bhaktiman

I committed to myself that I would write daily, as usual, in vain. With too much mood swings and the stupid ideas that keep popping up, holding on to the time and reality had been difficult all these days. Now, somehow my hands are on my keypads. Hopefully I would continue my commitment…

Vanakkam. En Peru Mowgli, enakku innoru peru irukku, bhakthimaan.

I am from a middle class family. My grandfather was a farmer. My father moved to city for job and then married a city girl and got settled there only. I am the first and last generation which had half village and half city background. This village and city dint matter when it came to god. We have at least 16 festivals in 12 months in our religion other than that we also celebrate other religion festivals for the biriyani and cake.

I was not grown like mowgli in a forest by some other parents. I was named after a god and I was destined to be a bhakthiman, follower of god. During my school days I would wake up with my grandfather at 4’o clock, bath in cold water and go to temple during all 30 days before pongal as it was the month of margzhi. In our village we had big speaker sets to announce small donations that people give. One uncle with salt paper voice would do the announcement in stage tamizh and I would give some murugan/amman song casettes, to hear my name on speaker.

My dad goes to minimum3 temples daily before he goes to work, this is excluding the prayer time he spends in home and company before the photos of god. My maternal grandfather also has a similar kind of routine. My uncle, aunty, enemy, friend, uncle’s father, auntie’s brother, anyone you name, all were having similar kind of routine, at the most the difference was in the time and who their favourite god was.

The daily routine would be something like this, man of the house, after bathing would come inside home with his towel around the waist, stand in front of god photos and does all the prayers before getting dressed and eat. Then on the way to work he would go to some temples, then after reaching work place pray in front of the god photos there with freshly bought flowers. Woman of the house, would begin with a kolam in front of the home, making tea, breakfast, bathe children, pack food for all, send them to school, then finish all other work, go for a bath, then come pray god and sit to watch serial or go talk to neighbors.

I grew up seeing all this. I am a good follower, like all Indians. I did all the same things like man of the house. Everyone was very happy that I am being so faithful to god. I never missed prayers and would recite so many small books that my dad would buy for me. I very strongly believed in god and trusted so much that if you believe him and only him everything will happen.

I was studying fourth standard. I had two best friends, Narayanan and Karthi.  We would all go together wherever we go and would crack jokes together. Only a small definition of best friendship was that I was sticking with them where ever they went, as they were one of the toppers like me and spoke nicely about many things.

For first time my grandfather had bought me a purse, wallet. I had a photo of god in it and little change. I got that purse after seeing Narayanan and Karthi having it.

On that wonderfully fateful day, my purse fell down. I was playing around the class. While running I stamped on the god’s photo that was there in my purse. It had fallen and opened up to show Shiva’s family photo. My shoes foot print was left on it. Narayanan and Karthi had seen it, as they were only chasing me.

I was very sorry for stamping god’s photo. I was praying and telling sorry to Shiva’s family. They both were telling I am going to be punished. No way to escape. Narayanan was from a Brahmin family, so asked him what I should do.

He told that god’s are angry on me. Showed the photo and told that the circle behind their head has turned red, now there is no way out, I will be punished severely. I asked how to cool them down. While going back home in bus he told me what to do. I stopped talking to all and was just closing eyes and praying. Those two were preventing others to talk from and explaining what had happened in detail.

I went home worried. Removed clothes and shoes, put them for washing, polished my shoe and kept, kept my tiffin box opened at washing place, washed face and changed dress, asked mom for a tumblr of milk and went into our bedroom cum prayer room. We were living in a 1 BHK home, so bedroom is where all our god photos were kept.

My sister was playing, I removed the god photo from my purse, kept in a small vessel, then with the milk that my mother gave for drinking, I was telling all the prayers and pouring it on the photo. I was literally shitting in my trousers; my mother thought that I have become too serious and since it is god she didn’t ask any question. My sister went out playing. I was there doing this for nearly half hour and another half hour saying prayers and waiting to see if the red hallo behind Shiva’s head goes off, but it was getting brighter I felt.

The whole evening I was just seeing the photo every 5 minutes, no use, the halo was red. I never stopped reciting prayers. Next day also this prayer continued, but my mom didn’t give more milk. Narayanan told I have to face my fate. I thought my world was coming to end.

After two days, weekend started, I went to my parental grandparent’s home in village. I hugged my grandmother and slept hearing my grandfather reading stories for us. After that I forgot about it.

Later in my life I started seeing all god’s photos and found a halo behind their head, so I soothed that how Narayanan had misguided me. It is been more than a decade since I went to a temple for praying, I go for the food or sometimes to see my girl or the architecture. Recently the architecture in the olden temples is interesting to me.  

Now I am fan of anbesivam…

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