Yantras and Mantras

A tulsi(basil) leaf a day kept problems at bay ….was my sister’s mantra and duly she would pluck one and chew it on her way to school every day .She has never written an exam in her life with out the juice of one swirling in her mouth .How did this help her in her exams ?(something for science to discover )She is not unique in this .A lot of people I’ve come across have their own mantras or yantras which they believe will tide them over life’s difficulties .A friend of mine breaks into a tune of a popular hindi song when she is in a dilemma or when trouble comes calling .So I became so used to her breaking into a hum when we are in a bus stop , at the mall ,or simply crossing a crowded road .and have trained myself to ignore peoples stares when she does this .Yet another friend of mine believed that green glass bangles brought her luck .And more often than not they clashed with her outfits which again invited stares ,sniggers and raised eyebrows .
Its common to see people of all sexes sporting scared ashes of his or her favourite deity with the belief that it will protect them from all evils .and then there are the lucky dresses, earrings ,chains ,shoes and bags to name a few of the yantras My daughter believed that purple was her lucky colour and she had a purple T shirt she was very partial to .She made sure that she wore her purple coloured T shirt to all important dos .That was Okay, but the not so-okay part is that she refused to put it for wash believing that the luck too would get washed away .(It was no wonder that people let her have her way on the days she wore it ) My elder born would never step out of the house without her lucky hair clip and lucky earrings. She had about five pairs of them .(each had a different degree of luck )It was the red coral for luck at the exams ,the blue stones for luck at shopping (getting a discount )the green danglers for the movies (getting her friend to fund the tickets and eats )so on and so forth .Now theres a person I know who carries a dried gooseberry given to her by a ‘sadhoo’ .Come the cricket season all the yantras and mantras come into play .My brother in law refuses to let anyone park themselves in a particular chair as it would bring bad luck to India .And on the days India played he also took care to sip his drinks using a straw as each sip would see India scoring a four or a six and predictably India lost the day he was at a meeting and couldn’t use the straw .Another cousin of mine donned his hel met when cricket was on .The story is that once he had just come in wearing his helmet to see India hitting the winning sixer and from that day onwards his helmet holds a prestigious place his showcase to be taken out and donned on important cricket days .The football season is here .I spied people chanting strange chants with their eyes glued on the idiot boxes( Wakka wakka hey hey )
With the popularizing of Feng- shui ,people carried various things on their person and in their purses ,Three legged frogs ,gold ingots ,Chinese coins and what not .If they could tie wind -chimes on themselves some of them would have done so .Many of my friends. have chimes of different shapes and sounds in every nook and corner of their house The fortune bamboo ,figurines of the laughing Buddha , the prancing horse and the tortoise are some of the popular success yantras (helped to popularize wild life too and chinese history )
In the olden days people were said to carry rabbit foot for luck ,now we have chicken bones (She was informed of winning a lottery while chewing on one ),dried apple cores ,chocolate wrappers ,coloured stones (set as rings on fingers )carried along for luck .An acquaintance of mine refuses to remove a stain from her favourite dress as she fears her luck will disappear with it ( to each his own ! ) .
Now that reminds me …..where did I put my lucky green nail polish ?