Rare tales of India: Five traits of Lord Shiva

Lord Shiva, one of the primary god ('Trimurti') apart from Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu is known as 'The Destroyer' or 'The Transformer'. He possesses certain traits that every human should inculcate in his life.

Neelakanta (Selfless Savior of the world) - There was a time when both the gods and demons are churning the ocean for retrieving ambrosia ('amrutham'). Instead, a pot of poison has come out which is capable of destroying the entire world. Both the gods and demons were terrified and ran to Lord Shiva for help and requested him to save the world from the effects of the deadly poison. In order, to save the world, Lord Shiva drank the deadly poison but without swallowing it, withheld it in his throat and hence forth has been called the blue-throated god ('Neelakanta').
Rudra (Forgiving and merciful) - Lord Shiva was once involved in rigorous penance. The god of love ('Manmadha') tries to awaken him by shooting a flower arrow at him. Lord Shiva, infuriated, assumes his Rudra form, immediately opens his third eye and burns him to ashes. Later, when Rati, wife of Manmadha, prays to Lord Shiva for mercy and pleads him to let her husband live, he takes pity on her and restores Manmadha back to life.
Bhola Sankara (Innocent and kind hearted) - Lord Shiva becomes happy with his devotees by even a simple method of worshipping i.e. even by pouring just water on his 'linga'. As he is very kind hearted, innocent and grants boons even to the demons who do penance, he is known as 'Bhola Sankara'.
Bhairava (Simple-natured, down to earth) - Lord Shiva is known to be richer than the richest of Gods, Kubera. Even then he is always seen in a simple attire, clad in a tiger skin and smeared with ashes. He lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash, spending much of his time in meditation trance.
Gangaadhara (Savior of mankind) - There was a king. Sagara who has 60,000 sons. He was performing the 'Ashwamedha Yajna' in which as part of the ritual, they let a horse loose and if anybody stops it, has to fight with the king. Lord Indra stole the horse and Sagara sent his sons to search for the horse all over the world. The sons found the horse in the underworld next to a sage, Kapila who is in deep meditation. The sons of Sagara, believing that the sage has stolen the horse, start abusing the sage and disturb his penance. The sage opened his eyes after several years and with this glance, all the sons of Sagara were burnt to death. As no proper rites were performed, the sons of Sagara remained on earth as ghosts.When Bhagiratha, one of the descendants of Sagara, learnt of this, he pledged to bring down the sacred river, Ganga so that her water can cleanse their souls and release them. He prayed to Lord Brahma and Brahma agreed and ordered Ganga to flow down to Earth and then to the underworld onto the bodies of the sons of Sagara. Ganga felt humiliated for being asked to flow to the underworld and decided to sweep the whole Earth away as she fell from heaven. Bhagiratha became worried and prayed to Lord Shiva to control the intensity of the river Ganga. Lord Shiva, then stood in the way of Ganga and Ganga arrogantly fell on Lord Shiva's head. Lord Shiva calmly trapped her in his hair and only released her in small streams. The touch of Shiva further sanctified Ganga.