Didn’t get any privacy with your Valentine? Ayyo, Shiva!

Sans the Sacred

Valentine’s Day has just passed, and we know what Valentine’s Day means. It is when florists capitalize on procrastinating spouses who left off the gift decision until the last moment, and couples post cheesy pictures on social media. Of course, this happens all over the world, but we in India have to be a bit different, so we also have the moral police!

And if the moral police ever give it a rest, we have innumerable nosy relatives and neighbours to take over their duties at a moment’s notice. If you just had your weekend ruined because of a lack of public spaces for couples to even hold hands in, or because of lack of privacy and space, funnily enough, you have Shiva and Parvati for company!

Legend goes that Parvati once asked Shiva, in private, for a story that no one else knew. Shiva told her a wonderful story, but alas, one of Shiva’s retinue was around and he overheard the story. He went and told his wife the story, and of course, the wife repeated the story to Parvati the next day.

Now, Parvati was enraged and cursed the man who leaked the story to be born on the earth and live as a human being for as long as it took to tell the entire story to someone else.

This set off a great chain of events, as a result of which we have some of the most amazing collections of stories, all adapted from the Brihatkatha, which the poor chap cursed to be born on the earth created. But remember, it all started because someone did not let Shiva and Parvati chat in private.

Sanskrit poets were not strangers to how difficult it can be to sneak a moment alone together: the plethora of verses on Radha and Krishna sneaking meetings in gardens and groves suffice to show that. The opening verse of Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda celebrates Radha and Krishna’s love games on the banks of the Yamuna, after having fooled elders into sending them home together.

Sanskrit poetry is replete with humorous imaginings of how hard the gods must try for romance. There’s a poet who thinks of Shiva coaxing newly-wed Parvati into some time alone : “The snake has been lulled into sleep by the drops of nectar falling from the cool moon, Ganga is safely hidden away in the knot of my hair,” he tells her, hinting that they are finally by themselves.

But, of course, Shiva and Parvati’s retinue are very indulgent, unlike today’s moral police. If anyone tells you to preserve Indian culture by forgoing romantic escapades, you can tell them to preserve Indian culture by giving you privacy. Here’s a final verse translated by DHH Ingalls for proof, where Shiva and Parvati’s companions sidle away to give them time together: “The moon dives deep within the ash-strewn tangle of his hair/the snake slips from his shoulder, hiding beneath a graceful hood/the bull with hoof tip slyly rubs his eye/as Shambhu kisses the mountain daughter’s face.”