FRIDAY

 It was the sixteenth Friday.

Urvashi had observed a vrat for sixteen consecutive Fridays. She had followed all the rules.

 She was on the verge of completing her Sankalpa (vow).

It was quite stringent with a long list of do’s. 

It had quite a few don’ts as well. 

Some devotees even avoided wheat, rice and lentils -- She did the same. 

It allowed consumption of a meal only once during the day -- She had opted to have the only dinner on all the Friday’s.

The main don’t however was, ”Do not eat anything sour. Also ensure, you neither cook anything sour nor consume it in any form.”

Walking back to the kitchen she lifted the plastic lid of the black round dustbin to throw some banana peels. She was alone here in the kitchen. She was suddenly in a hyper state of panic

She had just walked into the kitchen after serving the eight boys a meal including kheer, puri and banana. As a part of the routine, she had offered them cash as well. It was the conclusion ritual.

The yellow colour of the citrus fruit caught her eye. As she looked into the dustbin she saw the two halves of the cut and squeezed out lemon.

This had put her in panic mode. She quickly went and tasted the potato bhaji. It tasted sour.

Looks like things had gone wrong today. 

All hell would break loose.

Either she, her Sukesh or the eight kids would die. More dramatic would be if a heavenly bolt would destroy all of them.

Her heart skipped a beat and her silent prayers, as a plea, went up as if in a song. 

”Madad karo hey,

madad karo hey

Madad karo Santoshi mata”. 

(Help me, help me, please help me, Santoshi Mata). 

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India is the cradle of spirituality. People here believe in the powers of devotion and worship

Hindus believe that there are different sorts of gods:

Devas who are kindly or protective gods

Asuras who are evil gods

Rakshasas who are demons,

Yakshas are nature spirits — neither good nor bad.

Devotion and worship is the keyword for the hordes of people in the country. To seek the blessings of their favourite God or Goddess they ardently perform puja, observe vrata, do Nama Japa, and various other things. 

The latest addition to the collection of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses was Santoshi Mata. She became a household name sometime in the 1960s.

The Santoshi Ma vrat seems to have become popular in north India spreading among lower-middle-class women by word of mouth and through an inexpensive "how-to" pamphlet and religious poster of the goddess.  Her popularity rose after a film based on her appearance was screened in 1975. Jai Santoshi Maa was a blockbuster.

To please her and fulfil a vow, a routine had to be followed for sixteen weeks after which wishes would be fulfilled. 

The ritual was straightforward. Rise before sunrise, clean the household and temple area in your house, take a bath and wear clean clothes. Then the requirement was to place an idol or an image of Santoshi Mata in a sacred corner of the temple area of the house. An oil lamp and an incense stick had to be lit.

Later a  Kalash would have to be filled with water and then a bowl consisting of gud (jaggery) and chana (chickpeas) would be placed.

A puja would  then be performed by offering Kumkum, haldi, flowers, a red piece of cloth or chunri, paan, supari, coconut and bananas to the Goddess:

This would be followed by taking the name of Santoshi Mata and reading her Vrat Katha.

Aarti would now be performed in the end  The water from the Kalash would be sprinkled in all corners of the house to purify it.

This would be carried out for all sixteen Fridays. On the final Friday, the additional feeding of eight boys had to be carried out.

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Urvashi had a difficult life post her marriage to Sukhesh. She had walked into a complicated joint family. Her brother in law Durjan and his wife Shanti were the root cause of the problem. Her father in law and mother in law were elderly and were incapable of bringing peace to the family. There was family turmoil all year round. Scheming Durjan was evil and plotting all the time to make hell for his brother Sukesh and the new bride. He was supported by his wife. The intention was that if Durjan and his sister in law left the house in desperation he would inherit the house and all the property that was at present in his parent's name and all their worldly belongings would become his. He knew they did not have long to live. 

It is said when troubles come, they come in bucketfuls. The same applied to Urvashi.

Within a year of their marriage, Sukesh was diagnosed with a kidney problem. He would urgently need a kidney transplant to elongate his life span.  

Blaming this also on Urvashi the scheming  Durjan and Shanti continued the torrent of ridicule and verbal abuse. They took every opportunity to run her down.

In desperation, Urvashi turned to the heavenly Gods for protection.

She prayed and begged for recovery of her husband's health and peace and tranquillity in the house. She prayed to Santoshi Mata and vowed to keep vrat of the sixteen Fridays. 

She had religiously started the routine fasts every Friday. However, there was no positive change.

As weeks passed Durjan and Shanti’s harassment did not decrease. Her husband's health also did not improve. He was hospitalised. He needed a kidney donor for a transplant. It was difficult to get a donor with a match.  

The only people secretly happy about this were Durjan and his wife. 

Greed drove them to hasten the destruction.

An evil plan crept up in the evil couple's mind. It was the sixteenth Friday and the last rituals were bring performed by Urvashi.

If they could somehow bring about a disturbance in Urvashi’s devotion to Santoshi Mata she would face the wrath and they would succeed.

That’s how they plotted and executed the plan of squeezing lemon juice into the food cooked for the deity offering. This food spiked with the sour ingredient would also be served to the eight boys. 

This would lead to sacrilege. 

They felt Urvashi would be punished for this. 

If it leads to Sukesh’s death the thorn would be out of the way early. Blame for this would fall on Urvashi and she would have to leave the household.

While Urvashi was out of the kitchen the evil couple quickly implemented the act of squeezing the lemon juice into the food. Throwing the lemon peels into the bin they quietly exited and watched in glee as the tainted food was offered to the deity and the boys. When Urvashi returned later and realised that the offering had been tainted with lemon juice she felt dejected that all her efforts have gone in vain. She felt responsible for this and was sure she would be cursed in some way or another for this sacrilege. 

This is when her heart let out a cry and ........... a song.

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Early next morning there was a loud wailing from one of the rooms in the house. 

No --  it was not Urvashi wailing.

It was Shanti. She had discovered on waking up that her husband was lying cold and lifeless. The doctors were immediately summoned. They examined and proclaimed that Durjan was dead. He had a massive heart attack in the early hours of the morning.  

In the hospital, one doctor came up with the suggestion of using the dead brother's kidney for Sukesh. Tests were conducted. It was found that the dead brother's kidney matched. His kidney could be used to save Sukesh’s life.

The inner realisation had come to Shanti that there must be heavenly intervention for their bad deeds.

She was now terrified of the wrath. 

She agreed.

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In a way, Urvashi’s prayers were accepted by the goddess. There were results for her sacrifices. Slowly but surely the Friday fasts were bearing fruits.

Image credit --- Internet.