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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 !

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