Being a living goddess has its advantages for 10-year-old girl

Chicago Trubune ^ | June 27, 2007 | Neela Banerjee

[rochester]

WASHINGTON -- Even by the standards of the luminaries who sweep through Washington, the little girl in front of Lafayette Elementary School almost six miles north of the White House was special. Politicians, power brokers and the occasional celebrities who come through town hope to be respected and maybe, in a childlike place in their grown-up hearts, genuinely liked. Sajani Shakya, 10, is worshipped. In Nepal, Sajani is a living goddess, one of about a dozen such goddesses in her homeland who are considered earthly manifestations of the Hindu goddess Kali.

[ModelBreaker]

And, in just three years, she'll be a teenager. The earth should tremble in fear.

"I can't stay out 'til ten? OK, I just destroyed Chicago. Now may I stay out 'til ten, please?"

"She said what about my hair? I guess she didn't want that tongue, did she."

"OK. Suppose Ashley could only make monkey sounds. That would be sooooo cool . . . "

[JEC]

Your attitude only fosters the usual hatred of America by citizens of friendly countries.

[L98Fiero]

Big deal. I'm a Lama.

[mnehring]

How nice and Christian of you. (/sarc)

[wanderin]

I read this article on Yahoo a few days ago.

The girls are treated as a Goddess until puberty.

After puberty they are free to go on with life.

The catch...they are considered bad luck to marry.

Some life they get.

[Oberon]

Yes, it did occur to me...isn’t Kali irrefutably and perpetually Not Nice?

[mnehring]

Nice may not be the right word to use, but she is supposedly the embodiment of ‘destructive power’. There was some story where she killed a lot of demons then when her husband, Shiva came to see what happened, she killed him in her rage and danced on his body...

If anything, the Hindus are pretty creative..

[ladyjane]

My husband treats me like a Goddess.

It was good luck that we married!

I like our system better.

[MrB]

Big deal, I'm a LLama:

[rbosque]

Does she look like this, and if so, can I throw peanuts at her?

[frankenMonkey]

Re: Jedidah.
Must be "Yokel Day" here on FR...

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[mnehring]

Hell, if she looks like that, I want her to speak at the next GOP convention.

[colorado tanker]

Not surprisingly, the US MSM missed the main story. The Nepal government has ordered an investigation of the Kumaris’ living conditions on allegations they are being exploited.

[ShadowAce]

Big deal, I'm a LLama

Did you retire and become a duck?

[DBrow]

No, that’s Lord Ganesh, or Ganesha.

[Pistolshot]

Excuse me, your sheet is showing.

[Dinsdale]

Hindu gods aren’t like that.

Kali is the god of both creation and destruction. Hindus pray to her for crops, children etc while also knowing she brings destruction in its time.

I think any kid in their ‘terrible twos’ could be a ‘earthly manifestation of Kali.’

[rbosque]

So she doesn’t eat peanuts?

[FReepaholic]

...In Nepal, Sajani is a living goddess, one of about a dozen such goddesses in her homeland who are considered earthly manifestations of the Hindu goddess Kali. ...

THIS is the Great Khali:

[dmz]

All I can say is that she needs to go back to her heathen homeland.
________

All I can say that you need to go back to the rock you’ve been living under.

[LonePalm]

A Dali Llama

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[MarkL]

My husband treats me like a Goddess.

It was good luck that we married!

I like our system better.

Reminds me of what a buddy used to say about his ex-wife when they were married...

"My wife treats me like a God! I get burnt offerings every night!"

Did I mention that this is an EX-wife?

Mark

[magslinger]

I'm a Pack Animal, Llama type, desert camouflage pattern, quantity one each

[DBrow]

lol Well, Kali might or might not- but Ganesh rides around on that little mouse in the picture.

So all three, Kali, Ganesh, and the mouse might eat peanuts. Peanuts, though, are a New World export to India, so before the Age of White People’s Exploration, there were no peanuts to eat in India (Portuguese brought them from Brazil to Africa, then they spread to India). Ganesha first appeared around the 4th century, so peanuts would have been introduced long after that.

Guy next door is Indian; I’ll ask him if Lord Ganesh eats peanuts. Questions like that frequently lead to informative and fun conversations.

Being the earthly embodiment of a god is way beyond “alterboy” or “eucharistic assistant”, eh?

[magslinger]

LOL!

[rbosque]

Oh yeah! ;-)

[Polybius]

All I can say is that she needs to go back to her heathen homeland.

Have they repealed the First Amendment since the last time I checked?

So, what is the Established Religion that we have in the U.S. now?

Once you start claiming that "heathens" have no place in American society, don't be surprised when atheist liberals start claiming that Christians have no place in American society.

[Bladerunnuh]

I bet she can get concert tickets even when they’re sold out

[TonyRo76]

Wow, Jed...is nobody else on this thread gonna defend you or your right to say what you said in comment #2? Well, I will! I think you're onto something.

What's more, I'd classify the worship of Kali as one of the decidedly more, uh...disturbing elements of Hinduism. She is a role model to radical man-hating feminists everywhere.

More info (click on pic)...

Granted, at least the Kali cultists aren't blowing up buildings like the Moozies but still...it's not something that's exactly compatible with American culture!

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Guy next door is Indian; I’ll ask him if Lord Ganesh eats peanuts.

This exact conversation came up between Homer and Apu on The Simpsons, back when it was still funny. Apu's answer was something like "please don't offer my god a peanut".

Another Ganesh reference in The Simpsons came about when Apu replaced his Ganesh idol with a People magazine rack during his attempts to assimilate - in a tone of rising frustration he said "Who needs the infinite compassion of Ganesh when I can have Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman staring at me with their cold, dead eyes". Cracked me up.

Anyway, no fatwa's or deaths resulted from these moments of comedy.

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

Funny - my Fiancee is in India and I asked her to bring me back a Kali statuette. Prefereably this form:


(but them I'm kinda weird like that.

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

This is the form I meant...

[ModelBreaker]

Yes, it did occur to me...isn’t Kali irrefutably and perpetually Not Nice?

I think so. And teenage girls are also irrefutably and perpetually Not Nice, plus petty, mean, and vindictive. Combine that with omnipotent powers and I'm thinking we have a problem. Teenagers should only think they are immortal and omnipotent. They should never actually be omnipotent.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

What's more, I'd classify the worship of Kali as one of the decidedly more, uh...disturbing elements of Hinduism.

It's worth noting that Hinduism is a conglomeration of a lot of different, earlier religions in India with their own deities. Hinduism just absorbed them all - even the Buddha, who was rebelling against and rejecting the Hinduism of his day, is now regarded as an incarnation of the god Vishnu. It's not unusual to see pictures of Christ and crucifixes in Hindu households along with statues of all the other gods. This is part of the Hindu belief that all religions are just different roads to the same ultimate divinity.

The only deity that was never assimilated is Allah, mostly because strictly observant Muslims insist on separateness. But it's also not unheard of for Indian Muslims to stop for a quick prayer at the village shrine to the local goddess before making a trip - old habits and customs die hard.

In any event, I don't believe Kali-worship is that common in modern day Hinduism. Ganesh, Krishna, and Siva pretty much seem to lead the pack.

[Birdsbane]

Kali is a Vampire Goddess...destruction and rebirth. I always had great fun with the Hare Krishnas at airports in my younger days. They would approach with their free books at a price...and I would cut them off and send them scurrying away by just saying that I worship Kali. I always got similar results...those were the good ol’ days.

[Joe 6-pack]

"And teenage girls are also irrefutably and perpetually Not Nice, plus petty, mean, and vindictive."

Tough time finding a date for your senior prom?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Kali is the Goddess of death, destruction, life and creation.

Kind of like the old mother earth formulation.

[ModelBreaker]

Tough time finding a date for your senior prom?

LOL. Nope. Just many decades of dispassionate observation :).

Girls are much easier than boys before puberty. After that, parents pay for those easy years in spades. It would be best for all were they just put into hibernation from 12 to about 17, when they start to become wonderful humans again :)

[70times7]

I wanted to be a Lama, but the best I could do is to be an Alpaca.

[kalee]

they’re talking about us.

[Joe 6-pack]

I'm glad you saw the (intended) humor in my remark...some folks here would have got defensive (the one's who had getting dates to their proms, anyways.) I agree wholeheartedly with this...

"It would be best for all were they just put into hibernation from 12 to about 17..."

...although I might add a few years to that upper limit.

[Mad Dawg]

So she’s from a place where the dominant religoin dictates that they treat certain rare children with special reverence during childhood.

She's from the upper West Side?

[grellis]

...don't be surprised when atheist liberals start claiming that Christians have no place in American society.

You mean they don't?!? I thought that was their mantra!

[L98Fiero]

“I wanted to be a Lama, but the best I could do is to be an Alpaca.”

LOL. Well, we all have our place in life.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

12 to about 17, when they start to become wonderful humans again :)

They do? Then why hasn't my 17 yr old ...

Hmmmmmmm.

[Jedidah]

Wow!

I’ve never before had a post deleted on FR!

I left to get some work done and returned to see that my heartfelt comments stirred up some politically correct anger.

Not taking it back. I meant what I said.

Thanks, TR, for speaking the truth. It can be dangerous.

[Jedidah]

Chin up. It was around 22 for mine. There’s hope yet ;-)