Evil Eye

****************************************************************************************************************************

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/John_Phillip_-_The_Evil_Eye_%281859%29.jpg/640px-John_Phillip_-_The_Evil_Eye_%281859%29.jpg

"CM warns of evil eye on survey"

...Front page headline, DC, Hyderabad, 16 August 2014




Evil Eye is due to Envy.

I researched a lot on the subject of envy. And found that it is universal and one can hardly do anything about it other than resort to voodoos and charms.

Our gods envy each other. So do our demons. And gods envy demons. And demons envy gods. Both envy men (and women). And men and women envy each other. 

Satyabhama envied Rukmini. Both of them envied Draupadi for the simple reason that their joint husband gifted Draupadi a hundred Benaresi silk saris when she needed them most in her distress till that epitome of envy, Duhshasan, tired of trying to disrobe her and let go at the hundredth sari.

People are scared of evil eyes in our motherland. Particularly, if they think that someone is casting an evil spell on their prized possessions.  And attribute anything bad that befalls them to the evil eye of their known and unknown enemies, neighbors, and even friends.

There are two ways of tackling the evil eye:

1. Precautions

2. Postcautions


1. Precautions:

Whenever someone here in Hyderabad buys a new car (or house or fridge or TV) they hang across its most visible face a garland made of lemons and chillies:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU3IYYuZMMhY11Hu0VJdmH8cV3UTxOttg0yNhLg49lDg4ADrcktl2n-q2w5vhzUjzTBKEYR8L03MnpYokenYn99biIiz1lcm2iAkg8XC0Mi2VPwspziqfIbR47JNhM-_LAJ1X08sfzXeMF/s1600/9chillies.JPG

And smear the thing with kumkum, haldi and even shoe polish...just to make the beautiful thing look ugly for the nonce.

And break lots and lots of coconuts, and red pumpkins with their innards as red as blood.

This custom is not confined to Hyderabad. Here is a story I read in the Readers Digest (where else?) in the 1960s (someone seems to have cast an evil eye on RD...it is now a skeleton of its good old plump self):

This young African American, who made it good in the Land of Opportunity (no longer sky-high though...some evil eye there on the US too), bought his first car, a brand new white Malibu. And called his mom in Nairobi to break the good news. And his mom at once told him to wring a chicken's neck and smear the bonnet with its blood. The young one said ok but was unwilling. And so he took an egg and placed it on the ground and drove his Malibu on it, thus breaking the chick-to-be and smearing its blood-to-be on his car's tires instead of its bonnet.


When a newborn baby is taken out in its pram in Hyderabad, its mom invariably defaces it (the baby...not the pram unless it is new too) by applying a black katuka (kajal) bindi (dot) on its forehead to a side to break the symmetry and make the baby look as ugly as possible to the onlookers with minimum effort and maximum profit. 

In the wedding ceremonies of Hyderabad, both the bride and the groom are adorned with this bindi on their left and right cheeks respectively.


2. Postcautions:

Whenever I used to get fever or rash or even good marks in my childhood, my mom used to seat me on a chair or a stool and ask me to keep silent till she says ok. And then she would go to her lumber-room and fetch an old and dilapidated broom (carefully preserved) and with her right hand she would turn the broom round and round my silly head and mumble some mumbo jumbo and ask me to keep seated. She would then go to the courtyard and douse the broom with kerosene and light a match to it and wait till it crackles and burns down to cinder. And then she would enter the bathroom and wash her hands and feet and fetch a fistful of water to me and douse my feet with it...and ask me to run.

I often wondered why my mom thought I was an object of envy...I was thin and brown and short...but as the saying goes in Telugu:

"Kaki Pilla Kakiki Muddu"

which roughly means:

"Her chick is lovable to even the crow (ess)"

http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/EA/EA57B1EA-0FB0-423D-870D-4D044AB188FD/Presentation.Large/Hooded-crow-with-chicks.jpg

Once my Grannie was visiting us at our home in Muthukur. And one afternoon she went into the kitchen and bolted her door. And stayed there for an hour and more. 

I was getting suspicious and nervous and asked my mom to let me enter the kitchen and look for Grannie. And mom said it is forbidden for another two hours. And I started crying. And mom took pity on me and opened the door ajar and pushed me in.

And I found Grannie squatting on the floor by an oil lamp and asked me to keep absolutely shut, closing her lips with her forefinger.

I now know what she was doing and why:

Preparation of homemade kajal begins with dipping a clean, white, thin muslin cloth, about four by four inches square, in sandalwood paste or the juice of Alstonia scholaris (Manjal karisilanganni), which is then dried in the shade. This dip and dry process is done all day long. After sunset, a wick is made out of the cloth, which is then used to light a mud lamp filled with castor oil. A brass vessel is kept over the lamp, leaving a little gap, just enough for the oxygen to aid the burning of the lamp. This is left burning overnight. In the morning, one or two drops of pure ghee (clarified cow's butter) or castor oil is added to the soot which now lines the brass vessel. It is then stored in a clean dry box.

All the ingredients used in this preparation (sandalwood/Manjal karsilanganni, castor oil, ghee) are believed to have medicinal properties. They are still used in Indian therapies like ayurveda and Siddha medicines.

In rural Bengal, kajal is made from the "Monosha" plant, a type of succulent spurge (Euphorbia neriifolia). The leaf of Monosha is covered with oil and is kept above a burning diya (mud lamp). Within minutes the leaf is covered with creamy soft black soot which is so safe and sterile that it is even applied to infants.

...wiki 


...Posted by Ishani

**********************************************************************************************************************