The poison came up in Shravan and he took it, and the whole month has been about cooling him ever since. That is why the offering is water and milk and nothing rich, and why bel patra — which is cooling — is the leaf.
The kanwariyas walk hundreds of miles in this month carrying water from the Ganga on a pole, barefoot, not setting it down once, to pour it on a Shivling they have chosen.
At home it is the same thing at the scale of a house: a Monday, a vrat, a lota of water, sixteen Mondays for a girl asking for a husband like him.
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