Friday, January 15, 2010

Magic Baba

I did not know that my first blog in 2010 - a new decade, will be based on a superstition. But I found it really interesting and could not resist my temptation to write about this baba with magical powers. Let us call him magic baba from now on.


We Indians have Gods in proportion to our population. I don’t know the exact number but there are crores(33 i think) of Gods. But still we need more and depend on the mystical and magical babas who can heal anything and everything with just a touch. These babas can be found in every area and locality. If you want a demo of what all they can treat, try watching a local cable network for few minutes. There you will see a scroll of advertisements from these weirdly named babas who can treat anything from health, wealth, marriage issues to problems at work, visa problems, foreign tours, land disputes, everything under the sun and sometimes beyond it too.


I recently came across one such magic baba who can cure anything and everything. He specializes in curing everything you can think of - be it man or machine. What a specialized neuro surgeon could not achieve in years can be achieved by this baba in few days. This baba operates on the principal of energy transfer. He can transfer energy to machines and make them work (my husband wanted to get the DVD player repaired by him). You enter his healing center and you can sense a very strange environment. It’s a dark room with black paint on the walls. Room is filled with the so called holy smoke or the energy being emitted by the baba. He believes he has an aura around him which itself treats 50% of people’s problems. He is dressed in all black with long hair and a small skull hanging around his neck (skull gives an authentic look). He starts off by lighting small camphor balls and putting them in a plate of water and making them dance to his fingers’ tune. You are awestruck by now. Then he throws a dice to see if he can treat you. If you are lucky enough he will say yes and then proceed to give you the energy which will heal you in a matter of seconds. This is not a special case. You will find lots of such babas in India and more importantly you can see a queue outside their healing centers.


This made me believe that though the world does not know India as a land of elephants and snake charmers anymore but we Indians believe in magic still. We are in a new decade and India has scaled new height is scientific research and economic growth but still superstitions and science coexist in our society like in no other part of the world.


Do we have fewer Gods that we depend on such magic babas? There are educated people who follow these babas so blindly that they discontinue medication at the risk of seizures, high BP or even death to see the miracle of the treatment given by them. People do not go to doctors but prefer to get a quick fix at these babas. After all they are less expensive.


I have seen people getting so mad after these babas that they consult them even when they sneeze. How they cure or if they really cure is a mystery to me still. Surprisingly even educated people go to such babas to get their problems solved. It is good to have faith in a divine power but blind faith in such magic babas is beyond explanation. When we have so many Gods and Doctors who are not able to help us, how can these babas cure them?


Hope we use little common sense and learn to get rid of such superstitions. If these babas were really helpful no one in the world would be sick and we would be living in an ideal world. India would be the healthiest and wealthiest country in the world. All our problems would be solved by the energy these babas give. All the doctors, electricians, lawyers would merely be sitting idle as baba can take care of everything.


Belief in God is more important than believing in such magic babas. That will give you peace of mind and you will be able to solve your problems without the help of magic baba 