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Durga, Katy Perry, and Empowerment

Strong, warrior women who help me fight cancer

Shefali O'Hara
2 min readApr 5, 2023
Image of Durga from one of my Mom’s calendars

I am fighting a metastatic brain, lung, and liver cancer that has spread to my bones. I am trying to stay positive throughout this. Often I listen to Christian hymns to empower me but this morning? I put on Katy Perry’s ROAR! and I listened to it over and over until I was literally ready to put on some boxing gloves and give my cancer a TKO.

I love how powerful Perry is in this video, yet how tender she can be with the animals that surround her. At the end, the tiger sits calmly near her.

The imagery of a powerful woman with a tiger made me think of my own Indian heritage and the goddess Durga.

She is a warrior goddess who rides a lion or a tiger. She is powerful, strong, and in control, yet she is also tender and loving, as can be seen in how she relates to the lion in this Indian commercial for helmets:

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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