13 posts

I like bringing in some play with words… I find it very amusing to make a rhyming word which can be associated to something existing… it usually turns out that whatever I churn out is in good context to what I want to say and I feel that it brings in that extra punch just because there is an existing word… like if you look at the pirated sony which are called soni or soney, the first 3 letters seem to lend the much needed credibility to customers even though they know that it is a pirated cheap product…

Anyways getting back to the post, it is rhyming with ghost… remember the movie 13 ghosts… amusing isn’t it? (correct answer = "yes of course, it is !!!") Thought I would use the wotever this tool is called in English (like alliterations or puns)… if you probably not guessed what this post is about – well it is about superstition… fear of the number 13 and many more such things that I find funny… (another reason is I don’t want to take chances that I may never find the interest to write another blog post if I don’t break the 13 posts barrier)…

I often have fights with my parents whenever their seemingly superstitional recommendations clash with my convenience… I agree that my parents are my well wishers and they want the best for their son, but is it not potentially irritating if you had to consult the panchangam (an astrological book that gives the great dates to do some tasks) to check if it is the auspicious time to do something as mundane as going to T-Nagar and buying some necessary stuff (for non-chennaiites, T-Nagar is a shopoholic heaven in Chennai and an agoraphobic’s nightmare)… but my mom gives a consideration to shops that are local – distance from home less than 4kms (actually T-Nagar shops are just beyond 4kms and we never go to any shop that is between 500mts to 4kms anyways). Ok now, the normal trend is that we will leave at a time that is delayed by 1hr and 30mins due to raahu kaalam, the ideal time for some mythological demon called raahu who swallows the sun and the moon during their eclipses… (don’t ask me what he does to release them once the eclipse is over ). Since now we have left at the auspicious time that is past this raahu kaalam, we find that there are no buses at this time of the day… normally Chennai buses are never on time and additionally when there are no buses scheduled, the probability of seeing a bus on the road becomes very close to zero… but we are stubborn and we wait silently (my mom criticizing the Chennai government for not letting more buses and me criticizing raahu…) for the bus to arrive, which finally does after about an hour, picking up all the stubborn shop goers like us from the previous stops and crowded like an exaggerated fevicol ad. We board the bus and are promptly separated, and since unlike those shown in movies, we don’t have a family song, I constantly keep watch for some sign of my mom. But eventually over the slow journey, that is interspersed with innumerable stops for the conductor to distribute tickets between stages, takes a toll on my concentration and I start dreaming. After a few nice dreams I am rudely awaken by the guy next to me as my mom is calling out to me… my dreams unfinished I am a bit groggy and irritated and I am welcomed by an elbow jostling crowd against which i must make my way with my mom… by the time we are finished, I am famished – mentally and physically and all I want is to get back home asap and have a cup of hot mummy made filter coffee… but the ordeal that awaits us is a repeat of the step beginning from the wait for the bus to arrive till we arrive at the destination, only this time it is the peak traffic hour and hence more people on the buses and more time for travel through the traffic.

Now, one day it so happened that we simply forgot to factor in Mr.Raahu and just left. We reached the bus stop, and who should be waiting for us, a practically empty bus. The driver had probably trained under Michael Schumacher and the conductor under mother Teresa, we found that we had a short and sweet journey to T-Nagar. The moment we reached there, we quickly finished our purchases and were back on a similarly empty bus and we were back home… it wasn’t even coffee time yet… when we reached home, we realized that we had left at the beginning of the raahu kaalam and were before it was over…

Notice the difference in size between the last 2 paragraphs? Probably we were lucky the second time because we didn’t remind Mr.Raahu to make life hell for us… he was happy and we were too… if I tell my mom this, she says it was a freak accident and next we should be extra careful to remember this mistake… I have long given up…

Now why does everyone say not to cross the path of a black cat (or not let a black cat cross your path – I have always been confused which of the two it is as are many of the superstitious folk I have asked)… well my guess is if you accidentally trample the cat, you are bound to get scratched probably… but then why would you trample the cat anyways…

Spilling salt gives you bad luck – unless you continue to lick the spilt salt with the dirt on the floor, I can’t think of any reason why that particular quantity of salt is going to be angry with you…

I have done quite a lot of important things on the 13th of the month and many of the 13ths have fallen on Fridays too… I have not faced any major problem that is attributable to the day-date combo… and Friday the 13th appears at least once every year and unless we are going to the movie, nobody need fear any loss…

And there are more for which you can look up the following site (it gives it categorywise a belief associated with different objects on this planet) http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/scary.html

There are just too many, but I will keep fighting them… as and when possible I will question them… not to break their belief, but to understand the reason behind the belief and if necessary change myself… but I will not go down without a fight…