The Saturday Morning Ritual That Followed Me Out Of Religion

Most of us grow up with at least one ritual we never think to question. Not because we believe it deeply, but because it arrives fully formed, already in motion.

Mine came with a steel bowl, mustard oil, and the Lord of Saturn.

Every Saturday between 7–8 AM, you could hear him coming. That deep, carrying voice cutting through the morning, chanting Jai Shanidev (hail the Lord of Saturn), moving from door to door. He wore a white shirt and white pants and carried a steel canister and cloth bags on his shoulders to collect dry rations.

By the time he reached our door, the steel bowl was already out, filled with mustard oil and a rupee coin at the bottom. Everyone in the family had to see their reflection before it was handed over.

Then you handed it over along with flour, black urad dal (Saturn’s grain, heavy and dark), and sometimes sugar, and went back to your parathas (buttery Indian flatbread) because the ritual was done and breakfast was waiting.

We didn’t question it. We timed our mornings around it.

Before Google, how many rituals survived simply because there was nowhere to question them?

I remember asking my parents once what the reflection was for. Were these rituals explained anywhere?

My mother said it was probably to ward off the evil eye. Besides, a small donation never hurt anyone. It multiplies as a good deed. My father agreed from behind his newspaper. That was another ritual in our household entirely, but that’s a story for another day.

Nobody seemed particularly concerned with the exact reason. The ritual had to be done and that was the end of it.

For a long time, the lack of an answer stayed with me.

Years later, in a completely different life, I found myself looking it up.

It has a name. Chaya Daan. Shadow donation. See yourself clearly before your hands let go of something.

Which reminded me of the guest who once stayed with us and found the steel bowl sitting on the kitchen shelf. Mustard oil has many uses in South Asian homes for hair, cooking, and skin, so they helped themselves and applied some to their hair. They only realised something was off when they hit the coin at the bottom.

They were mortified. My brother and I were absolutely hysterical.

Luckily there is a prayer for forgiveness. It’s called Kshama Prarthana.You say it out loud, humbly, something like: I did not know. I did not mean it. Whatever I did, my actions, please forgive it all. The guest said those words, we poured a fresh batch of oil into the bowl, moved the coin back keeping it ready again for donation and Saturday continued as normal.

The ritual had its own form of error handling built in, which honestly shows a level of practical wisdom I have a great deal of respect for.

Maybe that was always fine. Maybe the doing was the point.

Did the internet free us from religion or did it just give us permission to admit we were already gone?

The man collecting oil door to door turned out to be part of a bigger network. The oil didn’t disappear into devotion. It moved into shops, into kitchens, onto someone else’s tawa (an Indian flat griddle) on someone else’s Saturday morning. People cooking with it had no idea where it had been.

My parents were devoted people in a world with no search bar and no real reason to look anything up.

The bowl was kept ready, and goods for donation were set aside because that’s what you did. The meaning lived in the doing. Nobody asked for a source.

I grew up in that same house, with the same rituals, the same unquestioned rhythms. Years later, I found myself sitting up late at night, looking up the very things no one had thought to question.

Not because I’m smarter. Just because I had wifi and they didn’t.

The ritual of donating survived.

These days I post in local giveaway groups. Because if I have three winter coats and someone has none, that person should have one.

The religious meaning didn’t make it. The human one did.

Some rituals outlast the religion they came wrapped in.

What’s the ritual you grew up with that nobody ever explained?