Is believing= Getting conned?

-
In most Indian families, as soon as the daughter of the house turns18 or 20, the family starts looking out for a boy for her. The trick is to catch them young or the proverb of the Early bird catches the worm. So if the man hunt starts early , you will get a good groom. Financial security and good family are two main criterias for a good groom. The groom's grooming, the woman can handle later. When I kept saying No to the boys my parents were showing and a couple of boys rejected him, the family went into a strategy meeting. Two things came out of it. One that my hair was too wild and it made me look modern. So it was decided that I had to tie my hair and put two hair clips to keep in place for every meeting I went for. Secondly, I was too thin. Size zero was not fashionable that time. Solution to that was to take medicines to put on weight.

We had gone to Ahmedabad to see a guy and he rejected me. There was a lot of heartbreak within the family as their daughter lost out on yet another good catch. An Uncle suggested that we visit a Vaid ie an Ayurvedic Doctor, to put on weight. Ayurvedic medicines will not have any side effects. Some syrups were given to be consumed at certain hours. No fruits, no milk and no dryfruits advised. The Doctor's medicines were to be the miracle cure. Alas, I started putting on weight on my face and my stomach. My face erupted into ugly pimples. At that time, I did not even know it was called Acne. I suffered but had the medicines for six months to a year. The syrups were couriered from Ahmedabad every 2 months and I took it dutifully. Now I know how people get taken in by Quacks. Here My family and me were all educated people, atleast graduates, and we got conned into this. Now when I think of it, I am just glad I am alive. God knows what havoc the medicines must have played with my body. Did not manage to catch a guy for many years post that fiasco but the skin was ruined for sure.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nange Paon in Navratri

-
When I was working and staying in the hostel, I kind of stopped believing in most festivals and rituals. I thought all this was some weird things which people did, it had no scientific base and why should I follow anyone. In the college hostel, vacations were time to go home and not connected with any festival except Diwali. Sophia College hostel was a cocoon in the heart of South Mumbai. The campus with an old palace building was a quiet oasis with trees and birds, in the mayhem of Mumbai. No festival touched it unless the college celebrated it. The Polytechnic had rock shows and one Dandiya night every year, which it soon stopped having by 1988. Only celebration was the Vegetable Biryani in lunch on Sundays. The Polytechnic hostel did not even believe in pampering the children with food. Memories of bread being there round the clock for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. For them, while the non vegetarians ate eggs for breakfast, the vegetarian had bread. And then when non vegetaria
Read more

Antakshari

-
Today we were playing antakshari at the Holi get together. We did not know any new songs so naturally only the golden melodies were being sung. The whole generation playing antakshari was singing the similar era songs on the alphabets they got. I realised a couple of things. In English language there is no game like Antakshari. How many sentences end with I or The? How can you sing when most songs start with I, The, Once, When and How?I cannot resist explaining the game, we all grow up with, in India. Antakshari means Ant : end , Akshar: alphabet ie last letter of the word. Akshar also means God. It also means God has the last word. Its a game with two teams and we call the teams as  'party'.  We say "Baithey baithey kya karein, karna hai kuchh kaam, shuru karo antakshari , le ka Hari ka naam." Translated from Hindi, We are sitting idle, lets do some work, lets start antakshari, starting with God's name. In Indian games, there is a lot of religion or belief in Go
Read more

Shraddh period in Hinduism

-
According to the Hindu calendar, this is the shraddh period going on.  For fifteen days in a year, the ancestors are remembered and prayed to. No auspicious events / ceremonies take place in this time. People use the tithi/date of death to invite a Pandit and feed the departed soul. It means you remember the person passed away, give food to the Pandit and the crows. People keep a cooked meal on the terrace. They try to make the favourite food of the departed person. My memories are of my Grandma mixing and crushing all the savouries with her hands and when it was in form of  a paste, my Uncle would go to the terrace and throw the food for the crows. Crows in Hinduism are considered messengers of the departed souls. A lot of people feed Gathiyas to the crows for the full year. If your ancestors are happy, then your life goes well ,is the general belief amongst Hindus. The shraddh period falls exactly between Ganpati and Navratri. One does not buy a house or have a wedding in this time.
Read more