DON’T do something you’ll regret on january first (you’ll repeat the same throughout the year)
DON’T forget to pray at least once a day (those who don’t pray are not pious and sincere)
DON’T cut your nails on tuesdays, fridays and saturdays
DON’T give or take money with your left hand
DON’T sit at the doorway (that’s where the devil stays)
DON’T enter the puja room wearing your chappals
DON’T touch pickles when you are having your periods (the pickles will go stale)
DON’T cut your hair after 7 pm or on saturdays, and certainly NOT before amavasya
DON’T look into the mirror when you’re applying oil to your hair
DON’T sit in front of elders showing them your feet (it means disrespect)
DON’T venture out in the afternoons alone (not with your hair open, it invites lost souls)
DON’T do this, don’t do that…

give me a scientific reason for any ONE of these, and i’ll believe anything you want me to.

this was the argument between my parents and me about two months back, and they still don’t have the answers. because there really aren’t any.

psst! actually, i think they know it too 😉

today, my parents wanted to visit the mahalaxmi temple in kolhapur, and they asked me if i’d accompany them. since i had nothing else to do, i agreed.

the movie lasted for almost 40 minutes…
the actors were all who were inside the temple premises. there was just one spectator: me.

they saw their answers in the deity, i could see beauty in the stone;
they chanted mantras and prayers, i could hear the soothing vibrations that the words created;
they went three times around the main temple, i saw their longing to remain with those vibrations;
they sat around in the temple distributing prasad and pedas, i saw their means to earn a one-time meal;
they drooled at girls with greedy eyes (even before they crossed the temple gates); i saw that they were the kind of men who could turn into animals.

they were only humans, and there was no god.

it was a strange experience. i knew i had changed.

having been in this role for almost 25 years, i now cannot act anymore.