Dare to step on lime and green chillies?

Despite all the scientific progress our society has made, we instinctively follow some superstitions. Is there anything wrong with the seemingly harmless superstitions? Archita Wagle reports

You could be walking and suddenly see a lemon and some green chillies tied to a string lying on the road. Your first instinct is to avoid it. You may not even stop to think why you are avoiding it. You just do. If you take a moment to consider what you believe is just an old wives tale or superstition that lime and chillies lying on the road have been used to ward off bad luck.

Such superstitious beliefs have been with us as long as we can remember. We may have never questioned their origins or verified how real they are. We just accepted them as something we follow. And this belief in touching wood and applying a black dot to ward off the eagle eye has not decreased no matter how much we have progressed scientifically.

This attitude needs to be changed according to Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS). Set up in 1989 and having 180 branches all over India, MANS is dedicated to eradicating superstitions from our lives.

But what is the harm in following silly old superstitions that harm nobody? As Vandana Pai, a working mother of two says, “I believe that there is God and I follow all the rituals which have been taught to me. I have come to no harm following these superstitions like stepping over a lemon, but I don’t believe in black magic”.

“The idea that there is no harm in following some superstition as long as it is not harmful is what is worrying,” says Narendra Dabholkar, executive president, MANS.

But can we discount faith and its powers.

“Faith does play an important part as it gives people the strength to go ahead, but it is important to take care that the person doesn’t bank on that faith alone,” says clinical psychologist Samindara Sawant. Sawant also says that the person should be made to realise that while faith may play a role, it is the person who ultimately has the power to change his life.

Man is a thinking animal who can rationalise his actions and beliefs. Over the years we have also devised scientific explanations for most of the things like the movement of the sun and stars we thought were miracles of God. After such progress, beliefs in superstitions pull a man back to where he started from.

But could some of these superstitions be based on some scientific fact? Dabholkar is sharp in his denials. All superstitions like pregnant women being harmed if they go out during an eclipse are just old wives tales and have no base in science. Even miracles performed by babas and sadhus are nothing but sleight of hand. In fact, so confident is MANS about their beliefs that they have offered Rs1,10, 000 as a reward for anyone who can duplicate their miracles in controlled test conditions. Many years earlier, the late well-known sceptic Abraham Kuvoor had put forward a similar challenge to Sathya Sai Baba, which was never taken up.

Would education help to stop such practices? Dabholkar and other sceptics agree that education helps, but cautions that along with education we need to develop a scientific attitude which is lacking in the current generation. As far as belief in superstitions is concerned, there is no urban-rural divide say experts. Mitali Soni, a media executive believes that India lost the 2003 world cup finals because her lucky tricolour bracelet broke before the finals. “It may have been the players’ fault that they didn’t play well, but I always wonder what would have happened if my bracelet hadn’t broken.”

It is such attitudes which need to be changed. Dabholkar relates an incident which occurred regularly in a small village near Latur.  Every Ashadi Ekadashi the villagers would throw down their few months-old babies down from the temple dome. This practice was a result of the navas the people used to offer the deity for the well-being of their babies which was stopped by the MANS.

Sceptics say that people’s faith is what makes them gullible and open to superstitions.
Dabholkar gives an example of public festivals being used as a platform for politicians to increase their vote banks by playing on people’s dharmic emotions. He says that political parties like Shiv Sena “who think that they are the custodians of people’s religious beliefs” have been opposing the Maharashtra Eradication of Black Magic, Evil and Aghori Practices Bill, 2005 (the first of its kind to be drafted in the country) as it could go against them.

Arguments come from both sides about how good or bad superstitions can be. But it is high time that people stop basing their decisions on such superstitions. After all “a general can’t win a war if he turns back because a black cat crossed his path”.
w_archita@dnaindia.net