Shon Khisti Week 1 - 🧿

My grandma, who lives in India, came to stay with us this past summer, bringing various traditions and, most importantly, great snacks from my ancestral homeland. Even though I am ethnically Indian, all these traditions seemed foreign to me, since I have not visited India in the last fifteen years. 

The one thing that stood out to me was one day when I was getting prepared to take my daily shower. While I was picking up my towel and outfit for the day, my grandma suggested that I mix in some kitchen salt in a bucket of water and douse myself in the mixture before starting my shower to remove my “nazar”.  

Nazar, a Hindi word, directly translates to evil eye (🧿), or in other words, all the bad juju from all the jealousy, envy, and malice wished upon you by other people. Don’t worry, submerging yourself in salt water is not the only way. Through hearing my friends’ stories, I learned a couple more defenses: circling red chillies and lemons around your head then burning them to expel the bad energy from South Asia; rolling an egg all over your body then cracking it in water from Latin America; feng shui, the practice of organizing furniture to lead a path of good energy from Chinese traditions. Maybe if I try all of these at once, I will create somewhat of an impenetrable force field against bad energy. 

I realized these superstitions are not isolated practices, but rather a pattern of the need to defend people from things they can not see or control. I may not fully understand the necessity of the salt water shower, but I will still do it every month because it will always connect me to my grandmother and a culture that sometimes seems distant. Identity is not only made up of the traditions and practices we fully understand. It includes habits and rituals that we laugh at, question, or are even confused by, yet we still inherit them. Sometimes, the traditions that seem the most outlandish are the ones that remind us of our identity. I probably will not rub my body with an egg or reorganize all the furniture in my room; I may still keep those chillies and lemons within reach. You can never be too safe!