The Chath Puja & Immature Social Response!

Pic Credits:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Nowadays, there is hustle and bustle in the markets and makeshift shops, in my part of the country, for chath festival. The environs are filled with the melodious chath songs. The local edition of newspapers  are fraught with stories of how much allegiance the people belonging to Bihar and U.P put to this festival that even after settling miles away from their native place they perform the Puja without fail.

This way the people living abroad get to be in touch with their cultural roots and the whole eastern India media goes gaga over such cosmetic attempts of gratitude towards the cultural root embalming.

The news channels and newspapers are announcing the arrival of Lok Astha Ka Mahaparv Chath. Sometimes I wonder if Chath is alone the Lok Astha Ka Mahaparv then what are Holi and Diwali. Are they Raj Astha Ka Parv? I have seldom seen any aristocrat wallowing in the mud in Holi, it is only common man (the Lok) who wallows in the mud making it also a Lok Astha Ka Parv.

In this festival several folk songs are sung and in these songs there is one line that says that Chathi Mata and the Sun God can cure the leprosy among other troubling issues. Now, I can tell from my experience that there is an unreasonable kind of fear attached to this Parv. People believe that any mistake committed in the process of following the rituals of Chath puja can result in turning you a leper.

And leprosy has a macabre stigma attached to it. Several societies including Indian have ostracized the leprosy infested humans in the past as there was no other logical and medical way to fight the spread of the leprosy bacteria. And since the leprosy bacteria eat up the body parts that make the hands and legs turn into stump and the face into not a pretty sight to watch, the fear that the disease creates in the human mind is enormous and debilitating. And thus it serves as great deterrent against committing any mistakes during the festival. In a way the festival rituals flourish and feed on fear.

I guess that the centuries of living under the slavery made the Indian psyche bereft of logical thinking. Otherwise what might be the reason that the India that had the legends of medical fields like Dhanwantari and Sushrut believed and continue to believe that leprosy is the upshot of bad past karma instead of the bacteria?

The draconian rules related to Chath as regards the cleanliness shows that people in ancient times had the idea that the filthy environments lead to the development of mycobacterium leprae even if they didn’t know the cure. Sometime ago, I had read in a magazine that during the era of St. Paul*, bathing used to be considered as luxury, so many devotees of the lord refrained from bathing. But after some extended period of non- bathing, several diseases started to spread and leprosy was one of them. So, this gives a hint that leprosy does have a link to unclean and unhygienic environment.

But during the Chath festival the concept of cleanliness gets the face of insanity. People believe that if the wheat grains getting dried for the Prasad get tasted by birds the Chathi Mata and Sun Lord will punish the devotees with the dreaded disease leprosy. I mean this is utterly illogical and irrational to think so. Why will the Chathi Mata (who is the 6^th part of the nature) and the Sun Lord (Who is the evident emblem of the nature) will get angry if birds (which are by all means the integral part and child of nature) taste the wheat grains to placate their hunger?

In the pastoral Indian life (especially in Bihar,I come from Bihar so I know Bihar closely enough to comment on) people take pride in defecating in their fields where they sow the seeds of wheat. I want to say that excreta is the prime reason to transmit many dreaded diseases and if god never got furious for defecating in open and consequently spreading the diseases, then I fail to understand how come the gods can get angry if the birds taste the wheat grains?

During the festival the fasting ladies are revered as pious souls. And these ladies behave as if they have been blessed by the god and goddess personally. They feel very valued because people believe that they are purely pious soul for four days of the festival. And these are the same women who torment their daughter-in-laws for rest of the year. So the rigorous rituals of the Chath festival alone should not be regarded as a yardstick to measure the piety of the souls. Because, after the completion of the festival the women don the hat of devil mother in laws as soon as possible. If the rituals fail to make you a better person then you fail the festival also that celebrates the change of season and teaches that however strong you might be, you will set as the Sun sets and remains whole night under the thrall of darkness.

The Chath Puja is advised to people who have Leucoderma or other skin related diseases. Once, I was in a metropolitan city and there in my apartment a sweet bubbly girl of 10-odd years used to reside with her parents. She had a small white patch. And her mother was advised to observe the fasts of Chath . I used to feel very bad for that little girl who was made to feel kind of uncomfortable because she had just a small white patch. The tender mind can have devastating imprints of embarrassments, when made to feel different due to some medical condition.

Though, I am still to encounter any medical literature that says that doing Chath Puja alone treated leprosy and advised against Dapsone, the unfounded belief that Chath Puja can cure leprosy and white patches run deep in the society.

Though right from western to Indian saints have been tested on touch stone of treating leprosy to prove their divine attributes.

The Indian society that used to question beliefs and philosophies and argue the established leanings now meekly acknowledge what is meted out to it. We hardly find any debating nature as regards the popular usage and rituals like Adi Guru Shankaracharya and Mandan Misara had in the past that only enriched our tradition and culture with notional sanity.

I hope that someday the name of Baba Amte is incorporated in folk Chath songs, for the magnificent son of Chathi Maiya who served the lepers with all probity, sincerity and proved to be the savior for them. You might argue that Chath is the festival of U.P,Bihar then how come a Marathi Manus be incorporated in the Chath folk songs? Mind you Chathi Mata is an omnipresent part of nature and can Mother Nature be restricted in demarcated regions like we parochial thinking humans try to restrict the regions?

As long as the Chath festival is celebrated as the gratitude towards the boon of nature it is sublime but as soon as it is there as overbearing panacea for all troubling diseases and situations, it loses it shine of sublimity. The festival should be used to include people instead of excluding and segregating human souls.

The Chath festival should be used as a tool to attain spiritual ascension instead of getting entangled in ritual injunction.

*St. Paul story is based on memory; I don’t have any documentary evidence at hand when I am writing the post.

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