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“Sorry,” said the shopkeeper who picked out the coconut from under his outdated weighing balance.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

Coming-of-Age Poems

Lubna Shibu Book Review Title: Into the Wandering Multiverse Author: Lubna Shibu Publisher: Book Leaf , 2024 Pages: 23 Poetry serves as a profound medium for self-reflection. It offers a canvas where emotions, thoughts, and experiences are distilled into words. Writing poetry is a dive into the depths of one’s consciousness, exploring facets of the poet’s identity and feelings that are often left unspoken. Poets are introverts by nature, I think. Poetry is their way of encountering other people. I was reading Lubna Shibu’s debut anthology of poems while I had a substitution period in a section of grade eleven today at school. One student asked me if she could have a look at the book as I was moving around ensuring discipline while the students were engaged in their regular academic tasks. I gave her the book telling her that the author was a former student in this very classroom just a few years back. I watched the student reading a few poems with some amusement. Then I ask...

How to preach nonviolence

Like most government institutions in India, the Archaeological Survey of India [ASI] has also become a gigantic joke. The national surveyors of India’s famed antiquity go around finding all sorts of Hindu relics in Muslim mosques. Like a Shiv Ling [Lord Shiva’s penis] which may in reality be a rotting piece of a Mughal fountain. One of the recent discoveries of Modi’s national surveyors is that Sambhal in UP is the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth incarnation of God Vishnu. I haven’t understood yet whether Kalki was born in Sambhal at some time in India’s great antique history or Kalki is going to be born in Sambhal at some time in the imminent future. What I know is that Kalki is the final incarnation of Vishnu that is going to put an end to the present wicked Kali Yuga led by people like Modi Inc. Kalki will begin the next era, Satya Yuga, the Era of Truth. So he is yet to be born. But a year back, in Feb to be precise, Modi laid the foundation stone of a temple dedicated to Kalk...

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...

The Triumph of Godse

Book Discussion Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’ Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “ Hindu khatre mein hai ,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.   Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the...