The rantings of an optimistic mind----Why Hindus worship the Peepal tree......

It pains me to see the newspaper full of stories about rationalists a.k.a atheists, their deaths, the Sanatans, the RSS and to top it all Hinduism or Hindutva trivialised by the self-appointed watchdogs of Hinduism. Hinduism being such a free religion, it has become very easy to have thousands of sects, guides, and leaders (read God men) and, equally easy it is to curse and swear upon your own religion. It is very fashionable and trendy to condemn your own religion if you are a Hindu. Also, nowadays I find people feeling embarrassed to even claim to be a Hindu. Hinduism has been very cleverly equated to saffronisation and that in turn is spoken about in whispers as if it were the disease about which no one talks openly.

Anyways, I am just attempting to write about very small traditions or you can call them rituals, which have lost their significance today and are ready to be buried as superstition. These are things which I feel uncomfortable discarding just because they are not trendy any more. I refuse to believe that my ancestors, thousands of years ago were fools who, without any thought made up some rituals at random, and then passed it on to us to be only rejected and thrown away. So, I am just making an effort to think what could be the scientific basis for these rituals. Some I have learned from people, books, internet and some I make up as I go, of course with a scientific or an over-imaginative mind. You are welcome to add, comment, suggest and criticise. I would encourage you to make me wiser.

I begin with why Hindus worship the Peepal tree. I used to ponder, why only the Peepal tree and why not Rose or Lily or some other. This tree which is not so common to find, finds mention in many of our holy scriptures. But I do not want to go into those legends. I simply state my reasoning below:

1.     I cannot establish its authenticity, but many people claim that it has been scientifically proven that Peepal tree can make oxygen even during the night. Even at night, it takes in carbon-dioxide and expels oxygen.

2.     If you look at the Peepal tree, it is a huge canopy like leafy tree with a long thick trunk and all the leaves just branching out. It looks like a huge umbrella, making it ideal for a large number of people to sit under it. Also the leaves, if you notice, have a hand-fan like structure, which, when the wind blows, make it a little stronger. So you will feel less hot under the tree than under any other tree. For that reason even Mangoes and Banyan are such trees and these trees also find an important place in Hindu culture.

3.     As per Wikipedia, due to the structure of the leaves, the leaves of this tree move continuously, even when the air around is still and no wind is blowing. Just imagine the blessing it is, in hot summers. That is why I love Hinduism; we attributed this movement of leaves to Gods residing in the leaves and turned it into something pious and worth preserving.

4.     The ritual of watering it daily and tying a thread around it could have been to promote many such trees in an era devoid of electric fans and air-conditioners. Make it into a religious ritual and it becomes easy to take care of community resources. It was that simple. 

5.     I think tying the thread could have been to support the weak trunk of the baby tree. Like we too have to do with the young plants which have not yet grown into a full thick-trunked tree, we need to tie its small weak shoots to give it support. And in an era devoid of nylon ropes, the organic 'soot' or cotton thread would break at times. So the ladies turned it into a religious ritual and that aspect of caring for the young Peepal was taken care of. 

6.     Also, the Peepal leaves and bark have numerous medicinal uses in the Ayurveda....an ancient Indian way of treatment.

7.     In ancient times people would construct a small seat like concrete structure around the tree called ‘chabutra’ for men and women, old and young to sit while the children played in the shade of the tree. This brought about a social connect among residents, which the air-conditioners of today cannot.

So weren't our ancestors wise enough to make it easy to promote such a useful tree by attaching some simple rituals with it? And with so many benefits attached to the tree why not promote it.

A not-so-good experience with Vidya Valley School

We returned to Pune on August 1, 2015 from Germany, but only after a short stay at my husband’s home town. The day we landed, which was a Saturday, we washed-up, got ready and went to Vidya Valley School for kids’ admission. We didn’t want to waste even a single day. We were pretty confident that the school would take back our kids as the principal Ms. Sengupta had herself assured me before leaving for Germany. We happened to speak to Mr. Gupta who already raised doubts about our son having to repeat a year. Anyways he called us again on Monday afternoon when the teachers would be relatively free and then they would test my son for concepts of class 7 (which he had completed in Germany). We promptly reached the school on Monday and after a lot of waiting we were told that my son would be needed to appear for class 8 tests. The students of class 8 have already finished a lot of syllabus in last 2 months and so they would be testing my son for the same. It came as a shocker as we had not anticipated this. Plus any sane person would understand that this is unfair on the child when one knows he has not attended class 8 for even a single day. Anyways the next day being Tuesday he was called upon to take tests in Physics and Bio. We came home and helped Vishnu prepare the entire 6-7 hours that we had in hands for these tests. He borrowed books from his friends and even got a test paper for Bio. On Wednesday he was asked to appear for Chemistry and Maths. We repeated this procedure for our son. In Maths too he got the test paper. Coincidentally he got the same papers for Bio and Maths. And these two subjects he performed extremely well. Oh! And yes my daughter too took a test for English and Maths though she is in grade 4. After this we waited more than a week to hear from them. My husband was getting frustrated and finally called up Mr. Gupta. Thankfully he arranged for us to meet the principal the same day. Upon meeting the principal (of course after a long wait) she said that my son would need to repeat class 7. This was a great disappointment. Initially they tried to pin it on my son getting the test paper in advance. But when we suggested a re-test or an interview then and there itself they diverted to reasons like a huge gap. The principal said that she does not know what Vishnu learnt there but here students have learnt so many other things like music, guitar ort etc. Well in this whole discussion the bottom line was that he will repeat and there is to be no debate. As Mr. Gupta is so fond of talking more and listening less we could not explain much, our side of the story. He said that now don’t go home thinking if it was a battle won or lost. Of course I will think it was a battle lost. Because you make me think that I made a mistake by shifting to Germany for a year. No one in this world should relocate elsewhere because then they will repeat the entire thing. My child might want to take a sabbatical or break later in his life for further studies or anything else. It is not required now to make him lose a year. And if we meant to hide the fact of getting the test paper of two subjects in advance we would have not asked our son to tell the truth if anyone questioned him. I can bet he must have scored better than 50% of the class who has done class 7 in VVS. How can the school guarantee that my son is not well prepared for class 8 while their other students are? Also his past records at Vidya Valley and his teachers will tell how sharp a kid he was. Plus this in itself is creditable that he scored so well after getting the test papers when he had only 6-7 hours in hand combined for two subjects to prepare. Only a sharp kid can prepare so well in this limited time even when you have the papers. Though, we know that he just went through those papers and did not just prepare the papers. We let him see those in the end when he had prepared the entire subject.

My son himself refused to go to VVS in class 7 because of shame that his friends will be ahead of him and that too for no sane reason. When we asked Mr Gupta and Ms Sengupta how they plan to tackle this psychological impact on my child, they said we will need to talk. As if all this talk will remove the bullying that will ensue. It looked as if they did not want to take him in the first place and were looking for a way to refuse. In his new school after just attending for a week, his science teacher told us that he is a very bright and positive child. She was surprised that VVS did not want to take him in class 8, because no school would want to lose a student like my son. Well that was enough for me. Ms Sengupta reasoned that Vishnu had not read any classics in class 7. Maybe not....but he had read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and done an assignment on it. He had enjoyed reading it and had got very good grades for the assignment. I can challenge the school to pick out even ten students from class 8 who are even capable of understanding The Alchemist. Most people read it in adulthood. Also when I told Mr. Gupta and Ms. Sengupta about this, both had expressions of surprise. Well I am clearly unhappy with the treatment meted out to us. But the thing is that one cannot challenge private schools as their authority is supreme. My son was probably underage, a fact I knew all along, but the school realised now and wanted to rectify at the cost of my son’s one year....just because they had overseen it at the time of admission earlier.

The whole episode has left a dent on my mind and makes me regret my return to India sometimes. It leaves me sour. The school had not responded to many of our emails that we sent from Germany. Though they themselves had asked us to write to them in advance.

Also I would like to mention that Vidya Valley school has not till date shared the results of my son with us......maybe because they have something to hide?