My stories: Faith in God

I was seeing a old mythological Hindi movie with my dad and mom on a sunday evening, thanks to doordarshan.

The ending of the movie was very interesting, the villain throws knives at the hero. The hero folds his hands and chants god's name. The knife keeps coming close and close to him. And suddenly, in a moment the knife turns into a rose. Wow!!! That's amazing. I was not sure how that happened.

I turned to my dad and asked "Pa, how did that happen?"
Dad said, "He is chanting god's name. God turned the knife into rose"

I asked the next logical question, "So, if we chant god's name, nothing will happen to us?"
"Hmmm", dad said.

I took that as an 'Yes'. That meant that if i take god's name, when someone tries to beat me, i will not get hurt. This opened up all kinds of possibilities.

I thought i was the only kid who knew this secret and wanted to show off.

Next day, in the evening after school, i approached Laxmi narayan, the class bully. He was shorter than me by half a feet.

"Laxmi", i called him.
Laxmi turned and said, "What???".
I said with full confidence, "Will u hit me?".
Laxmi was surprised and asked me "why?".
I said, "Simply".

Laxmi was confused, but he was not ready to pass up such a good opportunity.
He said "Ok. Where?"
I was ready for this question. I showed him my chest and said, "Hit me hard".

I folded my arms as laxmi got ready to deliver the punch. I started chanting "Om namah shivaya" repeatedly.

Laxmi lifted his arm to deliver the punch. I closed my eyes.

The next thing i knew was, i was lying on the ground with a heavy pain in my chest. I was not sure what happened! What went wrong! I was chanting god's name, then why did i feel the pain. Shouldn't his hand be blocked by god.

All the while laxmi was smiling like a cat that landed itself with a bowl of cream. He said "enuf?". When i didn't reply anything, he started laughing and went on his way. And there i was lying on by back with a hurt mixed confused expression.

I got up and went home. Dad wasn't home yet, so sat and tried to figure out the day's events with all kinds of permutation and combination.

Dad came home at 5 PM, as usual. I went straight to him and asked, "Pa, yesterday u told na that chanting god's name will protect me"
Dad said, "yes"
I continued with my question, "So, even if someone beats me nothing will happen to me right? "
Dad seemed to understand the direction i was taking with my question.
He said " Only chanting does not work, you need to have a lot of devotion towards god. Only then he (god) will protect you."

I was dumbfounded. Now what was Devotion????

This incident happened when i was in class 1 or 2. Not sure which one.