Belief

If you go around the Bedha of Lord Jagannath temple, you come across an old Banyan tree known as Kalpabata Brikhya.  [Lord Jagannath temple is situated at Puri, a coastal city 60kms away from Bhubaneswar, and is one of the famous Hindu temples in India. Bedha  is like a circular wide verandah which runs around the main temple.] This Banyan tree, as people say, is as old as the temple and the common belief is that if you pray this tree with a wish, it is always fulfilled.

The ritual is to buy a small pebble with a tag attached to it from a Brahmin who is sitting underneath the tree and go up the pedestal to tie it somewhere in the tree, maybe one of the hanging branches or the bark, where your hands can reach. Once you tie the pebble, do your prayer with whatever wish may be in your mind. Once you are done, come down of the pedestal and now the Brahmin will expect some tips. You kindly give it to appease him and proceed with immense satisfaction in your heart with a felling that job well done . And whenever your wish is fulfilled, maybe months or years, you come back to the temple to pay your gratitude. Pretty simple, yet a powerful belief among throngs of visitors to the temple, over the years.

It was one of those summer holidays of my teen years. One of my maternal uncle is of my age with whom I grew up as friend. It was a kind of going round the city during the holidays, starting from the sea beach, market and the temple every day. Wandering around was a kind of hobby for young children like us during those days, sort of holidaying within our means. The market is in fact called Bada Bajara (Big Market). One day, both of us during our wandering around the Bedha in the temple, stopped at the gathering near this Kalpabata Brikhya, just as a curious onlooker. More to look at the people and the caricature of the Brahmin  than anything else. The Brahmin, in a way to attract and excite the visitors was shouting with a high pitch voice like a street seller saying that if one pays just one rupee to buy the pebble from him and tie, all his wishes would be fulfilled. He was stressing on one rupee but not at all mentioning his tips, which is a loot indeed.

Suddenly my uncle in his teen prank mood, pushed himself to the front of the gathering and started asking a question in high pitched voice. All the visitors including myself were startled to see this young boy trying to match the  Brahmin's voice with a question. He simply asked the Brahmin, if it is so easy for someone to attain all his wishes fulfilled by just paying one rupee, why the hell are you still here day in and day out. And, lo, the Brahmin  became very angry and his face was peach red. Then I saw the  Brahmin started abusing and threw himself to catch my uncle, who started running immediately. It was a scene that summer afternoon to watch this  Brahmin running after a young boy who was actually beyond the reach of this panting old man.

Till now, whenever I go to the temple and walk around the Bedha, I come across the gathering around the Kalpabata Brikhya. And this incident flashes in my memory all the time. I see some other Brahmin but hear the same high pitched voice selling the pebbles, the same ritual from all the visitors with eyes full of dreamy wishes.

I have accepted all that caricatures coalesced with a passionate selling process and illogical pricing with an appendage of inherent looting in the name of tips, but understood one thing that 'Belief' is the only powerful tool that we have which gives us hope and dream to live for, to look forward to better tomorrow with positive emotion. And that brings back these thousands of visitors everyday here, and not the selling cry of the Brahmin or the price of the pebble.