Healing by faith: The holy nectar of the holy city

But we in Amritsar do a lot of this stuff. Our irrigation canals are pregnant with sackfuls of barley, coal, coconuts, even lead, and coins. There is a thing about running water and its bounty if you feed it right. So, the pundits and the palmists, the tainted tantric and the fortune teller, all have totkas (mumbo jumbo) for you, things to do to nail any issue. Burying earthenware pots filled with sugar into the soil, nailing in silver squares into neem trees, or toasting things on charcoal to be released into a river, to name a few. Stuff from laal kitaabs, patris and zodiac signs, tarot cards, or palm reads. We hang chilies and lemons in doorways to keep away bad omen; even demon masks, and swear by you, footwear, and old tyres on new building facades. This is apart from the voodoo, the occult rites, and the darker stuff which does happen as well. All those packets that you find at crossroads wishing away the misfortune of a few by distributing it amongst many, the passers-by, not realising that the deed will come back to haunt you one way or the other.

The Amritsari will make beelines with green chadars on mazaars of sufi saints on Thursdays, much as they will carry laddoos, mushrooms, milk, and lentils as offerings to mandirs on other days, and yet be at the gurudwaras for the evening kirtan and prasad. For every particular wish there is a favoured shrine, and thus for those looking for a generous fertility boost there is the Mata Lal Devi shrine. Bearing a semblance to Mata Vaishno Devi guffa (cave), resplendent with mirrors, this shrine is visited by young folks in hordes. And amidst all these motley beliefs there is the faith that heals.

Yesterday a gentlemen came from the capital for a business meeting. Our conversations turned to family and friends, of all those we lost during the pandemic, one that continues to bog our existence. He talked about the scourge hitting his family, especially one of the kids with earlier health issues. It was a conversation from the heart. As natives of this city, the first thing that comes to our mind is the sacred waters from the Amrit Sarovar, the pool of nectar, around which Amritsar was established. Off went someone to the Golden Temple. Back came a small bottle of the sacred waters, the 100 millilitres that the airlines allow, for the child. This and the prayers, the prasaad and the siropa (the blessed saffron scarf) from the Harmandir.

It made me reflect upon my worst time with health decades ago when, grounded by an accident that injured my spine, and way too much stress from work, thus ridden with acute spondylosis too, I lay knocked out in my car at midday seeing stars in the sky. Hope fled as I passed out. Forty-five minutes later I surfaced to find that I had survived the starlit midday. Reflex action had made me slam the brakes and switch the car off before slipping into the netherworld. And so, begins the story.

Harbans Singh was a tall and dark sardar with a dignified presence. With a spine brace across my abdomen and a collar for neck aches, I was a picture of pain, much like Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in Pink Panther. Jokes apart, even as he drove in the heat of June, I would make him stop every furlong unable to take the pain of movement, walk a few steps sweating profusely, and then return to the car. Desperate I urged Harbans to heed no contrary instruct from me and head for the Harmandir nonstop. With his assistance, I walked a quarter of the circumambulatory till we reached Dukh Bhanjani Sahib.

As I stepped down the steps and stood in the sacred waters, I said my prayers, took off my abdominal brace first and then my neck collar, sprinkled the miraculous waters upon myself generously. And never wore the braces again.

That faith heals is a matter of belief, that miracles happen as happenstance or as destined may be debatable, that it did happen is true. I came home and slept peacefully for a full 12 hours. This after 72 hours of sleep deprivation due to sheer agony. There are innumerable narratives that affirm that faith does heal. Scientists I am told believe that the molecular structure of water at places of worship actually changes, the aura of the place, the vibes of positivity, and the sheer power of prayer apart. So, the belief that Amrit, Ishnaan, and meditation do work, is a belief enshrined and sealed by history.

My sister has had incredible experiences that yet again affirm the notion. She was born with a set of teeth that belied imagination, ingrained as they were into her jawline, seeking a peek into her sinuses and even pressing upon each other like parasitic trees upon a banyan. Amazingly her smile was always refreshing and her dimples deep and radiant, hiding the jungle within. A leading dentist of yesteryears and a local maxillofacial surgeon almost demolished her entire eating apparatus as if they were nine-pining at the bowling alley. A prayer where all get comfort, thence a sudden chancing upon a doc in Bengaluru, rescued the remnant canines and front few. She needed the strength of belief many a time including the frozen shoulder circumstance. An inspired and budding intern at the university all but plucked her arm out by force from her shoulder joint. But that’s another story.

I know of many, including my wife’s parents, who have sworn by the power of the Amrit Jal, the waters from the Harmandir, throughout their lifetime. For decades one has carried or sent jal to them and to countless others for comfort. In fact, the waters from the five sarovars within the walled city are considered to have fivefold powers, a Holy Quinternity. Something like a turbo charge on holy water potential when conjoined. The sarovars are Ram Sar, Bibek Sar, Santokh Sar, Kaul Sar and Amrit Sar, and the combined effect is considered supreme.

And let us not forget the wells. There were dozens earlier, well known to have medicinal powers. However, most of them have dried up. In fact, all of them have. I recall once a friend went in search of a well since his soothsayer had asked him to drop a copper coin into it. The belief was that this could ease his monetary tensions. He definitely spent ample money on fuel chasing the mirage of a well as told by various contacts. This oasis was eventually found in a temple near Dhaab Khatikaan. Just as he had flipped his coin expecting a miraculous bounty in his tijori (locker), his driver informed him otherwise. You see he had had a heart to heart with the pandit of the temple, who confided that the well had been dry for ages. So, they marble-floored it at twenty feet depth and actually fill it each morning with bucketfuls of water from the municipal tap. The tradition of taking out water by the pulley contraption thus continues for the satisfaction of the devotees. And for some who drop in to flip coins.

A male child to carry forward the family’s name has been the bane of our society and was the source of an imbalanced sex ratio. Slowly but surely girls have outshone their brethren in caring for family. They keep away from drug abuse and are self-motivated in studies as well as careers. But that does not keep diehards from visiting Toba Bhai Saalon for a bath in the holy waters and to donate, hold your breath, dried cow dung cakes. And of course, thousands go the extra mile to Baba Buddha Sahib just a few miles away, where the revered saint Baba Buddha blessed Mata Ganga, wife of Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth master, with the blessing of an illustrious son, Guru Hargobind. So, people from all religions, castes, and creeds, even to this day, go to his shrine and bring home the blessings and the quaint prasad of missi roti, piaz and ghunian (bread made with chickpea flour, a crushed onion and brown chickpea).

One must share also about Vasu Bhardwaj, who is an ambassador of faith in these contemporary times. A Gujrati science researcher, he developed cancer. After all hope had faded, the terminally ill Vasu was brought to the Golden Temple by his friend Kesar Singh. An Akhand Paath (48-hour uninterrupted recital of the holy book) was conducted. Vasu came literally on a stretcher and walked back home, cured of the incurable. Over the last two decades, he has been sharing his aap-beeti, the miracle of his life, with gatherings far and near. There have been innumerable instances of the wheelchair borne just walking out, other chronically ill finding comfort, and prayers answered.

Sanctifying this belief, reads the hymn from the Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib, “Ram das sarovar naattey sabb uttrey paap kamattey,” come hither to this pool of nectar and wash away the bad karma so gathered. What better deep cleanse of one’s consciousness and the sins we mop along?

(The writer is a philanthropist, environmentalist and author who likes all things Ambarsari)