SUPERSTITIONS
It was almost inevitable. I had to see it. It was big and clear in the sky. ‘Poornima’ is just at the beginning of this weekend.
It was shining clearly in the dusky sky. It was almost sun set and the moon was out there to show his face. He was the first thing I had noticed looking up from the balcony. He was bright and pretty.
And then almost instantly I saw the lone star which came as a package with the moon. I couldn’t miss it. I saw it and immediately regretted seeing it. My friend once told me how a lone star should never be seen. If you see one lone star you had to see another two.
So, I craned my neck, strained my eyes but in vain. I couldn’t see any other star. I was disappointed as the story she told me had a conclusion that if you see a lone star it brought bad luck. Now I wondered as to what kind of bad luck it would bring to me.
There were too many things going on in my life and I did not want any of them going off track. So just before leaving the balcony I hoped to see two other stars but only ended up seeing flocks of crows and thought wow how better is this?! And how worse could it get.
I kept myself busy later in the evening but the thought lurked in my head. It kept playing hide and seek through the walls of my mind and I kept thinking what was going to go wrong. Then I thought am I really being dragged into all this? I was scared about a non rational thing and I felt stupid after a while. Had I really given into something of that sort?
Then my mind drifted to another reality. What was with our ancestors? Why did they always want to tag some belief or superstition as we call it today, with every other thing? Why did they always want to make people believe something which weren’t true and logical? Then I thought maybe it was right.
Even though our ancestors had famous names like Chanakya, Aryabhatta, Panini etc., having enough room for logic and invention, we saw the burliest of illogical and non rational beliefs which hang around till today.
Superstitions.
When I think deep into these superstitions all I can think of is that do they really mean what they say? Do they intend to send out the same message as they are speaking? Indeed no, but what else could you tell people of that age rather than ideas which would question their religious or traditional beliefs.
So here I would bring out a few superstitions and try and give their scientific explanations, at least to convince myself.
When people ask you not to walk under a ladder is not because you would stop growing or that you would be possessed by the devil, it is because walking under ladders could be harmful in a general sense. This belief came around at the time when electric lights weren’t yet around and people had to manage in oil lamps at the brightest. Now when you walk under a ladder at such a time when all else is dark except the circumference of the circle around the oil lamp, what else could you expect but be careful. During day time, walking under ladders wasn’t allowed as the grounds during those times were undulated. Now they didn’t have the facilities of tar and concrete roads where all ladders could hold still and not tumble over everything or everyone. This was why the superstition was attached to forbid people from walking under the ladders in the night and in general.
When people ask you not to walk the path crossed by a black cat is not because that would bring you bad luck it is because you could fall sick. Cats whether black, white or any other colour are known to give out energies which aren’t very good for the human body. It is a known fact that every living being has certain kind of energy around them whether positive or negative. When you cross the path crossed by a black cat or any other cat, it leaves behind its negative energy which is not always but sometimes harmful. It isn’t so harmful that a person may die, but harmful enough to give a fever for a day or two. This couldn’t exactly be highlighted by our ancestors or may be explained to other people and so the superstitious tag attached.
I grew up listening to this line from my mother, “Do not sweep the home after sun set. ‘Lakshmi’ will walk away from the house.” Indeed according to her, if you sweep the house post sun set, you lose money. However, every time I questioned her about it she told me it had a logical explanation but she had no time to explain it. So one day I got on her nerves, irritated her and budged out the logic. Supposedly in times of ill lighting, people usually lost their valuable as they swept houses post sun set. As no one actually could clearly identify what was being swept away, people faced a few loses of valuable metals. Thus the superstition stepped in and forced people to give up the habit. This holds no sense today when we all work under electricity and also waste it as much by using it even when not needed.
I go on about a few more superstitions but I think I am way too bored writing about it. Nevertheless, I shall talk about one last thing. I have been questioned various many times about the fact that why Hindus don’t eat beef and why it is a taboo. Of course, the ‘Holy Cow’. But why the ‘Holy Cow’?
I grew up in a Hindu Brahmin family and I know the rules of praying to God at least once a day. So also did I learn about a few things about the Hindu culture and the Hindu mythology. According to it, there are 33 crore Gods a Hindu can pray to and kneel before. Interestingly all these 33 crore Gods reside in a cow and its various parts.
Hindus are believers of love and brotherhood. Not like any other religion or belief’s people and followers aren’t. This is not what I am trying to portray. Coming back, they have been using the cow for centuries now. To them it gives them milk, butter, ghee, it a beast of burden, helps them plough the fields (both the cow and bull) etc. this means that the animal is actually giving them a lot. It was also the main object of barter amongst many communities and also signified wealth to certain other communities. The cow’s skin comes handy as leather when it is dead and the skin of the animal is taken off only after it is dead. When so much was done by an animal, the Hindus decided to show some amount of respect and love towards this animal amongst others. That is how the ban on killing cows for their meat came up from times immemorial (basically since our ancestors gained a sense of things around them and started forming laws) and considered this animal holy and worth preserving.
This animal’s mythological importance gave it another stand still and held it in high priority of preservation and kept it against torture for many years and generations but not throughout.
This is how the cow gained the Holy status and people went about negating it and wanting to have more of the meat of this Holy animal.
These were some of the thoughts that propped up only from looking up at the sky. So far, the bad luck has only been in terms of India losing its first of the three matches against West Indies in the five match series and me suffering from a bad stomach. I don’t think this has been so bad but let’s wait and see how bad this can get!
Until then start thinking of new beliefs and logic to the old superstitions.
