Kali

The frightful Kali, in the guise of a beautiful young woman with a blue complexion and tresses of unkempt hair, rages through an apocalyptic landscape of carnage and the risen dead. She steps on the corpse of the god Shiva. Kali’s eyes are bright and radiant; divine light emits from her third eye. She holds aloft a blooded sword—the type used in animal sacrifice—and the severed head of her latest victim. She will add it to her macabre garland of human heads and limbs. A pair of dead infants serves as her ear ornaments. The damned are seen being tormented in the background, while a host of gods observe from their abode in the clouds. This famous image of Kali has here been appropriated, so the Bengali caption tells us, to market Kali-branded cigarettes and hair oil.