I had noticed stories – countless bizarre, baffling and intense stories- of India’s religious devotion. The fact someone was a ‘secularist’ by no means implied they were a rationalist; Nehru’s sometimes contemptuous dismissal of superstition was not a trait that was shared by many others. To start at the top, the chief minister of Karnataka, B.S. Yeddyurappa, proferred his index finger to an official at the 2009 general election so it could be stained with a line of dye after voting, in accordance with the law. The offical was stumped, because the chief minister was holding up his right hand, and everybody knew it was the left index finger that needed to be marked. There was a moment of silence before the offical, bowing to power, stained the right (or the wrong) finger. Why did B.S. Yeddyurappa do this? It was an accident, he said, an oversight on his part – but it turned out later in the day that his spiritual guardian had forbidden him to raise or extend his left hand, for astrological reasons. (p. 367)

Comment: The above quote is from India : A Portrait by Patrick French pub. Allen Lane 2011. It is not for astrological reasons alone why the two hands are assigned different roles in oberving rituals: just think about holding the Qu’ran in the right hand and taking an oath with the right hand on the Bible.