Oh my Gods

The state of Bengal is not a lonely and friendless planet but she has always believed in maintaining an amicable relationship with her neighbours, Odisha, Chhattishgarha, Bihara, Jharkhand and Bangladesh. These are the places where we were born and taken rebirth since ages. We have always believed in the cycle of life and rebirth and always loved to talk about our last life and and have strived our whole life to prove that we not only belong to Bengal, but also our roots go deep into the soil of India which was then undivided without any barriers of border. Sooner or later we will have facts and figures from historians and academicians to claim our point with the evidence of our origin of birth and our right on this land where we were born.  
 

Hinduism is our basic Dharma. We love to see beautifully carved Hindu Gods, we eat Bengali food, we speak the same language of the Bengali Bhadralok of Kolkata. We are sedulous in character and revere Gods and Goddesses of this land along with Sri Jagannath, Sri Balabhadra and Subhadra Devi in Puridham. Hindu Dharma has given us a bounty of choices -- 36 crore devis and devtas save us when we are in double trouble. We try to sit on a mat and have lunch with our right-hand fingers since that is the custom maintained in a traditional Hindu Hindu family. We visit a temple at least thrice a month and offer money to the head priest who chants mantras for the well-being of our family.

We believe in idol worship since figures of Gods when decorated in our homes bring good-luck to our family. Having faith in one God or faith of one member of a family will not the help the entire clan in any way, a whole-hearted and united faithfulness is important for a Hindu family to smoothly sail through this odd period of our life.

We do not talk while having a meal since that upsets our family God who was our dearest ancestor. We neither talk about money nor do we discuss politics at the dinner table. We prefer a round table to a square one. Our holy symbols are Om and also Laxmi Swastik which is mainly used during Laxmi puja.

Our food is a little sweet and less spicy and never too hot. Our non-vegetarian dishes have a touch of green since we love to add coriander leaves in every dish which we make. Our favourite chutney is made from mango and tomato. To add aroma we sprinkle a special kind of rice while cooking certain vegetables with soyabean oil.

But suddenly there arrived a time when we couldn’t maintain all these customs and rituals and failed to follow the rules of our Dharma. We had then started eating outside—be it from a restaurant, a hotel or a Dhaba where there is no strict rule on how to make food for a Brahmin. Food was served on a common plate and juices were poured into not-so-clean glasses. We have travelled extensively since learning from the outside world was our second nature and a part of our curriculum during our growing-up days. That was the time when we have gained knowledge by keeping our eyes wide open, seeing people of India in the North, West and South as well in the East. During that period, we had visited temples of India to give ourselves a chance to delve deep inside our being. All of these places where we have visited time and again speak volumes about our country and leave us with many questions which will remain like an unsolved mystery.