Skip to main content

Life-bouys !

Strange that  I discovered this video clip while working on  education management  this afternoon , and while looking for a respite from the mundane and the monotone...The short clip was an eye opener ! 
It took me back to my days in our Lansdowne Road   house when the slum behind our house was a showcase of all kinds of  rituals and  superstitious beliefs. 
I think the Sitala pooja coincided with the poila boisakh , or may be it was sometimes later. It was fascinating to see the tempo of fervor rising , the blind  devotion in the eyes of the people. It was probably the only time when the people forgot to fight over the rationed corporation water and collectively took part in the festivities. I distinctly remember a young girl who used to have "Mayer bhor " and went into a trance ...she was deified and worshiped and given royal treatment for quite sometime......She on her turn would bless all and sundry with her chamor and people twice her age called her 'ma ' with such reverence. I cannot remember exactly what happened, but the girl slowly became gaunt and thin and lost her hair till she was shaved bare...and then to my horror one day I saw her corpse being carried away in a rickety wooden cot to the irreverently loud chants of "bolo hori..." ! 
I wondered much later what had happened to her , was her so called trance a part of  some strange disease, or is it really that  the gods took her away ? 
There used to to be all kinds of fascinating acrobatics during the "Charak er Mela" . People jumping on fire..walking on coals and cactus and thorns...bleeding , burnt and triumphant ...of completing  a wish fulfillment.
In my own way I cannot say I have escaped the conditioning - may be I will never go to the extreme ,but then the fervor, diluted and dissipated is still there somewhere in me! I  probably will not walk on two hands but would still not completely trust "Lifebouy" with my life and loved ones ! 
Strange ...modern , educated ,tech savvy yet somewhere deep inside I empathize with the father who walked  upside down for his son.....because he broke the 5-years myth !

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A holiday with self :)

A long overdue blog about the path that I was seeking , or did the path seek me out ? Over the years the sheen of belief was wearing off and I was beginning to question the master about the magic - about faith becoming commercial, about what Bhaskar stated, "This is all about money".  Packing my bags off and going solo isn't very uncommon in my life, but this time I was not on work per se. Checking-in into the Ashram, was on my bucket-list for ever-since, and it was an amazing experience. Despite the crowd, the ambiance just reverberated with a mix of reverence, energy , faith, hope, prayer - and questions too ! Like I mentioned before meditation was not about spiritual pyrotechnics, but a metaphor connected to life. Like the corner I chose had a vantage view of the stage and despite a stench that started emanating from the corner, I just could not leave that place, for the view that corner offered got me stuck there. Life is like that, we are often stuck in the rut , ...
14 comments
Read more

Morning bells are ringing ......

Heidi lived in Alps with her Alms uncle - I read this story in a book that was called The Big Big Story Book and it had a compilation of amazing stories that were my first foray into the world of English story books. Recently on a long flight I watched the movie much to delight of the young steward who was our attendant that night. My first glimpse of the Alps was from our flight ...the dawn breaking to spread the orange hues over the snowy terrain...looked mesmerizing even to someone who is not too fond of the mountains. Switzerland was beautiful, with its manicured terrain and flowers like pretty maids all in a row, picture perfect setting and breathtaking, like a touch me not porcelain beauty. Coming from my "elo melo" city I wondered how people managed to keep a country so organized , I have trouble keeping my room in ship shape...... No, I would not like to live there ......it's too distant and too cold ,but what I will carry in my heart is  the awesome time .......
10 comments
Read more

rain on me .....

And the rains came....after days of heat, sweat and grime, suddenly everything looked washed clean , like freshly soaped linen ! The droplets hung on the leaves and the single rose in the bush, and the car got badly sprayed with mud....but who cares ? The sound of rain is the best music I heard in a long long time. And I could finally spot the elusive squirrel that was making a racket all these days and I just hoped the cat doesn't kill the squirrel....  It is a dog eat dog world...both the kittens died, one killed by the dog and the other run over. Only last Monday I was watching them frolic as I sipped my tea. Terrorism and unmindful killings do not have a boundary, from my garden to the world outside , no one is safe anymore. Just the other day I was thinking , these kittens are safe within the four walls of the garden and good that they have learnt to climb trees....but I did not foresee that they too would venture out. And my Tarot prediction on Facebook was ...
8 comments
Read more