I was born Hindu. I always thought it was one religion, just like Christianity and Islam. Hinduism for me was going to a temple occasionally. I don't remember the occasions, just that we did go. And every visit was somehow lots of fun. Like a picnic. Once we even climbed a hill on horses. And there was a cave we had to slide in on our belly.
"This cave was created by an arrow!"
My jaw must have dropped open, because my mother asked me to close it. Her point was that there was someone coughing in the cave just ahead of us.
We could stand up in the cave. There was a stream running through it, that did not go out the way we had come in as the entrance was raised. But the stream was definitely flowing. And it was pitch dark, with just a faint light in the distance. Then my sister, who was just five or six years old at the time, fell into the water. And I remember a lot of yelling and screaming. My mother was on her hands and knees in the water. I too bent down to see whether she was in the water near me. The water was ice cold. And then Dad plucked her out of the water. It was the third time I had seen someone pluck my sister out of the water. For my Dad, this was his second rescue. My brother who was just behind me missed all the excitement.
We reached the end of the cave rather abruptly. There was a murti or two probably. Maybe three. Maybe it was just the jagged shape of the rock wall at the end of the cave.
"Mataji", someone announced, as if he had just met his mother.
The pujari gave us coins, which was surprising. Dad did not believe in the concept of pocket money, and here was Mataji giving us a just that.
"How did she know what I wanted most?"
Actually , I did not want the money. What I really wanted was a toy bus, a double decker, painted in garish red and yellow and blue. One that I had noticed on our last visit to the bazaar. For me, prayer always meant putting your hands together and asking for something you desired. Period. And when my dad saw me struggling with what to do with the coins in my palm.
"Ask Devi for whatever you want!"
"Anything?"
"Yes, anything!"
I asked for the red and yellow and blue double decker bus. There was a picture of it in my mind's eye, as clear as I was looking at it at the shop. I didn't exactly ask for the "red and yellow and blue double decker bus", I just asked for a bus. I was pretty sure mataji could read my mind. Not that this was a Hindu concept or that was what I was taught growing up. I just decided that! Spur of the moment thing.
Hinduism for me was always about what grandma said not to do.
"Don't put your feet up on the dining table."
"Don't cut your nails after dusk."
Mostly it was "Have you washed you hands?".
I never understood the fuss about cleanliness.
Dad used to say that there was a lot of superstition in our tradition, but that there was meaning underlying the superstition. It was one of the big words I encountered early in life. "Superstition". I did not understand it. I instinctively knew it was something important. The image in my mind was of Superman at some railway station though. I did not attempt to even begin to understand Hinduism for another fifty years.
There was no such thing as "Hinduism".
"This cave was created by an arrow!"
My jaw must have dropped open, because my mother asked me to close it. Her point was that there was someone coughing in the cave just ahead of us.
We could stand up in the cave. There was a stream running through it, that did not go out the way we had come in as the entrance was raised. But the stream was definitely flowing. And it was pitch dark, with just a faint light in the distance. Then my sister, who was just five or six years old at the time, fell into the water. And I remember a lot of yelling and screaming. My mother was on her hands and knees in the water. I too bent down to see whether she was in the water near me. The water was ice cold. And then Dad plucked her out of the water. It was the third time I had seen someone pluck my sister out of the water. For my Dad, this was his second rescue. My brother who was just behind me missed all the excitement.
We reached the end of the cave rather abruptly. There was a murti or two probably. Maybe three. Maybe it was just the jagged shape of the rock wall at the end of the cave.
"Mataji", someone announced, as if he had just met his mother.
The pujari gave us coins, which was surprising. Dad did not believe in the concept of pocket money, and here was Mataji giving us a just that.
"How did she know what I wanted most?"
Actually , I did not want the money. What I really wanted was a toy bus, a double decker, painted in garish red and yellow and blue. One that I had noticed on our last visit to the bazaar. For me, prayer always meant putting your hands together and asking for something you desired. Period. And when my dad saw me struggling with what to do with the coins in my palm.
"Ask Devi for whatever you want!"
"Anything?"
"Yes, anything!"
I asked for the red and yellow and blue double decker bus. There was a picture of it in my mind's eye, as clear as I was looking at it at the shop. I didn't exactly ask for the "red and yellow and blue double decker bus", I just asked for a bus. I was pretty sure mataji could read my mind. Not that this was a Hindu concept or that was what I was taught growing up. I just decided that! Spur of the moment thing.
Hinduism for me was always about what grandma said not to do.
"Don't put your feet up on the dining table."
"Don't cut your nails after dusk."
Mostly it was "Have you washed you hands?".
I never understood the fuss about cleanliness.
Dad used to say that there was a lot of superstition in our tradition, but that there was meaning underlying the superstition. It was one of the big words I encountered early in life. "Superstition". I did not understand it. I instinctively knew it was something important. The image in my mind was of Superman at some railway station though. I did not attempt to even begin to understand Hinduism for another fifty years.
There was no such thing as "Hinduism".
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