Barbershop Decoration

Bengali Tola is the main tourist street in Varanasi. “Main” doesn’t imply “big”, in fact it is so narrow it can be easily blocked by a single cow, and indeed it often is.
I walked the other day into a barbershop in Bengali Tola for a shave. For 15 Rs You can get an excellent, clean cut shave plus a complimentary face massage in any barbershop in India. Trusting my face with stranger’s hands always makes me nervous, and for a good reason too: I ended up with some nasty cuts a few times in the past.
I sat down and the guy started applying shaving cream, foaming it with a brush. As I was trying to relax, I noticed a colorful poster right in front of me, above the mirror.
At the bottom of the picture, in a pool of blood, lay a cow, tears running down from it’s closed eyes and it’s tongue sticking out to make the point clear: it had been slain. Above it stood a pale-skinned, mustached man wearing a strange armor (Greek? Mughal?), holding a blood stained crooked sword. From behind the cow corps, mounted on a roaring lion, charged Durga, the terrible form of the goddess Devi. In her many arms she held an assortment of bloody weapons: a sword, an axe, a spear, a live cobra etc. Not loosing her calm, benevolent smile, she jabbed a trident (symbol of the Trimurti, the Indian divine trinity) in the left abdomen of the terrified cow killer (more blood gushing out).
The barber put away the brush, fixed a new blade to the razor and started practicing his art.