Keeping awake with Shiva

The night’s wakefulness came across the starlit sky
Over the dark clump of mangoes and the court wall
With loud cymbals and scraps of movie songs
After lanterns started flickering with halos of moths.
We then kept awake with Shiva over tea after tea .
The pigtailed girls had hungry stomachs
Yet made thin tea for for egotistical boys.
Their plea for holding bats fell on deaf ears
They then jumped over charcoal drawn squares
With their ribboned ponytails doing ding dong.
A mythological movie was then thought.
Mustachioed demon kings threw arrows in them
Which fought flaming maces and burning arrows
it was good which triumphed to our child’s comfort
When we were still confused if that was indeed so.
At two we yawned deeply ,convinced that
Shiva had by then consumed the deadly poison
And got back to his penance on the mount
The blue on his throat had by then vanished.

Today is the Shiva Ratri when we are supposed to keep awake with Shiva who consumes the deadly poison in the night in order to save the world from getting destroyed by its poisonous fumes. We keep awake to express our grateful solidarity with Him.Time to remember my childhood days when we celebrated the festival with lot of fun and play.