When Durga and her assistants struggled to destroy Raktabija the demon due to his ability to repeatedly clone himself with every drop of his blood, the furious goddess summoned Kali!
Kali is said to be the anger that burst from Goddess Durga's forehead. Once born, the black goddess slay all the demons she came across, stringing their heads on a garland around her neck. It seemed impossible to calm this most powerful form of shakti so the mighty Shiva eventually stopped her by lying down in her path.
Kali is a most unconventional woman, with knife dripping blood and a skull-topped staff, decorated with a garland of severed heads and a skirt of dangling arms; with a deep red lolling tongue and bloodshot eyes impetuously slaughtering and devouring evil, dancing with one foot on a collapsed Shiva...she is every bit the antithesis of Parvati!
Even in domestic matters, Parvati calms Shiva, counterbalancing his destructive tendencies while Kali provokes his mad, antisocial, disruptive nature. "It is never Kali who tames Shiva, but Shiva who must calm Kali!"
Kali reminds me that in a world of dignity for all, there needs be no patriarchy or matriarchy, male chauvinism or feminism, beautiful and ugly.
Kali reminds me that women need not doll up to portray their sexual appeal; or unequally take on the role of the keeper of the house or nurturer for the child- women should be an equal force within and without taking the world by storm with their inner strength, slaying the demons along the way and standing tall radiating their inner beauty.
Kali reminds me that truly honorable men would not hesitate to lay at their women's feet... Shiva the protector of the universe softens Kali's wrath amidst her frenzied victory dance by surrendering to it. Their relationship here illustrates the interaction between the benevolent and the destroyer, not the man and the woman. They portray the Yin and Yang of creation, the power couple of universe that grabbed gender bias by its balls!
