Count your blessings
I hear that a new kind of fakir is emerging in Punjab: the foul-mouthed fakir.
These fakirs are treated like any other sufi murshid, or a holy man. The curious thing is that the only blessing they give their devotees is abuse!!
Yes, I said, abuse. The maa-ki, behen-ki kind of abuse.
The devotees calmly accept this abuse as 'prasad', or a blessing. There's a system at work here, whereby swear-words get entangled with numerology, so that the grateful, abused devotee will count furiously on his fingers, attaching a number to the abuse, and try to guess at predictions or divine omens from this number.
There have even been reports wherein, a certain fakir called out 'Saala Behenchod!' by way of blessing.
The confused devotee said, "Baba, I have two sisters... which one was this abuse directed at?"
(And I totally swear that I am not making this up.)
Hi Annie:
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Kathmandu!
This is going to be a general comment. Just thought I’d let you know that I found your ‘blog’ through an Internet search a couple of weeks ago. Have been reading your 2005 stories with great interest.
But so sorry about your awful experience with the Kathmandu cops in August 2003. As a journalist, you seem to have encountered similar other incidents; hope they have been enriching as an experience, albeit being unpleasant.
Well, may I just say you are a great writer? Keep writing and all the best!
Hikmat (hikmat.khadka@gmail.com)
P.S. Was in Delhi for a few days in February (and travelled to Dehradun with Shatabdi); I wish I had known about you then!
greetings too
ReplyDeleteall experiences are just that - experiences. Enrichment... remains to be seen.
Thanks for the compliments, though I suspect your spam-arrival percentage just shot up a few dozen times. :)
See, I know what Saala means, and I know what Behenchod means, but I can't for the life of me figure out what they mean together...I mean literally, of course I get the idea, but what does it mean literally?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I love Indian swear words and curses :) I use them on auto drivers all the time here and they have no clue what I'm saying...
Thanks, Annie. There's so much stuff on the Internet on/about you. Will look forward to reading your poetry, as well as the stories I haven't been able to read.
ReplyDeleteYou are a terrific writer, really.
Must share a secret with you. You and I have a common friend - Prateebha (she doesn't know I have told you this!).
Good luck again!
Is there a way of reporting/boycotting a Blogger?
ReplyDeleteI recommend we do that to "chaudes" since he is seriously violating the sanctity of blogs.