Bearing Witness

If misfortune has touched you with a light hand, you might laugh at such a timid attitude and trot out lofty spiel about the right to dream and how one must boldly seize fortune. But suppose you’re repeatedly battered by catastrophe, you might do one of three things: get openly bitter and unhappy; wear a mask of cheer but writhe in jealous agony inside about those whose lives seem better; or keep your wants small, in the hope of escaping notice from the jealous fates. Oscar Wilde, of all people, said, “When the Gods wish to punish you, they answer your prayers.” In other words, be very, very careful what you ask for, or you’ll have to deal with the reality of having your wishes come true.

There are enough cautionary tales about it (like the djinn and the fisherman’s three wishes), but here’s a “real” one about Baba Reshi, the medieval Sufi who sleeps at Tangmarg in Kashmir. Baba Reshi is famous as a granter of wishes and many little threads at his ziyarat bear witness to his powers, as does the tandoor that childless couples clay over ritually. But a Kashmiri businessman once told me that asking Baba Reshi for favours is very iffy: your wish comes true in the letter but not in the spirit. For instance, he had court cases pending over his land. He prayed to the saint, “Please rid me of my land problems,” and instead of the cases being resolved in his favour, the land itself was lost. No problems, sure, but no land either.

However, most marvellous is this story I heard from a very smart corporate man, about Ma Tulaja Bhavani, the Devi of Kohlapur in Maharashtra. This man’s father, a soldier, was wounded badly in the ’62 Chinese Aggression and his arm was to be amputated. His mother, who was then expecting their first child (our friend), prayed to the Devi to spare her husband’s arm and swore never to touch meat again if her prayer was answered, though Tulaja Devi is a fierce little goddess, to whom animals are sacrificed. The arm was saved and a son was duly born. But the baby refused to tolerate any non-veg food from the beginning and more than forty years have gone by as a pure vegetarian in a family of meat eaters. “I bore witness to my mother’s promise in the womb. Guess that’s why,” says our friend calmly. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?