“I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” wrote T.S. Eliot. This is what one finds in confirmation at the Yamuna ghat where aghories and tantrics are found, supposedly raising devils from the river sand at midnight. A man named Kapoor went to a tantric seeking help from his archrival, Gupta (both names changed). He had learnt that the opponent was preparing to release a blood handi (vessel full of blood) which would go flying to cause his death. The tantric asked Kapoor to find another tantric who could ward off the fatal handi by reciting the appropriate mantra to reverse its direction. The other long-held belief is that if a person sees such a handi (in which is a wooden liver and heart submerged in blood that keeps rotating while the handi is in motion) he should sit up and tell the occult vessel to return to the one who sent it. Then the charm is reversed and the rival has little chance of escape. This piece of research has been done by Vijay N. Shankar of Alaknanda Apartments. Shankar has spent close to five years on such subjects and the result is his treatise, “Shadow Boxing with the Gods”.
Another reference by him is to the djinns of Ferozeshah Kotla. When a businessman fell asleep in the Kotla gardens, a djinn who lived nearby appeared to him in a dream and asked the man to get a sackful of charcoal as an offering. The businessman did so and on the next day, a Thursday (sacred to djinns) felt so tired that he fell asleep. Late in the evening when he got up he found that the charcoal had turned into gold coins. Then there was a homeopath of Gali Bathashan in the Walled City who practiced in a clinic full of dust some years ago. A patient who asked him why he didn’t clean the place was told that a djinn had appeared to him when he used to work as a tailor and told him to cure people instead with a special powder he recommended and also never to clear the dust in which the djinn said he had taken up abode. The patient was given three small sachets of the powder and assured that he would be cured, without the need of a second visit. Hard to believe but not for the one who underwent the cure.
A Tamilian astrologer Shankar chanced to meet had with him palm leaves on which were inscribed in an ancient Tamil script prophecies regarding any individual who happened to seek urgent help. Called Nadi leaf it is believed to have been written upon by Agastya (the Puranic rishi who crossed the Vindhya range into South India never to return again to the North). Thousands of such leaves are stored in neatly stringed bundles to facilitate sifting by astrologer families in and around the Vaitheeswaram temple of Chennai. Besides fortune telling the Nadi readers also suggest curative measures to overcome problems of karma. The Ganda Nadi talks of a person’s past, present and future and is mostly concerned with material needs. A contrast to them are the Haridwar registers. The pandas or pandits there show pilgrims who seek their help signed messages written by their forefathers during earlier visits. How they do it is a closely guarded secret of the pandas who have been living on the Ganga banks for hundreds of years. However modern-day pandas, who have taken to computers and smartphones, are sometimes willing to talk about the mystery. There are thousands of red cloth bound registers called Lal Kitab marked with symbols, noting town, family surname and address. When a visitor mentions the name of his forebear and town of origin, the panda is able to find the relevant red book and satisfy his curiosity. This indigenous and ingenious system has worked for centuries.
There is no fear of terror involved here unless one antagonises the pandas. But not so in a Kali temple, where earlier human and now animal sacrifice are made. A holy man much respected by the author, had this to say: “These things crept into religious practices because of powerful priests who have always used fear to overawe followers.” Eliot had been much influenced by Eastern thought and precepts, ending his famous work, The Wasteland with the words, “Ahom Shanti, Shanti”. And that’s what probably banishes fear as perceived by the poet.
The author is a veteran chronicler of Delhi
