never revealing where she stores it: her island of lost mind. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Parvati has wrathful incarnations surely,
As Durga, Kali, Shitala Devi, Tara, Chandi,
She has benevolent forms like Katyayani,
Kamalatmika, Bhuvaneshwari, Lalita, Gauri.
Parvati as the Goddess of Power does be,
Who source of all forms and of all beings be,
In Her all the power but exists undoubtedly,
And She who the destroys all fear clearly be.
The apparent contradiction that Parvati be,
The fair one, Gauri, and the dark one, Kali,
Suggests the placid wife, can change fully,
To her primal chaotic nature as powerful Kali. ~ Munindra Misra

Even when I was nothing, I was arriving. This ~ Durga Chew-Bose

A nook person finds the dog at the party; drinks wine from a mug; sits on the floor and braids carpet tassels only to become self-conscious and unbraid them. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

The whole Esther Williams of it all. The ostrich ballet. Like pirouetting feather dusters; their paddle feet in fourth position. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Forty feet long sixty feet high hotel
Covered with old gray for buzzing flies
Eye like mango flowing orange pus
Ears Durga people vomiting in their sleep
Got huge legs a dozen buses move inside Calcutta
Swallowing mouthfuls of dead rats
Mangy dogs bark out of a thousand breasts
Garbage pouring from its ass behind alleys
Always pissing yellow Hooghly water
Bellybutton melted Chinatown brown puddles
Coughing lungs Sound going down the sewer
Nose smell a big gray Bidi
Heart bumping and crashing over tramcar tracks
Covered with a hat of cloudy iron
Suffering water buffalo head lowered
To pull the huge cart of year uphill ~ Allen Ginsberg

Dad takes a step back, one hand still on my shoulder, and reaches into his pocket. He draws out a little blue capsule, and I feel every molecule in my body screaming to run. Dad must catch the panic in my eyes - he squeezes my shoulder and holds out the capsule. "Cas, it's fine. It's going to be fine. This is just in case."

Just in case. Just in case the worst happens. The ship falls. Durga fails, I fail, and the knowledge I carry as a Reckoner trainer must be disposed of. That information can't fall into the wrong hands, into the hands of people who will do anything to take down our beasts.

So this little capsule holds the pill that will kill me if it comes to that.

"It's waterproof," Dad continues, pressing it into my hand. "The pocket on the collar of your wetsuit, keep it there. It has to stay with you at all times."

It won't happen on this voyage. It's such a basic mission, gift-wrapped to be easy enough for me to handle on my own. But even holding the pill fills me with revulsion. On all my training voyages, I've never had to carry one of these capsules. That burden only goes to full-time trainers.

"Cas." Dad tilts my chin up, ripping my gaze from the pull. "You were born to do this. I promise you, you'll forget you even have it." I suppose he ought to know - he's been carrying one for two decades.

It's just a right of passage, I tell myself, and throw my arms around his neck once more. ~ Emily Skrutskie

From the simple stringing together of lemon garlands for the goddess Durga, to dividing the prasadam or blessed foods for the children first, I came to associate food not only with feminity, but also with purity and divinity. ~ Padma Lakshmi

I have nothing to do with this pseudo-religious approach that Gandhi is advocating. ~ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Roar with delight while you still can, O illiterate demon, because when I will kill you, the gods themselves will roar with delight ~ Hindu Goddess Durga

Most of what we got was crockery: from exotic crystal bowls to ceramic anomalies. Then, a cross-section of rugs- from a beautiful Kashmiri original to a memorable one with printed dragons and utterly incomprehensible hieroglyphics. Dibyendu (typically) gave us a scrabble set and Runai Maashi: that rocking chair. Yuppie work friends, trying to be unique and aesthetically offbeat, went for wind-chimes but there were really far too many of them by the end. We also got a fantastic number of white and off-white kurtas, jamdani sarees with complementary blouses, no less than nine suitcases, suit pieces, imported condoms, bed-sheets, bed-covers, coffee makers, coffee tables, coffee-table books, poetry books, used gifts (paintings of sunsets and other disasters), three nights and four days in Darjeeling, along with several variations of Durga, Ganesh and all the usual suspects in ivory, china, terracotta, papier-mâché, and what have you. Someone gave us a calendar that looking back, I think, was laudably sardonic. Others gave us money, in various denominations: from eleven to five hundred and one. And in one envelope, came a letter for her that she read in tears in the bathroom.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') ~ Kunal Sen

For feverish mornings after he left, she lay awake in that guest room in their house, in the rumples of the sheet he had slept in. She would get him on every turn: his aftershave lingering on the sides of the pillow that sometimes caught her, waking up from her dreams of him, in nuclear nights, his gaze: drenching her like water drops on burning rocks. She herself didn't have any smell. He had to really lean in the first time to make out the attar amidst the freckles on her neck. And then there would be at least two, never only one: Jasmine and that other thing that he could never place- a smell that was between imitation pearls and the insides of a Durga Puja afternoon. On some days even in Simla, this she, would waft in by his collars nonchalantly.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') ~ Kunal Sen

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and jumped when I turned and found Ren's brother standing behind me as a man.
Ren got up, alert, and watched him carefully, suspicious of Kishan's every move. Ren's tail twitched back and forth, and a deep grumble issued from his chest.
Kishan look down at Ren, who had crept even closer to keep an eye on him, and then looked back at me. He reached out his hand, and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, then bowed deeply with great aplomb. "May I ask your name?"
"My name is Kelsey. Kelsey hayes."
"Kelsey. Well, I, for one, appreciate all the efforts you have made on our behalf. I apologize if I frightened you earlier. I am," he smiled, "out of practice in conversing with young ladies. These gifts you will be offering to Durga. Would you kindly tell me more about them?"
Ren growled unhappily.
I nodded. "Is Kishan your given name?"
"My full name is actually Sohan Kishan Rajaram, but you can call me Kishan if you like." He smiled a dazzling white smile, which was even more brilliant due to the contrast with his dark skin. He offered an arm. "Would you please sit and talk with me, Kelsey?"
There was something very charming about Kishan. I surprised myself by finding I immediately trusted and liked him. He had a quality similar to his brother. Like Ren, he had the ability to set a person completely at ease. Maybe it was their diplomatic training. Maybe it was how their mother raised the ~ Colleen Houck

Parents who experience pause from "the unnecessary beauty of an ice storm coating trees," while their kids - who "bewilder well," she writes - are simply looking for something to throw. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

I find the plainness and economizing record of materials handled calming. Realistic yet not austere, because what corresponds - the words oil on canvas - has everything and nothing to do with what I'm looking at. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

It was Durga Pujo, the city's most anticipated days. The stores, the sidewalks, were overflowing. At the ends of certain alleys, or in gaps among buildings, she saw the pandals. Durga armed with her weapons, flanked by her four children, depicted and worshiped in so many versions. Made of plaster, made of clay. She was resplendent, formidable. A lion helped to conquer the demon at her feet. She was a daughter visiting her family, visiting the city, transforming it for a time. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

The sheer, ensorcelled panic of feeling moved. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Writing is losing focus and winning it back, only to lose it once more. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

In the loudest voice I could muster, I shouted, "As of this moment, you are no longer the armies of China, Macedonia, Myanmar, Tibet or India. You are now warriors of Durga! We have already fought and overcome many fierce creatures. Now we give you the symbol of their power."
I borrowed the Scarf and touched it to my Pearl Necklace. The silken material sped down each and every soldier to cloak them in the most brilliant red, blue, green, gold and white. Even the flag bearers were not left out and now held banners depicting Durga riding her tiger into battle.
"Red for the heart of a Phoenix that sees through falsehood!" I cheered and raided the trident. "Blue for the Monsters of the Deep that rip apart those who dare to cross their domain! Gold for Metal Birds that cut their enemies with razor beaks! Green for the Horde of Hanuman that comes alive to protect that which is most precious! And white for the Dragons of the Five Oceans, whose cunning and power has no equal! ~ Colleen Houck

Durga needs a tiger. ~ Colleen Houck

Nook people express appreciation in the moment by maintaining how much we will miss what is presently happening. Our priorities are spectacularly disordered. A nook person might spend the last few years of her twenties thinking she is dying. Convinced of it. Nook ~ Durga Chew-Bose

There's might too in the incomplete. In feeling fractional. A failure to carry out is perhaps no failure at all, but rather a minced metric of splendor. The ongoing. The outlawed. The no-patrol. The act of making loose. Of not doing as you've been told. Of betting on miscalculations and cul-de-sacs. Why force conciliation when, from time to time, long-held deep breaths follow what we consider defeat? Why not want a little mania? The shrill of chance, of what's weird. Of purple hats and hiccups. Endurance is a talent that seldom worries about looking good, and abiding has its virtues even when the tongue dries. The intention shouldn't only be to polish what we start but to acknowledge that beginning again and again can possess the acquisitive thrill of a countdown that never reaches zero. Groping ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Because there is trust too, in feeling small. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

And besides, it feels more covert to have no evidence. To believe that something you've experienced will build on your extent - your extent as a person who sees things, and is moved by things - without ever having to prove those things happened exactly as they happened. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

I tend to forget or rather, rarely cash in on  -  like coupons piling up  -  the proximity of people. If I wanted, I could walk a few blocks and find a friend, a friend who is likely experiencing coincidental gloom, blahs, and Sunday doom, because if there's one thing I know to be true about New York friendships: they are intervened time and again by emotional kismet. Stupid, unprecedented quantities of it. We're all just here, bungling this imitation of life, finding new ways of becoming old friends. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

No matter how lackluster its surroundings, within seconds, all was new again for a goldfish because it had figured out how to repair its sense of spectacle. There ~ Durga Chew-Bose

They experienced the world, I supposed, as I experienced going to the movies: that flash of amazement petitioned, in part, from feeling small in the presence of bigness. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

The world which worships Mother Mary and goddess Durga also has experienced such heinous crimes against her daughters. ~ Debajani Mohanty

Wow," I said. "That story is disturbing on so many different levels. One thing that's mystifying about Indian mythology is how often the names change. The skin color changes – she's golden, she's black, she's pink. Her name changes – she's Durga, Kali, Parvati. Her personality changes – she's a loving mother, she's a fierce warrior, she's terrible in her wrath, she's a lover, she's vengeful, she's weak and mortal, then she's powerful and can't be defeated. Then there's her marital status – she's sometimes single, sometimes married. It's hard to keep all the stories straight."

Ren snickered. "Sounds like a normal woman to me. ~ Colleen Houck

There's a type of inborn initiative that comes from having never been obligated to answer questions about one's name, or one's country of so-called origin, or to explain the way you look is generationally and geographically worlds apart from where you were born. Since childhood, there's been this assumption that I owe strangers an answer when they inquire about matters I myself struggle to have words for, let alone understand. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

नमस्तेशरण्येशिवेसानुकम्पे,
नमस्तेजगद्व्यापिकेविश्वरूपे।
नमस्तेजगद्वन्द्यपादारविन्दे,
नमस्तेजगत्तारिणित्राहिदुर्गे॥१॥

She the refuge, peaceful and merciful undoubtedly,
She pervades over all, is universal form certainly,
Her lotus feet worshipped by universe – all Glory,
On your appeal "Protect me Durga" saves entirely.
- 458 - ~ Munindra Misra

Why is it that when a woman is occupied by the voice in her head, or the wear of her day, or the landscape that passes through her eyes like windows on a train, the world assumes she is up for grabs? A vacant stare does not mean vacancy. It's the inverse of invitation, and yet. ~ Durga Chew-Bose

The genius of the word is that it's more of an expression than a word. Nook ~ Durga Chew-Bose

If it weren't for her, one way or another I'd be another bloated corpse staining the NeoPacific.

So when I lie back and roll onto my side, I decide I'm not bunking back to back with the girl who kept me from sparing Durga or the girl who dragged me aboard the Minnow and threw me into a janitorial closet. She's not the girl who slammed me into a wall a minutes ago or the girl who called me a shoregirl like it was the height of an insult.

I'm just going to sleep next to the girl who saved my life. ~ Emily Skrutskie

It's imperative that writing consists of not living up to your own taste. Of leaving the world behind so you can hold fast to what's strange inside; what's unlit. A soreness. A neglected joy. The way forward is perhaps not maintaining a standard for accuracy but appraising what naturally heaps. Writing ~ Durga Chew-Bose

Memory is trust open to doubt. Perhaps ~ Durga Chew-Bose