By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist

Gauri is Mrs. Shiva. Lakshmi is Mrs. Vishnu. Sita is Mrs. Ram. But Radha is not Mrs. Krishna. Everyone knows that. We just do not openly talk about it. Thus, Hindu mythology makes us realise that relationships cannot be standardised. Life is complicated and we are non-gendered souls wrapped in gendered bodies who long to be witnessed.

Those who truly witness us may not have the body we expect them to have. So Shiva, the hermit, has a princess for a wife. She is his second wife. His first wife, Sati, was a priest’s daughter. She was angry with him and her father. She had to transform herself, become the mountain maid, to reconcile the two men in her lives.

By contrast, Vishnu has to chase Lakshmi, find ways to make her happy, as she is demanding and whimsical and will not be controlled. When Vishnu took the form of Ram, the eldest son of the royal family, he had to marry Sita, an educated princess, daughter of Janaka, who could always win an argument. But as the TV series The Crown has shown us, royal families are expected to think more about the institution than family.

And so, despite love, their relationship was strained as Ram chose institutional norms over personal affection. The pressure of being king was perhaps too much. So when the era changed, when Treta yuga became Dvapara yuga, Vishnu descended on earth as Krishna, the youngest son of a cowherd family, with fewer burdens and freedom to play pranks.

He flirted with milkmaids and fell in love with Radha, the wife of another cowherd (his mother’s brother, some say), who was older than him. She danced around him while he played the flute at night, outside the village. They could not marry. But she taught him how to treat women. How easy it is for Krishna to have many wives, but not easy for Draupadi to have many husbands.

These are just stories. Stories are metaphors to communicate human emotions and the complexity of desire. Gods have many forms; goddesses have many forms. Not all complement each other. Sometimes, to pacify the angry Shiva, even Vishnu has to turn into a woman, the enchanting, alluring Mohini.

And sometimes, to enjoy the company of Krishna, even the masculine tandava-dancing Shiva has to become the feminine lasya-performing Gopeshwara. Every context is different. Standard rules do not apply. The point is that we witness each other and allow each other to grow.

Growth is when we learn to empathise with the other. It is not easy. Ram has to choose between crown and company. Krishna had to choose between the village of adoring women and the city of toxic men. Shiva needs to cope with the anger of Gauri when she finds Ganga sitting atop his head and Gauri knows that she has to compensate for her husband, be the warrior Durga sometimes and the kitchen-goddess Annapoorna at other times.

Life is about relishing the relationships that help us grow. Not everybody will understand why princesses marry hermits, why Sita adores Ram, why Krishna chants, ‘Radhe, Radhe,’ all the time. Equality in love happens when we see the difference.

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