Saturday, July 10, 2004
The gods never answered...
Written by Sam Moonsamy as told to him by his wife Sue
"Unlike many non-whites in South Africa, I was born in a wealthy family. We were dignified, hard working, self-reliant, and devoted to Hinduism. We offered daily prayers and regular sacrifices to a shrine of multiple Hindu deities.
Despite this, my parents divorced when I was still a young girl. Divorce was rare in Indian culture, and my mother felt so ashamed that we moved to Johannesburg and rejected my father's financial assistance.
Though still a child, before long I was all too aware of our poverty and the misery of the slums we lived in. Yet we continued to worship our gods.
When a live 'snake god' mysteriously appeared in the local temple, the Hindu community was delirious in its excitement to visit and worship this 'miraculous' god. I was petrified with fear. Trembling almost convulsively, I could not escape my mother's grip as she dragged me into the temple
Inside, my head swirled in confusion as worshipers, some in a trance, pleaded for the snake to come out of its hole. I prayed it would not.
It poked its head out, but never fully appeared. All that mattered to me, however, was that I escaped.
For months I begged the gods to tell me why we had to worship snakes. They were silent.
They were also evil. One morning I stood by helplessly as my mother cried for hours, depressed over the hardship and frustration of raising a family in the slums by herself.
That afternoon she locked the doors and told my sister and me that, according to the law of karma, we were suffering because of sins we had committed in our past lives.
'But if we can die violently and in suffering,' she said, 'we will be reincarnated to a higher level of being. We will be free from poverty and more closely united to our creator. Through suffering we will be purged.'
I didn't understand what she was talking about until she started pouring kerosene over us. As she poured, she chanted to the gods and told us, 'it will all be over soon.'"
Click here to go to Part 2
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"Unlike many non-whites in South Africa, I was born in a wealthy family. We were dignified, hard working, self-reliant, and devoted to Hinduism. We offered daily prayers and regular sacrifices to a shrine of multiple Hindu deities.
Despite this, my parents divorced when I was still a young girl. Divorce was rare in Indian culture, and my mother felt so ashamed that we moved to Johannesburg and rejected my father's financial assistance.
Though still a child, before long I was all too aware of our poverty and the misery of the slums we lived in. Yet we continued to worship our gods.
When a live 'snake god' mysteriously appeared in the local temple, the Hindu community was delirious in its excitement to visit and worship this 'miraculous' god. I was petrified with fear. Trembling almost convulsively, I could not escape my mother's grip as she dragged me into the temple
Inside, my head swirled in confusion as worshipers, some in a trance, pleaded for the snake to come out of its hole. I prayed it would not.
It poked its head out, but never fully appeared. All that mattered to me, however, was that I escaped.
For months I begged the gods to tell me why we had to worship snakes. They were silent.
They were also evil. One morning I stood by helplessly as my mother cried for hours, depressed over the hardship and frustration of raising a family in the slums by herself.
That afternoon she locked the doors and told my sister and me that, according to the law of karma, we were suffering because of sins we had committed in our past lives.
'But if we can die violently and in suffering,' she said, 'we will be reincarnated to a higher level of being. We will be free from poverty and more closely united to our creator. Through suffering we will be purged.'
I didn't understand what she was talking about until she started pouring kerosene over us. As she poured, she chanted to the gods and told us, 'it will all be over soon.'"
Click here to go to Part 2
