This “piche-mudkar-mat-dekho” is a very common trope In India. When we turn around, God stops moving and is fixed to the spot.
Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik
This theme is not limited to India. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice in Greek mythology comes to mind. Orpheus was a great musician whose music could make rocks move and trees bloom. One day, his wife Eurydice dies, and in grief he goes to the land of the dead, to get her back, and convinces the god of death with his music to let her go back with him to the land of the living. He is told not to look back until he reaches the land of the living, but he does. And she returns to the land of the dead forever.
In Japanese mythology, the first man also gets permission to take his dead wife, the first woman, back to the land of the living, provided he does not turn around to see her face. But he does, and realises she is a horrific ghost now, and runs out and shuts the door, separating the land of the dead from the land of the living.
The Bible tells the story of Lot, who is told by angels, not to turn around when leaving the city of Sodom of Gomorrah that God plans to destroy with fire and brimstone. But, Lot’s wife turns around and turns into a pillar of salt.
These stories are as much about trust as they are about looking back at the past and losing sight of the future. We live in a society where social justice warriors and politicians keep looking at the past and use that to rile up crowds and promise vengeance in the future. Life is thus burdened by the past and unable to move forward. We get fixed, like a rock or a pillar of salt, stuck to what happened before.
The author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Reach him at devdutt.pattanaik@mid-day.com
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