Shiva and Kali

I promised to come to Sana-Hanuman on Saturday at eight o'clock in the morning to shoot the beginning of Shiva's "working" day. His son Ravi, daughter Lakshmi and himself are those homeless people who sleep on the parapet of the Vishnu temple. They make their living by begging, but rather by the "elegant" than the usual one. Ravi daily reincarnates into Shiva (although not always into the blue one), Sana sometimes turns in Hanuman and Lakshmi - into the Kali goddess. A couple of neighborhood children Sana sometimes dresses up as Ganesha and Parvati.

Yesterday I had lunch with all that gang and enjoyed the camel's fest in it's full swing, but today I want to talk about that Saturday morning.

I arrived when everyone just woke up. Sana was trying to comb his shaggy hair, while Lakshmi was washing her face and Ravi was running around in his overall with traces of yesterday's makeup.

We had some tea and offered it to all our neighbours. While Ravi is still undressing, Sana is already ready for performance.

The neighbour woke up and showed up out of pile of bags and rugs

First Sana just made Ravi wet

Ravi was giggling but pretty soon covered with goosebumps and shivered from cold

He found a sunny spot to dry and warm up

And above him there as blue as himself was Krishna..

Blue as it is a color of sky and thunder clouds

At this time Sana started getting Lakshmi-Kali ready

She also showed up to dry

Shiva demonstrated stripes

and make-up later on..

All requisite, besides "the skin", looks rather pretty real than fake. Trident, especially, looks so heavy.. I wonder how he can carry it all day long..

Right at this time, the photographer showed up, who was constantly mumbling something like "oh yes, yes... look at me... more expression, please" in English. I couldn't understand his nationality, but he somehow looked like East Indian.

"Are you Indian?" I asked.

"Yep"

"Why don't you speak Hindi, then?"

"I just don't wanna"

And here we are - a local, who doesn't want to speak Hindu, and a foreigner, who does want to learn to speak his native tongue.

At last there comes a wig

And Shiva-determinator is ready to go.

Full establishment.

Ravi is a strange fellow, very reserved and troubledsome like all the boys of his age, but quite, most of the time. His eyes are sad, and voice - harsh.

Now we apply make-up on Kali's face.

Meanwhile Shiva is gone to face the people.

Kali is almost done.

And that's it.

Altogether they created a popular picture of Shiva and his Kali, sitting at his feet.

Kali is one of Shiva's wife avatars, the most dangerous one.

'Legend says, that Gods couldn't defeat demon Raktabidga. Every drop of his blood spilt on the ground turned into one of him. Few minutes after his body fell dead on the ground, thousands of new Raktabidga demons appeared. At despair, Gods asked Shiva for help. As Shiva was immersed into deep meditation, they asked Shiva's wife Parvati to help. Goddess changed into dark-skinned Kali and started to fight a dragon immediately. Dark-skinned, red-eyed, multi-armed with winding hair, Goddess, who was riding a lion, terrified dragon just with her looks. Kali ordered gods to attack a dragon while she stretched her tongue such way that not even one drop of Raktabidga's blood could reach a ground. Demolished dragon never re-birthed. Kali got drunk from dragon's blood. She was running around the universe and killing everyone on her way. She decorated herself with cut heads, extremities and internal organs of her victims (most often she is drawn with human heart in one of her hands). To stop her dead race, Shiva has thrown himself under the feet of running Kali. She stopped, got sober at once and changed into gentle and beautiful Parvati (source).

Sana said that he will change into Hanuman this evening, but there were some troubles with guest house and I decided to look at it next time.