The Power Of Faith

I was born in a typical Tamil Iyer family, but as my father had a transferable job mostly in cities, we were fortunate to grow up in a very cosmopolitan environment. This helped us to understand different faiths and communities and be more progressive in our outlook. Religion and prayer was there but was not enforced and I thank our parents for that. We were encouraged to air our views as well and discuss religious and cultural issues openly over dinner. My mother encouraged us to read as she was an avid reader herself and we are indebted to her for opening our mind to the wonders of the world. This story is about keeping the faith in spite of there being no sound rationale for the belief. We also learnt that in science everything needs to be experimented and proved before it is accepted as a fact. However, there are some mysterious occurrences that cannot be explained by science and these are simply a matter of one's belief.

They say faith can move mountains. It was the year 1977 and I was preparing for my XII Board Exams. My sister's marriage had also been fixed for May and my Board exams were in March. Suddenly in February, my mother who was hale and hearty took ill with severe stomach infection. She had earlier undergone surgery for appendicitis but that was almost seven years ago. She was admitted and became serious without the doctor knowing exactly why. A barium meal test also revealed nothing. As her condition was deteriorating we were moving from pillar to post frantically in search of a cure. We all were ion the edge and the board exams were the last thing on my mind. We started praying fervently to every GOD we knew and visited many temples in the hope that GOD would listen to our pleas for our mother's recovery.

One day, a man told my father that he knew an Ayurvedic healer who claimed to possess miraculous curative powers with his natural medicines. After having seen the best of allopaths in town, we had nothing to lose and so we decided to try him out. He told us that she had an ulcer and he would give her a medicine for fifteen days which would cure her. He took almost nothing for the medicine saying it was a Divine duty for him to cure people. As if by magic, my mother started recovering on the fifth day and was back on her feet in two weeks. We went to the healer to thank him but we were told that he had left as mysteriously as he had come to town and try as much as we could, we were unable to find out where he went.

There was no relapse and my mother was hale and hearty as before. All was well as before and I did well in my Board exams and we celebrated my sister's wedding in style. I was almost a non believer in school but this incident changed my outlook in understanding that everything in this universe does not have an explanation and that faith can indeed give us tremendous support and power to surmount our troubles.