India is one of the countries where people believe and practice superstitions. Being the country with so many diversities, the room for many superstitious practise increase.In India, each shop has a lemon and chilies been hanged at some place in the shop, each one of us have heard of the black cat crossing our path as bad omen, saying god bless you after someone sneeze is a ritual almost but have you ever wondered what exactly all this means? Or do these superstitions divert us?
All these superstitions have led each one of us to believe in something and do things that are totally absurd. These all have diverted people from the real issues. It’s also been found that people, as a society pressure, do things which they don’t want to themselves but because of superstition, they tend to do it. This all clearly shows how much one gets influenced by all this. We are blinded by superstition.
A video of Chattisgarh got viral in which people are seen following a ritual. In that hundreds of married women longing to conceive laying down and a group of priests walking over their backs, as this would make them bless them with a child. People blindly following it shows the level of trust people have in bizarre rituals. For every wrong happening with them, they have come up with some or the other superstition practice that would help them fix their problem, be it not been able to find a suitable match, not able to conceive, some illness and everything instead of finding a correct solution, consulting a doctor or the right person all these have been tackled with an absurd practise.
Mind you, these practices aren’t only in villages or under developed areas, but even the most educated people are seen following it with all their will.
Do we really need to take up the past rituals?
Hundreds of years ago, the world was totally different, less resources, less knowledge, less assets and fewer facilities. But today we have so many facilities and other things. We really need to not take up all the ill practices. Believing in God is another thing and blindly doing something out of pressure is different. As we are going towards modernization we should try to eradicate all these things as much as possible to lead India towards development and not succumb to malpractices being done under the namesake of religion or God.
HOW WOMEN ARE BEEN RIDICULED UNDER THESE SUPERSTITIONS AND RITUALS
Ever since a girl starts menstruating she has been told a ton of things to not do for those 7 days. The blood is considered impure and hence this is the reason behind all the restrictions imposed on girls and women. From not entering into the Kitchen to not even roam near temples. There exist some households in remote areas where girls are secluded from all the normal doings of the day, they are made to sit in a separate room, given particular food, asked not to touch the pickle etc.
There do exist some rituals which are made on a logic like girls/ women are asked to not wash their hair for the first four days of the periods as after washing the hair the temperature of the body goes down and hence there is not a proper flow of blood.
But the other things mentioned above clearly need to be ridden off. Women under these religious rituals are oppressed and made to feel worse both mentally and physically.
And this doesn’t end here, in earlier days and even still in some places women undergo sati pratha.
Sati Pratha is an old ritual used to take place specially in villages and one or two cases still can be seen in some remote areas where women after their husband passes away are burnt in the same funeral, as it is believed women have no right to live once their husband dies.
These are few among the millions of malpractices being done under the namesake of God and religion which needs to be stopped right now.
Some other superstitions/ rituals activities have a scientific reason.
To not sleep in north direction
People are told to not sleep in the direction of the North as it is scientifically believed that our head has magnetic waves and earth is a big magnet, north pole has a magnetic force which attracts iron present in our blood which assembles towards our head which also has a probability to lead to high blood pressure, brain stroke, brain hemorrhage, etc.
Putting Tika in the forehead
As a post pooja ritual, Hindus apply tika on the center of the forehead with a belief that it helps us to concentrate well.
Festivals, Pooja, Fasting mostly occur during Monsoon
As it is believed that during Monsoon, our digestive system doesn’t function properly and hence fasting could help in improving it
Throwing coins into the river.
In India and also in many other countries people are seen throwing coins into the river the logic behind this is as earlier in Ancient times currency were made out of copper a metal which is crucial for our body and throwing the coin in the river would help people to consume the copper through the water they take out from river to drink hence helping them to intake Copper.
Written by – Rituja Roy
Edited by – Priyanka Sukhwani
Flawlessly Quoted 💫🎊❣️