Ananya Panday Weekly Nazar Removal Ritual: How the Chilli Test Works

Ananya Panday has her nazar taken out once a week, and the useful part is smaller than the headline. A house help does what she calls the mirchi thing, and a strong smell or a hard burn is read as nazar. Her mother puts a separate black mark on her before she leaves the house.

Nazar is the Hindi and Urdu name for the evil eye, a glance believed to cause injury or death to the person it falls on. This page stays with the Ananya Panday weekly nazar removal ritual: the words she used, the two dots behind the ear, the household way of doing the chilli version, and the charms people fold into the same story.

Mirchi Thing Details From the Interview

She laid the habit out in a Netflix India interview with Raunaq Rajani, posted on October 3, 2024, while she was promoting the film CTRL. The talk was about superstition, and she did not present the rite as a cure she could explain.

I take out my nazar every week. The help at my house does the mirchi thing. You know the mirchi thing? So, if it smells a lot, it means you have nazar. If the mirchi burns a lot, you have nazar. I don’t know the science behind it.

Ananya Panday, actor, Netflix India interview, October 2024

Those two tests are the whole method she gave. A lot of smell counts as nazar. A hard burn counts as nazar. She said in the same breath that she does not know the science, and other people on that panel said they do not share the belief.

Two Black Dots Behind the Ear

Before that same conversation, her mother, Bhavana Pandey, put two black dots behind her ear. Ananya Panday says people assume she has skipped a shower, or that something dirty is stuck there, and that her mother puts the dots back again and again.

Households call that mark a kaala teeka. The spot is there to break up a dressed-up look, so praise has a flaw to land on. Placement varies from house to house: behind the ear, on the sole of a foot, or at the nape of the neck. Her account is narrower. Two dots, behind the ear, replaced whenever they are wiped off.

A wider custom blackens a child’s face, especially near the eyes, for the same kind of protection. The dot behind the ear is the version she still leaves the house with. It is her mother’s daily mark. The mirchi thing is the weekly check, and the two get mashed together only because both sit under the word nazar.

Envy of beauty and prosperity is the cause folk accounts give more readily than a curse someone aims on purpose. Praise of a face, a child or a run of good fortune is treated as the risky moment, which is why a black dot shows up on a day when someone looks especially done up. A rarer strand says the glance can be involuntary. One Slavic folktale has a father put out his own eyes so he will not hurt his children. Her interview sits with the ordinary version, a weekly check at home, with no person named as the source.

Who Does the Ananya Panday Weekly Nazar Removal Ritual?

She does not do the chilli part herself. The help at her house does the mirchi thing, and she has it done every week. Celebrity writeups tend to stop at her name, yet the smell and the burn are noticed by the person standing at the pan.

Her mother handles the dots, and the custom is not limited to her. When filmmaker Farah Khan visited the family, Bhavana Pandey’s line about Chunky Panday was short: “He’s getting his nazar removed.” The removal is a household habit. The house help works the chilli, and a parent decides when someone needs a turn.

How a Household Performs the Mirchi Removal

She never listed counts, circles or a pan. What she named was mirchi, plus smell and burn. Families who know that phrase are describing a short home rite called nazar utarna.

A careful chilli and salt method at home treats the rite as living custom, not a single recipe from a Vedic manual. The widespread form uses an odd number of dried red chillies and, where the family includes it, a palmful of coarse salt. She did not mention salt. The sequence below is that common form, so the two signs she named have a setting. She did not dictate these counts.

1. Hold the chillies, and the salt if your family uses it, and set a short intention. No one mantra is shared by every region.
2. Have the person sit or stand at ease, and keep the chillies away from a child’s face and hands.
3. Circle them clockwise from the head down toward the feet, three or seven times, the pass count that widespread form uses.
4. Tip them onto a hot tawa under a running exhaust, or use the small fire your house already trusts. Do not lean over the pan or breathe the smoke in on purpose.
5. Let the crackling finish, switch the heat off, and wait until the remains are cool.
6. Put the cooled remains where feet will not grind them, then stop. A short prayer or a quiet moment is enough of an ending.

Direction and count change by family. A grandmother who circles the other way, or who adds mustard seed, is following her own line. The part Ananya Panday fixed in public stays narrower: mirchi, once a week, read by smell and by how hard it burns. Houses that keep the rite use it after praise, a homecoming or a public appearance. A fever is a poor reason to light the pan, because a sick person still needs ordinary medicine.

THE SMOKE IS A REAL IRRITANT

• The vapour: Burning dried red chillies throws off a sting that hits the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.
• The room: Open a window and run the exhaust before the pan is hot, and keep children, pets, loose cloth and anyone with asthma away from the flame.
• The stop: If the smoke turns harsh, cut the heat and move everyone into fresh air.
• The limit: Feeling ill still calls for a doctor. The rite does not stand in for that visit.

There is no gain in a thicker cloud. Moisture inside a dried chilli expands on a hot surface and can split the skin, and salt crackles on its own. A louder pan can be a wetter chilli or a hotter flame. That kitchen fact sits under the sign she uses, which is the open question in her line about not knowing the science.

What Smell and Burn Are Said to Show

Her reading has two gates, and both point the same way. If it smells a lot, she says you have nazar. If it burns a lot, she says you have nazar. She did not describe a third result, so a quiet pan is not a score she published.

Household talk still treats a sharp cloud and a loud pop as a heavy case, because the noise gives the rite an ending you can hear. Use the sound as the close of the action. Asking it to name who looked at her, or to measure how much danger she is in, gives a chilli a job it cannot do. Heat, moisture, the number of pods and the airflow all change that same crackle.

You can hear the difference on an ordinary stove. A closed kitchen and a hot pan will smell of chilli even if nobody praised anyone that week. The same pods, drier and under a strong exhaust, can finish quietly. Her rule still reads a strong smell or a hard burn as nazar. The setup is the part she left inside that unanswered science.

Marks and Charms That Are Not This Rite

Once the weekly burn and the ear dots are pulled apart, the other protections stay in their own places.

• Door chillies: A lemon and green chillies hung at a shop, a car or a front door are a threshold charm, left up and later replaced, not circled around a person and burned that week.
• Blue glass eye: Blue eye amulets, sold for protection in places such as Turkey and also hung in Indian homes, are worn or displayed so an eye looks back at a gaze. She did not say she wears one.
• Salt in fire or water: In some Hindu traditions a little salt waved around a person then burned or dropped in water is the whole remedy, with no chilli required.
• Black thread: A thread on a wrist or an ankle is another daily shield, closer to the dots than to the pan.

Her public description did not include a bead, a door hanging, a thread, a sacred text or a hand gesture. Those belong to the wider set of protections. If you are following what she described, you are listening for smell and for a hard burn on mirchi, with the dots as her mother’s separate habit on the way out the door.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Weekly Nazar Removal Have to Fall on Saturday?

No. She said she takes her nazar out every week, and she did not name a weekday. Some families prefer Tuesday or Saturday because of older links with Mangal and Shani, and that preference is their custom, not a rule she stated. Use the calm moment your own house already keeps.

Do You Need Salt If She Named Only Mirchi?

No. Her words name the mirchi thing and no other ingredient. Salt appears in a widespread version of nazar utarna, and some Hindu practice waves salt by itself before it goes into water or fire. A house that burns only dried red chillies is still doing what she described.

What Should You Do If the Chilli Smoke Gets Harsh?

Stop the heat, move people into fresh air and let the kitchen clear. Do not keep the pan going because a harsher smell feels like stronger proof. If a person is ill, call a doctor rather than waiting on the chillies to finish.

Are Animals Treated as Open to the Evil Eye Too?

Yes, within the belief. Pregnant women, children and animals are treated as open to that glance, and charms are sometimes hung on animals as well as on people. Ananya Panday was speaking about her own week, not about a pet. If you ever do the rite near an animal, keep the smoke out of its face and skip a burn in a closed room.

What she put on record in October 2024 is small enough to keep straight. Once a week the house help burns mirchi, and a strong smell or a hard burn is the sign she uses without claiming a scientific reason. On the way out the door, her mother replaces two black dots behind her ear. Heat, moisture and airflow can still make that pan loud.

Disclaimer: This guide explains a household belief and what Ananya Panday has said about her own weekly practice. It is not medical, religious or fire-safety advice, and it does not promise that any rite prevents harm. Talk to a doctor about illness, and skip burning chillies around anyone who reacts badly to smoke, including children and people with asthma. Family customs and the details above reflect the sources reviewed and can differ from house to house.