Yesterday when I was speaking with my granny, she mentioned that she bought ammi(stone blender ?) and sekku ( stone grinder) for my mother. I was confused why my mother would need them as she already has electric grinder and mixer. My granny said these things were traditionally mandatory in any house. I asked her why were they mandatory, we weren’t using them anymore. She got irritated and finally told me not to ask stupid questions.
I started thinking how many such superstitious beliefs that I know of and followed. Most of these were part of my childhood days. I am recollecting a few things in this post.
We have many beliefs on snakes like, as kids, we were forbidden to say the word ‘Snake’. Incase if anyone says that aloud then immediately she/he has to say the following “Snake God, I have done wrong by saying the forbidden word, please do not bite me instead bite the stone that I am offering you now’. We used to believe that if we harma snake and if it tries to bite us but we escaped, then that evening it will go to the graveyard to check if we were dead. If there were no death procession then it will come back for revenge.
There were many others related to Gods & Demons. We were not supposed to go under a tamarind tree at noon as that was the time when ghosts (mohini pisaasam) woke up hungry. There was an abandoned three story building in our village and we were not allowed to go and play because of the ghost that owns that building. There was another old house which was locked for so many years ( due to asset problem among kin’s) and rumor was if any blood is spilled when crossing that house immediately it will disappear because the old lady ghost will drink it and it will follow us to drink all our blood. There was another such story about a local deity in our street. They say that God would walk on the streets exactly at midnight to keep away evils and He will be very angry at that time. If any crosses His path that time, He will hit the person and the person would die of vomiting blood. I remember the fear I felt to get up even for rest room if we sleep outside.
The kids’ fear fantasies has few other things like if we bumped our heads against each other, then horn will grow if we didn’t balance it with one more bump ( yeah, the same thing that cute Genilia says in Bommerillu ). We shouldn’t jump over anyone’s stretched legs; we shouldn’t eat seeds because tree would grow through belly. Elders would say that if a gal eats lot of raw rice then it would rain heavily during their marriage.
Not only for kids, there many such beliefs among elders too. A near by grocery store owner wont sell needles after 6 pm. My granny would scold if we comb our hair sitting on the door steps; we should not sweep and throw garbage after 6 pm. She would explain that if we did so, the evil will enter into our house sitting in the empty dustbin.
What ever I have mentioned are just a few. When I think about most of them don’t make any sense at all. Some are no- sense in today’s lifestyle, some may have evolved into a completely non-sense practice in course of time.
But I strongly believe there must have been some reasoning behind all these. These in a good sense are sweet things that one can recollect at any point of their life time bringing a corner simile either how innocent were we or how funny were these to think & talk about. And I would love to know any such things that you have practiced / are practicing … for serious or for fun. :)
