| I have studied only in Dharwad. Some of the things, which were told by schoolmates,
are still fresh in my memory and from time to time I feel a strong urge to try them
despite knowing that they are plain myths of childhood. This 'thing' used to become an 'in thing' quite often during my primary school era. That is, if you scratch your eye-bridge right below the forehead for 100 times vigorously, you will see Lord Hanumantha. Believe it or not, when this became an 'in thing' one day in the school, at least 90% of the boys and girls had scratched their eye-bridges. It was sort of a mass hysteria. The teachers were used to it and they just made fun of that and never bothered to explain it. Probably, their experience had told them that every child has to believe it at least once in his lifetime this myth and have a bacterial infection for next couple of weeks out of this mindless scratching. Start scratching now and by the time you finish reading this article you may see Lord Hanumantha. You, being an adult now, can ask for meaningful boons like increasing you vitality and so on. As kids we always wanted to be close to Gods. So there was a way to make Lord Rama appear on your forehand with Lakshman and Lady Sita. Simple. Extend three fingers of your right hand and hit hard with that triplet on the inside of your left forearm. Lord Rama and others are kind to only those people with reasonably fair complexion. You will see three of your fingers appear on your left forearm in 3 red strips and vanish after while. Lord Ram can not stay on your forearm for too long, right? We were also very hygiene conscious. IF one of your friends steps on the cow dung or something filthy then you have to protect yourself from the filth by touching the nearest available GREEN thing. It could be a leaf, or somebody's green shirt or anything. If nothing GREEN is available then resort to your vein, which is seen as green, on your wrist. Once you touch something GREEN and announce that you have done so, nothing will happen to your sanitation even if the culprit hugs you or touches you. By chance if the that person touches before you touch something GREEN then you will be checked out of the group for the day like him. Personal hygiene was of the paramount consideration, you know? Slowly I graduated to higher primary school. Game of cricket was the 'in thing'. Cricket just did not come that way. But also brought myriad of myths, beliefs along with it. How many of you have not checked for something called 'STROKE' when your dad or mom took you to buy a cricket bat? I can not still decipher what was the 'STROKE' in a cricket bat. As practiced by others I too tapped a couple of times on my cricket bat at Kabir Agency and made sure that it had a good 'STROKE. I did not forget to confirm that with the chubby owner of Kabir Agency. He naturally told that the bat, I had chosen, had the perfect 'STROKE'. Every time I hit a good shot then on with that bat I attributed that to the invisible 'STROKE' factor in the bat. Fast bowling always used to be the 'in thing'. Along with that the stories associated with two popular legends of that time Dennis Lilly and Andy Roberts. According to one story, Lilly would have been a first rate felon, you know? According to schoolmates, once Dennis Lilly bowled very fast and got the batsman clean bowled. The bowling was so fast that the uprooted stump hit the wicket keeper right in the tummy and he had to be hospitalized and he died in the hospital. Later in my life, while pondering on the murderous assaults of fast bowlers, I discovered two incidents in which batsmen were grievously injured. But they had recovered. There was not any mention of any wicket keeper's death attributed to poor guy Lilly. Another non-bloody myth widely in circulation was about the kind of bouncers that Andy Roberts used to bowl. Once Andy bowled a bouncer with such an agility that after pitching once the ball directly hit the fence on the second bounce awarding the batting team an extra 6 runs. Believe it? I believed and was always imagining what Andy must have been doing then to bowl such powerful bouncers to cross 72 yards of the fence. I was hoping that at least I would one day manage to bowl a bouncer, which would hit the 30 odd feet fence on the second bounce. Another sort of a warning, most probably let out by teachers, was pertaining to sodas. Remember those sodas in thick glass bottles with a pressurized marble sitting on the top? Warning was that if you drank soda it would cut your intestines so badly that intestine will eventually vanish one day. Every time I pop a can of diet coke here I remember this warning. Nevertheless I will gulp down the diet coke. When I gave a bit of my thinking to this myth, I guess, I got a logical answer. Most probably well meaning teachers had wanted to their students to remain away from the soda made up of contaminated water. But, what about the ice candies out of the dirty boxes of the vendor? Yes, there was this warning about the ice candies as well. That is if you put some kerosene on the candy and let it stand for some time, the worms embedded in that would surface. I can not imagine any visible worm would have survived such a low temperature of the ice candy. I hardly believe anybody bothered to try that as kerosene nowhere to be available near by. Well, these are some of the popular 'in things' that I can readily remember. If you could relate to them in any way then I will be glad. Otherwise you had missed something. So, did you see Lord Hanumantha? If not, keep scratching. Good luck! By Bra-H-Min |
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