My mother, deeply rooted in the peasant culture of her native Punjab, was always immersed in the supernatural. She was born into Sikhism, but – like many Indians of her generation – her knowledge of her religion was never strong. She could never name its 10 founding gurus; nor had she any interest
in its monist theology which encourages an internal experience of God through meditation.
Her Sikhism was an emotionally driven, personal mish-mash of various customs from across the subcontinent – most of it Hindu. She visited temples daily, prayed each morning and chanted Sanskrit hymns – without understanding a word – while wafting incense through the house. And she fasted – a lot.
She often fasted for Shiva, the dancing wild-man god of destruction, and his first wife, Shakti. When her children got chicken pox, she fasted for the tiger-riding, demon-slaying goddess Durga. And she fasted, in vain, for Santoshi Mata, the goddess of domestic happiness.
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