Devi loves a drink

Vaak Ambhrini or Vaak Devi is possibly the oldest feminine deity we know about. Some say she first took shape as ‘Aapa Stambha’, the Column of Water, from the breath of Prajapati, the All-Father (‘Aapastambha’ is also the name of a sutra). There is a resplendent hymn in the Rig Veda in which Vaak boasts of her powers: Aham rudrebhir vasubhis charaami(I roam where I please with the Rudras and Vasus) and asserts, ‘‘Aham Rudraya dhanura tanomi/Brahmadvishe sharaane hantavavu.’’ ‘‘It is I who bends the bow of Rudra to slay the Creator’s enemies.’’ Her voice pours honey in our ears even thousands of years later, when she says, ‘‘Whom I love, I make a priest, a sage, a person of good mind’’ — ‘‘Tvam brahmaam, tvam hrushim, tvam sumedha.’’ The ascending order is clear. From being a mere ritualist to a seer to a realised ‘jnani’.

This daughter of Prajapati who freely roams the meadows, uplands and rivers, is caught one day and made into his wife. Prajapati, aka Brahma, shrouds the wild, clever Vaak in purest white and seats her on a white lotus. A heavy lute is thrust into her unwilling arms. A hamsa (wild goose) is appointed her ‘vahan’, and set to spy on her every breath (like the driver of today, who is sahib’s man, and set to ‘chaperone’ the memsahib and report on her outings). Brahma chooses a watery, weak, sweet name for Vaak: Sarasvati, the Gently Flowing. Gone is the free, untramelled being who laughs confidently aloud, knows all the stories and the Names of names, and dances on the poppy-swathed steppe. She is changed now into a bovinely pretty, submissive, dulcet-voiced creature, dressed in silk, with a crown on her head and thick jewelled anklets on her stilled feet.

The feminists scream, ‘‘Spousification!’’ Dancer Alarmel Valli says that the positive take on this is to see it as Vaak’s evolution into something more refined and cultured. See it how you will, you can’t but yearn for the confident voice of Vaak. She is so much more attractive, so active and strong, and yet with very gentle, affectionate qualities. As we celebrate yet another Festival of the Goddess, let’s try not to be unfair in our dealings with God or with one another. Brahma found this out the hard way. Though Creator, he did not restrain his baser impulses. He enslaved his own daughter. He fibbed about having flown to the top of the Pillar of Fire (the Shivling, when it first manifested itself). But Rta, the Eternal Law, is greater than anybody. Brahma’s misdeeds caught up with him and, except at Pushkar and Uttamarkoil (TN), we don’t worship him, do we? But Vaak lives on fiercely as Devi. And several castes flick three drops of liquor to the Goddess, every time they lift a glass.