Sakuna

A cat crossed my path at the very start of the day’s journey and I could not do anything about it- I was on a bike. I should have stopped and turned thrice in a circle and should then only have continued. That’s how my highly religious father in law would have done if he had experienced the same situation. (You don’t have to be a genius to know which community he belongs to.)

But the problem was you could not do it sitting on a bike in a narrow lane. I tried though, I pictured turning around thrice in the air and let it go at that. The cat of course was black. A sure sign of the devil for the westerners we do not believe in the devil in India. Some also ask whether the devil would ever dare approach our very own BhaDra Kali.

She is the ultimate in evil as well as good. Those familiar with her depiction in pictures would laugh at the portrayal of devil in the west-The poor fella, with hooves and two horns and a tail.

Really In conception and in visualization of evil the ancient Indians out did most of the races in the world because they recognized evil as an inseparable part of the world as well as the good. They even wanted to go beyond good into the realm of the pure knowledge.

But coming back to the subject at hand don’t you think I should have turned around in a circle thrice? How could anyone have proceeded further without doing that!

There are people who are like that in this country. Yes even in the 21st millennium. So I was not entirely joking you see.

Well in my case I use such beliefs to a good extend when I have to find an excuse to not to go to some place. If the situation was like that today I would have gladly returned home and told every one that I saw a bad ‘Sakuna’. That would be the end of discussion.

The fact is that normally we Indians believe in such trash even from the highest officials in the state to the lowest menial in the land- not officially of course. One of our former prime ministers would not move an inch unless he was told by an astrologer to do it. The strangest thing was that the guy was considered to be a highly intelligent man.

Once comrade EMS Namboodirippad (the then undisputed left intellectual of our land) commented that we would only send a space rocket away after splitting (breaking) a coconut at the altar of the god of impediments, the “Ganapathy”. May be that is true. Our superstations run deep down.

We take every thing as connected. It might be that we get a glimpse into the future through the animate and inanimate world that we see around when we start off to do something of importance. I haven’t yet guessed how we became so important to the universe to show us such signs. Yet there it is.

It is believed that first thing we see when we step out of our houses would determine the effects of the entire day for us. A cat crossing the path is the worst possible sight you can see when you have just stepped out of the house to go somewhere.

But why? I have no idea as yet. May be there are some ‘Sastra’s ‘to the effect. The fact is that I hate all such Sastra’s and do not look for their verification in my life but at the same time if some one was there to point out the Sakuna for me I might feel a inner sense of security or in security. These are deeply rooted and are difficult to dislodge.

Such beliefs have led us backward.

No wonder the Great Buddha wanted to ditch the whole system and start a new one. In this land, there is a ‘sastra’ for everything. Sastra’s could be found even advising or explaining situation in which you could kill and commit incest. Only the very gullible among human believes in such strange sciences. The strange fact is that almost ninety percent of us are gullible! And the wicked makes use of this gullibility to good effect.

These Sastra’s are good for very selfish ends and ends there. Is there any wonder the land is languishing still. They are coming back in a big way now. The progress of science and the explosion of information has drive people into the alters of forgotten gods and practices.

There are people who holds steadfast to those anachronistic sastra’s and swears by them. These serve their purposes. They still fill their coffers and keep them pretty popular among the ignorant. They would like to keep us in the dark ages of the world.

There is absolute bliss in ignorance