Autobiography of a Tantrik….

In last 4 hours I had 6 clients visiting me. One had a problem related to stomach. Three were suffering from marital problems and the rest two were having problems with their boss.

I cannot stop laughing when educated people come to me to get their problems solved. Of course I don’t laugh in front of them. but mun hi mun main bahut hasta hun…Whenever I ‘cure’ an educated person of his problems, I get a kind of wicked satisfaction. I mean, I am just a 5th grade student. And when I cure an educated person of his illness using my Mantras, I wonder what is the use of education that doesn’t teach you to be practical. Like, last week, I got this ‘patient’ who had lot of issues with his wife. He doubted his wife having an affair. This is how our conversation went :

Patient : Charansparsh Maharaj.

I just gestured. I didn’t greet him back. See, it’s a normal human psychology that if I don’t greet him back and instead I just gesture that I accepted his greetings, then I would have an upper hand in the meeting. As simple as that. He continued.

Patient: Maharaj, mai bahut chintit hun. Meri Biwi….

I stopped him just when he was about to complete his dialogue. I took his hand in my hand, closed my eyes said “wo tumse bewafaai kar rahi hai. Aur kisi ke saath uska chakkar hai uska”.

Hahahahahhaha.. you should have seen his face!

Patient: Baba aap mahaan ho. Aap kripaya meri samsya ko solve Karen…

Being a sadistic and anti-educated person, I asked him his age and qualification.

Patient: Baba, mai ek MBA hun… meri umra 30 saal.

If you had the ability to peep into my mind, you could easily sense that I was rolling with laughter. i enjoyed every bit of his superstition that an uneducated baba like me would cure his problem!

I continued “Baccha, tumhari naadi dekhke pata chalta hai ki tum bahut acche insaan ho. Tum bahut mehnati ho.” He nodded in agreement. I have developed a knack of understanding people. See, when he said that he is an MBA, that DOES mean that he must have worked hard for exam preparation and then during his MBA education. So, what I said was just based on his words. I didn’t use any extra-terrestrial power to judge that small a thing!..hahahahahah….. finally, I took a locket out of my pocket. I kept that locket is the ash-bowl in front of me. I closed my eyes for 5 minutes. And then gave him that locket dipped in ash.

Patient: Dhanyawaad baba. Muje aap pe poora vishwaas hai. Bas meri duvidha door kar dijiye….”

I didn’t say anything. I just responded by saying “tathastu” and smiled at him so that he would feel that his work will get done. The moment he left, I started laughing like crazy. I mean, what can my locket dipped in some bloody ash do good to him? How on earth do you educated people believe in me? Hehehhe… seriously, I am sure that I am not going to let my child spend waste his precious years in getting a graduate degree. I will teach him all the tricks of fooling people and he will be well off financially.

Every day I get some 20 patients. I charge them somewhere around rs.500 to rs. 2000 – depending upon the problem and the financial status of the ‘patient’. Like, if a rich ‘patient’ comes to get his problems solved, I charge him more. And you know what, the best part is that these rich ‘patients’ are like golden goose for me. I cut them very slowly. Usually, I start with a packet of ash. Then following week, I give them a locket, then a mantra, then something , then something! Hahahahahahhaha… I love these rich ‘patients’. Thank god for giving me such fat-wallet patients!

Today let me share a few things that I do to fool my ‘patients’….

What I do	Why I do that
1) taking the hand of the patient in my hand and acting as if I am try to doing a diagnosis by feeling the vein of the patient	This basically instills a good faith in the patient. He/she feels that what I am doing is absolutely right. He/she feels that I am trying to get to the root of the problem. hehehehhe…
2) Telling the patient to take a look at his watch and then waking me up after 7 minutes 40 seconds.	Sometimes, being precise helps. See, when I tell the patient that I am going to close my eyes to talk to the evil and the god for 7 minutes and 40 seconds, the ‘patient’ first wonders why “7 minutes and 40 seconds?” then I smile at him as if I know everything about his problem. He better shut up and let me do my work. This instills a deep faith of the ‘patient’ on me.
3) putting the hand of the patient in the ash-bowl and then keeping it on the crystal ball	These kinds of weird actions makes the ‘patient’ believe that the money that they are spending is worth.
4) while point number 3 is being done, I tell the patient to chant a mantra	For Instilling more faith on me! hahahahhahaha…
5) Giving a small packet of ash and asking the patient to dip it in a well or a river which is not at polluted.	The patient starts believing that my powers have really to do something with the PURITY of the water!....

Seriously, it’s very easy to fool people. The basic reason being the frustration of the people with the illness which has been tormenting them for days or months! See, suppose you have SOME illness. You try Allopathy, homeopathy, Ayurveda, etc… even if things don’t turn out to be positive, then naturally you will do that the world finds STUPID! And that is coming to a tantrik like me! The willingness to be up and ready is stronger than the normal logic of not trusting a tantrik. Sometimes, Superstition defies science and logic! And that’s when I make money!

If you see the things from my angle, you would realize that what I am doing is not wrong or illegal. People trust me. I give them SOME medicine or ash or something. Most of the times, the patients recover soon because of the faith than what I give. Psychological help or advantage is what I indirectly give my patients. For that they pay rs.500 to rs.2000! fair deal naa?... I heal you (however it maybe) and you pay me! Simple business!

Most of the people of my fraternity are not god-fearing people. At the end of the day, I do and pooja and ask God to forgive me for sins that I did throughout the day. Sins of looting people of hundreds of people. But then, I am going to continue to do this work till the time educated people like you keep coming to me! Hahahahhaa….

Use some common sense, scientific knowledge and logic and you will realize that my tricks don’t work! These “anti-superstition” NGOs are trying to spread so much knowledge. Don’t you listen to them?

Till the day your heart rules your brain to make a decision, I am surely going to enjoy my life…!hahahhahahahaha….

Tathastu!!!

9.42 CST Slow – 5th bogie.

(This article is a fiction)

There are 2 dates that I can never ever forget in my life. The first one is 19th dec 2005. That was the day when I lost my vision. I lost the chance to see the beauty of this world because of one mistake of Dr.Sharma. He is one the most trusted eye-surgeons of this city. But still, God had something planned for me. HE was envious of my happiness and threw me in the pit of darkness.


The second date that I can never forget is 10th November 2007. That was the day when I proposed her and had our engagement ceremony in the 5th bogie of 9.42 Kalyan Slow. 5th bogie in a 9-rake train is normally reserved for the visually- handicapped, mentally- handicapped and cancer patients.


It all started with my visits to the teaching sessions at Rajawadi school- a school for the mentally handicapped kids.


I, Vikram Jadhav, aged 23 years, hold a BA in arts and have learned sign language and also have undergone a correspondence course for psychology. Since childhood I have had a soft corner ‘Special people’. Till date I don’t understand why God makes someone one handicapped – whether it is physically, mentally, visually,etc. That is the primary reason why I am an atheist.


She-I mean vidya-, aged 20 years, studies in Rajawadi school for mentally handicapped people. She is one of the toppers of her class. Out of the class of 28 students, I find her the cutest, most innocent and the most intelligent. The 2 qualities of hers that I like the most is her compassion towards others and her concern for everyone. I have never seen a day when Vidya had not completed her home-work. But when it comes to class-work, she scores very low. The main reason here is that she spends a lot of time in helping all her friends and she forgets that she has to complete her work too. This quality of hers is what every human being on this earth should learn. I have high respect for Vidya for these 2 qualities.


By the way, because of my compassion towards the ‘special kids’, I had taken a part-time job of teaching at the Rajawadi school for mentally challenged kids. From May 2003 upto May 2005, I taught those ‘special kids’.The school used to start at 11.30 AM. So, i used to board the 9.42 CST slow from Kalyan station. i never travelled except for the first class bogie. Vidya, the brightest of all those kids, was my most favorite student. Once, I had given a sum for all the students to solve.


Q: A tree has 30 birds perched on it. A hunter comes and shoots 10 birds. How many birds are left on the tree?


Out of 28 students, only she had the courage to go forward and solve the question on the board. She came to the board, took the chalk in her hand and took just 2 minutes to solve the question. I was so happy that she solved that question in 2 minutes. I always kept dairy milk chocolate in my pocket. I don’t why I had the conviction that she would be the one who come forward to face any challenge that I gave to the whole class. I was not sure that whether I had started liking her. On one hand I felt that it had started loving her. On the other hand my mind kept telling me “She is a mentally challenged girl. Your parents won’t accept that. And even the society wouldn’t accept that. What your relatives say when they come to know that I am marrying a mentally challenged girl?...”. But love is blind.


For 2 years i.e. during my stint at Rajawadi municipal school, I met Vidya’s mother every day. Vidya and Aunty used to board the 9.42 CST slow from Kalyan. They used to sit in the 5th bogie which is a special bogie. Aunty used to come to the school to drop her and then take her in the afternoon at 3.00 PM. Whenever I used to narrate any incident of Vidya being the best in the class, aunty used to start crying. I could understand what she must be feeling. In 2 years time, even aunty had started liking me as her son. Neither she nor I knew that I would turn out to be her son-in-law. I used to try my best to teach the kids how to behave in public, how to speak clearly, how to talk to elders, etc. But, one thing that I never had to teach them was to be creative; because I felt that they are creative people. It’s just that their creativity is different from our creativity. We all judge others as per standards fixed by society. But, people like Vidya are happy in their own world. And I strongly feel that they don’t need to be what the whole world thinks. For them, the world is how they perceive it. And perspectives are never right or wrong. Judgments are never right or wrong. What is wrong is taking a side and judging the other person as different.


One thing I hate about life is the unpredictability. I sometimes feel that God must give us a blueprint of what our whole life-span so that we can make the most out of it. And I am saying this because I wanted to do so many things before the unfortunate incident of losing my vision happened. It so happened that once, around mid 2005, I had some pain in my left eye. I went to the most famous surgeon in my area- Dr.Sharma. He had the cleanest track record until I became his patient. He suggested some eye drops. But, unfortunately those eye drops had adverse reaction on my eyes and 18th dec 2005 was the last day I saw my parents and the beautiful world around. And Vidya too. For 3 months, I couldn’t control my frustration. Was I being punished for being an atheist? I was ready to say “sorry” to God any number of times as HE wanted me to. But then I guess the blueprint of my life had such an unfortunate incident etched in it. I had to face it. Needless to say, I hadn’t been to the Rajawadi school since I had lost my vision.


4 months passed by. I was sleeping in my bedroom. Phone rang. I answered the call. On the other side of the line was Vidya’s mother. She was shocked to hear about the saddest incident in my life. I couldn’t hold my tears. Neither could she. After all I was her daughter’s favorite sir. Vidya greeted me “good afternoon sir”. Vidya’s face flashed in front of my eyes. I could easily visualize her greeting me with her innocent smile and brightly lit eyes. “good afternoon dear vidya”, I greeted back. She said “Mumma told me that now u are blind?”. The word “blind” hurt me really bad. But it was OK because Vidya said that. Silence ensued her question. Then I heard voices of her sobbing. I couldn’t control myself. I cried too.


I don’t know why, but my liking for Vidya had turned more into Love. I mean, when my vision was proper, I had never thought of Vidya as a person whom I would love and would want as a life partner. But now, with my vision lost, I was dying to see her. I was dying to take her hand in my hand and ask her whether she would like to spend the rest of her life with me! I know that my mother would have resented earlier. But now, even my mother wouldn’t say NO to my decision of spending life with Vidya. Circumstances make you change your decisions.


The next day I went to Vidya’s place and talked about my willingness to marry Vidya. Aunty couldn’t hold her tears. Both families agreed. Vidya too. I know that Vidya won’t be able to understand the true meaning of love, marriage and husband. But still, I am there to care for her and she is there to care for me. And there was one more thing that was common between us - the 9.42 CST Slow from kalyan.


Finally, on 10th Nov 2007, in the 9.42 CST slow, 5th bogie, Vidya and I exchanged rings. Now, she had one more family member to care for her life. And same was applicable for me. 9.42 CST slow, 5th bogie will always be special for me. 2 hearts melted to become one. 2 lives joined to become one.

A Silent Scream....

(This article is a fiction.)

On 27 December 2008 I went to the Rajawadi Hospital at Ghatkopar. Vikas Salunkhe, a member of Bal-Vikas (an NGO) was sitting beside her. She was draped in a white gown. Both her hands were being fed saline. Her face looked very pale. She had become very weak. She didn’t even the energy to move her eyes around. She had lost the count of what was happening around her. She hadn’t seen me before but I had seen her before.

I distinctly remember the day – 21st December 2008. I was in my Chevrolet UVA. I was stuck at the Saki Naka traffic signal. My favorite song was being played on the radio. Suddenly my eyes got stuck on this girl with a red frock. Her frock was striped. There were lots of patches applied on it. She had dark circles around her eyes. She was among the 10-12 kids who were playing football made of a sock that was stuffed with paper. I should say that she seemed like the Maradona of that group. Suddenly a man came from behind and slapped her and started scolding her.
The light turned green and I had to move on. The next day again I got stuck at the Saki Naka signal. This time she was not playing with her friends. She had a bunch of packets of peanuts. She knocked on the window of my car. I lowered the glass and took 10 packets of peanuts from her (even though I hate peanuts.)I complimented her on her football skills. She was stunned – maybe because she was wondering why I was keeping an eye on her or maybe because she herself wasn’t sure what game she was playing..!
She smiled and went away happy that she had done a business of rs.30 in just 2 minutes. The signal turned green and the cars behind started honking and I moved on.

Back to 27th December 2008. I asked Vikas as to what prompted such a sweet girl to get admitted at Rajawadi Hospital. Vikas then narrated the plight of that cute girl. On 23 rd dec ie., 4 days ago, she was subjected to inhumane acts. Abbas Bhai, the head of beggars in and around Saki Naka saw her at the Saki Naka signal and took her to his den. Abbas Bhai was sure that she was the best fit in his ‘beggars Kingdom”. That cute girl was then tormented in every unimaginable way. Drops of acid were sprinkled on her hands and feet. Her hair was cut unevenly. Her tongue was cut; and so were 3 fingers from her left hand. Every attempt was made to make her look like an authentic beggar. That night 3 local goons visited Abbas Bhai. That sweet girl who was tormented during that day was surrounded by all four. Then --------------------------. She was then thrown near the Ramabai Bus stop, near to Saki Naka. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in Rajawadi Hospital. Her name is Bindu. Now, she just stares at the ceiling and wonders why GOD had been so cruel to her. With her tongue cut, she can’t even talk, argue or complain. Tears flow from her eyes. Each tear is like a silent scream. There are so many Bindus in our society. Let’s join hands to fight against child injustice. Let’s get this society rid of such Silent Screams.