This weekend, we attended a performance by Third Eye Dancers titled “Enchanted Snow White.” It was a dance production and an adaptation of the popular fairy tale. In this version, Snow White gives away her good qualities to her evil stepmother and then embarks on a journey to regain them. She passes through various trials, gains the Stone of Tears, nearly gets killed, and finally gets back all her good qualities.

Enchanted Snow White

Enchanted Snow White (Picture courtesy Venkat Kuttua)

During the performance, a thought flashed through my mind. “Girls are so different from boys.”

Of late I have been very careful about not stepping into the middle of a male-female debate. I do consider myself a feminist but then the term itself has been distorted terribly. So I’d need to go into an explanation about feminism, kinds of feminism and then ultimately explain why I consider myself one. I believe that the line between ‘male’ and ‘female’ is not a thick one at all. It isn’t a binary, instead it is a range. At times, I feel more male than female myself (whatever my definition of “male” is and that, I agree, is totally defined by society). I don’t really like indulging in these conversations about “Men are THIS way” or “Women are SO ___,” etc.

Yet, this Saturday, as I watched the girls dance their way through Snow White’s story, I found myself thinking – lively, graceful, radiant, beautiful. That’s a girl.

Much has been written about Shiva and Shakti and the dichotomous relationship between these two forces. What do they represent? Some of the explanations seem so vague, so arbitrary to me. One day, it came to me what these two stood for.

It is simple. Shiva is the potential energy in the universe. That which is silent and unseen, resides below/beneath all that is visible, and represents the sheer potential present in this cosmos. Shakti? She is the kinetic energy that pervades this universe. She is mobile, she is quick, she is all that we see around us in this glorious creation.

See how a simple explanation from a Physics textbook explains these concepts so easily?