On Ardhnareshwar

There was confusion, those days. The myth of Ardhnareshwar would haunt me. It's not that Ardhnareshwar's myth was extremely alien to me. But over a span of a few months there were four times I encountered the myth.

First, a tarot card reader drew a card which looked like the Ardhnareshwar. I wouldn't obviously meet a tarot card reader out of choice, but I did simply because I was so lost, and one approaches the charlatans only when one has stopped believing in anything. It is for re-seeking belief one ventures out in search of belief. Second, in the autobiographical book of Hoshang Merchant. Third, the cover of a notebook I had bought was engraved with an artwork of the Ardhnareshwar. Fourth, in the house of the martial artist.

I started finding all sorts of meaning in the myth. Yin yang. Jung. As the months rolled by the obsession slowly disappeared. After all I'm an atheist, but then why do myths interest me? The perpetual duality of the world shatters the mind and the body eventually. Myths have nothing to do with religion but with meaning-making, storytelling. It took me a while to come around to accept that, even though while reading Levi Strauss in class I nodded my head, I didn't believe in him.