Those innocent votives of our childhood

 

Indians by nature are quite pious and God fearing. The number of temples, mosques and churches that exist in our country is a testimony to the fact. And as a community of believers, largely, we also believe and indulge in vows and votives as a matter of routine.

From climbing up 14 kilometers barefoot to the Vaishno Devi shrine, to offering a gold or diamond studded crown at Tirupati; or offering a certain number of candles at a church to doing ‘kar seva’ at a Gurudwara; tying a thread or offering a ‘chadar’ at a dargah to adorning the temple deity with a garland of ‘vadas’. It is up to the individual’s capacity and faith and the list is endless. And of course, the sentiment seems to be religion-agnostic.

I grew up in a very traditional Tamil Iyer family, where every aunt and most of the cousins were amateur astrologers and all of them would remember a Hindu calendar day, the auspicious hour or otherwise, the birth star of each member of this 100-strong family – without ever referring to an almanac or a diary. It was just a way of life for them. While all that science continued to intrigue me, I could not retain much of that arithmetic to build that skill for myself. Nevertheless, the whole environment made me a strong believer in vows and votives.

So, my vows and votives would be for as small a cause as not doing my homework in the school and praying for the teacher not to check the notebooks that day. That was of course, when I missed doing my homework for the first time. Later I became much bolder. So, the votive was not to ever eat jaggery from our kitchen store clandestinely. Though, within a few minutes, that ‘ever’ was revised to ‘one week’ quite sheepishly. But God understood my predicament and the teacher indeed not check the notebook that day.

But most memorable votive that comes to my mind involves my elder brother. During our summer vacations, we would go to Chennai and stay at our maternal grand-father’s house. My maternal uncle (Mani Mama) used to have a large aquarium with different colourful fishes. On one of our visits, I would have been around 12 years at that time, my brother took fancy to this hobby and after a few days of persistence, countering all logical reasoning, could convince our father to carry some fishes from Chennai to Kanpur.

Moore market in Chennai, in those days, was a paradise for shoppers of rare old books, curios, antiques and pets. This had a street full of aquariums with exotic varieties of sea creatures, including plants, corals and fishes. We had been to this place with Mani mama in the past but that day we went with a different swag altogether. We bought a medium sized aquarium and a few varieties of fishes – gold fish, red sword tail, black molly, fighter fish and guppies - as these were supposed to be more stable and had a good probability of survival through our long journey.

As we boarded the train with some excitement and a lot of anxiety, my brother (@SunderIyer) confided to me that he had taken a vow that upon safe transit of these fishes he would, as a votive offering, drink a little of that water in the aquarium. I was taken aback but was supposed to keep that to myself so I didn’t react. The 48-hour journey was full of activity – changing water, dropping the powder feed twice a day, making sure the container was not shaking too much and was secured on sides etc.

Upon reaching home in Kanpur, we successfully transferred the fishes to fresh Kanpur water and most of them (not sure if all) indeed survived the long journey. And as per the vow, my brother picked a spoonful of that stinking, fishy water from the aquarium and drank. As a show of solidarity with him I too picked a few drops and drank. The whole night I was worried about the repercussions of drinking that smelly water but got up next morning without any problems, hale and hearty. 

We expanded our pet family further over the years until my brother left Kanpur for a job in Delhi. We also inspired a few friends into this hobby and one of them (@VivekBisaria) confirmed to me a few days back that even after a good 40 years, he was still having a large aquarium in his living room with those colourful stress-busting fishes.

My faith in vows and votives has continued to date.  Some for materialistic desires and some for sheer peace of mind. But the innocence and honesty of those childhood votives and the faith built on them has indeed shaped my character. It helps me retain my faith on the righteous path and gives me strength when the chips are down.