Once upon a time, very long ago,
like very very long long ago, king Daksh had a
daughter called Dakshayini, who happened to be a reincarnation of
Parvati. Unsurprisingly, she fell for our favourite God (Shiva) and married
him, much to the disappointment of the good king, who did not fancy him to be a
suitable son-in-law. Did they live happily ever after? I fear not.
<despite
the sarcasm oozing out of the author's every word, it is to be noted that she
really likes this story>
One day, the king decided to perform a homam, and when
kings decide to do anything, they do it with a BANG! Ergo, he invited every
living being in the world to bear witness to his awesomeness except Lord Shiva.
Needless to say, his daughter was more than a bit peeved at not receiving an
invite. Despite her husband's warning, she left their mountainous abode to make
her presence felt at her father's grand pooja.
On arriving there, her father, in one of his many
fatherly overbearing speeches, insulted her beloved before all those present.
Maddened with grief at finding her own dad so beside himself with hatred, she
did what Indian women always did, she jumped into the pooja's sacred fire.
<Hence, she was called Sati and millions of Hindus for generations to come
used her act of extreme devotion to conveniently dispose of their womenfolk>
Lord Shiva, as we all know, is a hard man to irk, but
irked he was when he found out his wife was dead. He arrived at the scene,
beside himself with rage and after pulling out his wife's half burnt body from
the sacred fire, he beheaded the now not so good king, opened his third eye, in
general made quite a scene and set out to destroy everything in his path
starting with Manmatha, the deity of love.
Now, the Gods were not too pleased with all the
devastation, so, following standard protocol, they rang for Lord Vishnu to sort
things out. Vishnu followed the enraged widower and cut off bits of Sati's
burning body till nothing was left for Shiva to carry.
<There are 21 or so
Shaktipeethas in this country, for each part of her body where a fire never
stops burning!!!!>
Shiva returned to his snowy household, determined to
meditate for the rest of his life or forever, whichever was longer.
But whatever happened to the homam? As we all know, it is
an act of the greatest degree of sin to leave a pooja unfinished and king Daksh
was feeling a little light in the head. The rishis hence called an emergency
meeting and, on espying a goat nearby, whistled innocuously and edged up close
to it and chopped off its head. Planting the goat's head on the king, they
succeeded in completing the homam.
Thus, the Chamakam was born (the reason the shlokas end the
way they do is because of the goat's head and the goat-y way of talking!! eg.
Godumashcha me, grihamcha me, mitramcha me, me me me me)
[Author's note: 'me'
here's pronounced as 'may', she did not know how to get the little line above
the e to make this aspect of pronunciation clear to the reader.]
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