Disco Bimari

Yesterday when I walked into class with my kiddies, I found the rooms almost empty, barring the two sole enthusiasts standing in the middle of the room with I'm-begging-you-please-let-me-go expressions on their faces. The festivals for them are almost never ceasing so most of them came in for a surprise visit to let me know they're finding the celebrations a tad more interesting than my classes. When each of these kids were giving me their pop up surprises, I noticed something peculiar and, well, funny to a certain extent, on their faces. They all had big white dots painted on their ear lobes and a bigger white dot on their foreheads, right at the center of the eye brows. When I asked one of the boys in my classroom who gave this little face painting thing a miss what the whole deal was, he said it's being done by the villagers to protect themselves from something called the "Disco Bimari". I pressed him on when he explained to me that Disco Bimari makes a person shake and shiver (almost like he/she would when in a disco) and the only cure for the disease is to make the affected stand in water for four hours.

I was left in a bit of a shock and a lot of confusion. I went on to ask a shopkeeper in the village what the whole deal was. Here's what he had to say.

On the night of Kali puja this year (which roughly translates into Diwali for the rest of India) a few youngsters were caught "sinning" in a temple. From what I could make out from the appendices being delivered by the wife of the shopkeeper simultaneously, a couple of young chaps were drinking alcohol and indulging in some other objectionable activities. "Ma" of course, is unforgiving. In Kalyug, there's a price you pay in this very life for any wrongdoing of yours. As a revenge, Ma has inflicted the people of the village with the inexplicable and peculiar Disco Bimari.

These are uneducated but God fearing people, there's no doubt about that. What left me wondering and feeling rather troubled later was the fact that these people are happy in their world, living with their dogmatic beliefs that refuse to be shaken. The village is infested with mosquitoes so I came to a random conclusion that it must be Dengue doing the rounds. What troubles me though, is the fact that even the first generation learners in the village won't be able to make any substantial difference. It takes a lot to shake the foundation of beliefs as strong and illogical as theirs. Children who are being educated will find it hard to make a change overnight. Well I don't want the children to go preach to the older generation that God does not exist, but to simply look at things in a different light and not attributing all their distress to Gods and Goddesses. Anything's better than dipping little kids in cold water for four hours and increasing their suffering.