Day 39 - बुरी नज़र

One of the first things that you come across when you become a parent (in India at least) is your mother or grandmother putting a small black mark on the baby or making the baby wear a black thread. The idea behind this is to ward off the evil eyes or बुरी नज़र of people. The concept is that when people see your child and say things like 'So cute', 'so beautiful' etc they are also subconsciously or un-intentionally casting their bad thoughts along with that. They are comparing the cuteness of your child with others and unknowingly passing judgement and sending those negative energy to the child. When the negative energy builds up, it makes the child cranky, angry and un-managebale. The child seems to cry for no reason and starts behaving irrationally like not eating. The black thread or the black mark is supposed to ward off these evil eyes and form a shield over the child.

Now, I pride myself on the fact that I am a very scientific guy. I am sure that for most of the things in this word there is a scientific explanation - barring things like ghosts for which I have a simple funda. I believe in ghosts because I don't want to come up against one. So while agreeing to tie the thread or put the black mark, I was also skeptical about this whole grandmother's tale and mumbo-jumbo.

Till I experienced it myself first hand for which I had no scientific explanation to give.

Sometimes the black mark or the thread is not enough and the negative energy build up over the child. When that happens and the child becomes cranky and crying you can also remove the negative energy and discard it by doing a ritual called नज़र ऊतारना (nazar utarna).

Try this at home. Take a handful of dried red chillies, add a dash of mustard seeds to them and some salt. Put this on a gas burner and light it up. Make sure that you have the exhaust fan on at full blast or you have something covering you nose and eyes as the smoke can cause intense coughing. But if this same combination is passed over a child who has the negative energy and then burnt, you can stand there and breathe in the fumes and nothing will happen to you. I though this was complete mumbo-jumbo.

When Ipsi was 9 months old we went with some friends to Ooty. We went to someone's house one day. Ipsi was absolutely fine in the day but in the night when we tried to feed her, she just kept crying. Finally Ani took the red chili + mustard + salt, passed it over Ipsi's body five times and went to the gas. At the same time the old lady of the house took red chilies and salt, passed it over Ipsi's body and threw it outside. As Ani was getting ready to burn the chili we were all ready to cover our noses. Wonder of wonders - not a whiff of the obnoxious smell came from the gas. When the thing was completely burnt, Ipsi stopped crying and ate her food. That was my first experience of नज़र ऊतारना and I became a believer.

Since then I am an advocate of this ritual and keep telling my fiends to do nazar utarna for their kids if they are looking cute in a new dress or if they have just performed somewhere and everyone has sung their praises or just if the kid is cranky. It works just like it did last night too with Tarush. He had been crying for almost one hour before we did this. No smell and just a few minutes later he was asleep.

What is it? What is the explanation for no fumes? How does it work?

I have no scientific explanation for this but it works! Try it!