Skip to main content

Superstition



If you stop a moment to observe, you get characters for stories.   Every moment is a story.  Every person is a story.  Life is a story.

I was in a shop in Delhi.  A buyer’s bill came to Rs 115.  He gave a five-hundred rupee note.  No change, says the shopkeeper.  So the client fished out a hundred-rupee note and a ten-rupee coin and a five-rupee coin.  Both the coins were golden.  A moment passed.  I was busy (in my own clumsy, lazily observing way) picking my items.  That man came back.  “Where’s the coconut I bought?” he asked.

“Sorry,” said the shopkeeper who picked out the coconut from under his outdated weighing balance.  “But I have not charged for this…”

“I know,” said the client.  “How much?”

“Rs 25.”

The client gave a Rs50 note.  The shopkeeper gave back Rs25 which included the same golden coins that he had given earlier.

“A lucky sign,” said the client. 

“You believe in luck?” said the shopkeeper pretending to be nonchalant.

“Not at all.  I’m not bloody superstitious.   What do you think I am.  It’s just that the Shastri said yesterday that my Shukradasha (auspicious 12 years) is beginning.”


Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers



Comments

  1. If there was no Superstition, we'd be celebrating the 4.5 billionth New year, instead we are in 2014. This is how Religion and Superstition pushed us back by years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am curious...what did that mean?

      Delete
    2. I'm equally curious, Namrota. Hope Ankur returns to satisfy us.

      Delete
    3. Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) celebrates the real AGE, thats right, in Billions, you should search for the Hindu New Year (age) . You will get idea of which exact year is this. When world was counting age of planet in thousands, Sanatan Dharma had the concept of yug, mahayug, Kalpa. 1 Kalpa is 4.32 billion years. 2014 is brought by Abrahamic religions.

      Delete
    4. But what has that got to do with superstition. It's just a matter of convenience and history. There was no intelligent creature 4.5 billion years ago to make a calendar in the first place. Secondly, the Hindu calculation also cannot claim any scientific authenticity.

      Delete
    5. it's has got nothing to do one religion .. it's simply the age of our planet which is 4.54 billion.. scientifically.. what my point was that...when you said in last line that It’s just that the Shastri said yesterday that my Shukradasha (auspicious 12 years) is beginning.” "Shastri always follow Gregorian calender to predict things even when in Hinduism every Ved has been written in kalpa .. how to believe in such people prediction ..
      Every thing has got to do with the superstition .. every religion has made their own calender according to their superstition.. In mayan calender there was no date after 2012 because there superstition was that world will end on that day .. even the modern Gregorian calender that we use was reformed and made such that everyone should celebrate the Easter on the same day .
      I’m not saying that the Hindu calculation can claim any scientific authenticity but it has predicted its value more accurately than any other .. 4.32 .

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. k I do believe that if my right palm is itching is for loosing money and left for gaining. It does work :P so I believe in superstitions.
    But how can the client claim he is not superstitious, obviously he is lol

    ReplyDelete
  4. Its just like, i am superstitious but wait why am i telling you this, kinda situation !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many people don't realise how superstitious they are.

      Delete
  5. haha... many people think it's old fashion to be superstitious and so they deny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many people are not aware of their own superstitions!

      Delete
  6. It's so easy to find them around almost all the time :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No doubt, the world is full of such people, perhaps including us!

      Delete
  7. good post. I had written something in similar lines.

    http://truethoughts-niranjan.blogspot.in/2013/07/dangerous-belief.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. I am superstitious when it comes to my loved ones. Too much of care and concern asks me to be careful in every possible way. :D Why to take risk!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Some superstition is inevitable when it comes to matters like love. There's no love without some illusions, in other words.

      Delete
  9. LOL! Vehemently denying is the first instinct of anyone who is asked "Are you superstitious?" Afterwards, you notice the colorful rings on their fingers, the red and black threads on their wrists and little cylindrical silver pieces around their necks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Precisely, Sreesha. Such people can be interesting objects of fiction.

      Delete
  10. Oh, I'm very superstitious and I guess so is everyone, in their own little ways. I love your illustration of the point.
    Off-topic (kind of), it reminded me of something by Terry Pratchett: “There’s no point in believing in things that exist. They will go on existing whether you believe it or not.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carrying on from where Pratchett stops, can we say that it's better to believe in things that don't exist? :)
      Yes, I agree with you that we are all superstitious in one way or another. I wasn't really making a judgment when I wrote this blog, was trying to show how we are.

      Delete
  11. I'm superstitious...I believe in astrology :) I believe my stars are the reflection of my past deed...and yes, I believe in rebirth too :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

War and Meaning of Victory

In the summer of 1999, while the rest of India was soaked in monsoon and Cricket World Cup, the country’s soldiers were clawing up frozen cliffs daring the bullets that came shooting from above. India’s incorrigible neighbour had sent its soldiers and militants to capture the snow-covered peaks of Kargil. It was an act of deception, a capture of India’s land stealthily. The terrain was harsh and hostile, testing the limits of human courage with every jagged step. The Kargil War was not just against a human enemy, but against peaks of stones and snow where the air itself was an adversary. Three months of bitter conflict and subhuman killing ended in India’s victory over the invading Pakistan. Victory! July 26 is celebrated ever after as Kargil Vijay Diwas by India. What is victory, however? Philosophically, I mean. We are supposed to be rational (philosophical) creatures, after all. “ W ar does not determine who is right,” Bertrand Russell said famously, “but who is left.” Every...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

The RSS and Paradoxes

The oldest racist organisation in the world is all set to celebrate the centenary of its existence. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 with the specific goal of unifying the Hindus in India under a religious and cultural banner. The Indian Independence struggle that was going on in full force at that time was no concern of the RSS. Though it gave the liberty to its individual members to take part in the struggle, the organisation’s official policy was to stay clear of it altogether. That was only one of the many paradoxical ironies that marked the RSS which was a nationalist organisation that cared little for the Independence of the nation. Today, the Prime Minister of India is a man who was trained and nurtured by the RSS. Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book on the paradoxes that underscore the personality of Mr Narendra Modi. The RSS and paradoxes go hand in hand, if we take Modi as a specimen of the organisation’s great achievements. Tharoor’s final asses...