Pick a Lane, or...

Chanda Chaudhary

21 Mar 2026 — 1 min read

Ash on his body. Snakes at his throat. Sitting in the cremation ground where nothing lives.

And then — the same one — Parvati beside him, Ganesh on his lap. Dancing. The damru in one hand, the universe in the other.

No tradition has ever managed to file Shiv. Ascetic and householder. Destroyer and father. The stillness and the dance. Not contradictions resolved — contradictions held.

The algorithm has quieter instructions. Be one thing. A woman running a maternal health channel doesn't translate the ShivPuran. A spiritual content creator doesn't talk about postpartum haemorrhage in Rajasthan.

Pick. Define. Niche down.

As if a life can be filed.

The strangest part is how fluently we comply. We break ourselves into verticals and distribute the pieces across platforms like limbs in separate rooms. So smoothly that we forget it's a fracture.

Shiv never chose. Ash and dance, cremation ground and family, ascetic and father — held in one body.

Not neat. Not branded. Not optimised for reach. Just — complete.

I think about that. About what it would mean to hold all of it.

Not contradictions. Just — me.

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Still, He Showed Up

Spooky Action at a Distance

...I Don't Understand This Either.

Somewhere Back There, You Put It Down