Skip to main content

Superstitions




I am not superstitious.  Like Groucho Marx, I know that if a black cat crosses my path it means that the cat is going somewhere and has nothing to do with me except that it happened to cross my path.  Usually it is better that the cat happened to cross my path than a human being, especially human beings with staunch religious affiliations.  I am more likely to be killed by a gau bhakt today than a cat.  

Marx becoming Marks! God!!
Superstition is born out of cowardice and irresponsibility.  You are afraid of, say, water.  But you have to cross the river and there’s no other choice.  You get into the boat with fear in your knees.  Your knees tremble.  Your knees wobble.  The boat takes on your trembling.  Trembling is contagious.  Like a disease.  It spreads.  And the boat succumbs.  It capsizes, let us say.  You are saved, let us hope.  And then you blame the cat.  Because you don’t want to accept that you peed in your trousers.  The cat that crossed your path while you were on your way to the river becomes a poor scapegoat. 

Superstition is all about creating scapegoats.

It can also be about creating frauds who will claim to heal you by invoking gods.  It can also be about politicians who will rid the country of cats.  The politicians may even create a holy cat if that can win them votes.  And your ego can go on a hot air balloon trip.  The cat that crossed your path has become something not to be feared but to be worshipped.  Cat becomes holy.  Cat becomes vote catcher.  Cat becomes theology.  Cat’s piss becomes Ayurvedic cure.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 174: #Superstitionandyou


Comments

  1. Pranju chakrapaniJune 16, 2017 at 8:46 PM

    Cat’s piss becomes Ayurvedic cure.. that was funny. A good length of satire can be written on how it became a medicine.

    I have my own take on superstition. Perhaps would write about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 16, 2017 at 9:16 PM

      India has become such a joke that cat's pee can become holy tomorrow.

      I'd love to read your take on superstition.

      Delete
  2. MansiJune 16, 2017 at 10:38 PM

    we are loaded with the list sir. From broken mirror to hanging lemons and tress, you can make them do anything. Recently , I too had an experience and had shared my thoughts on same.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 18, 2017 at 9:09 AM

      Yeah, I know there's a whole series of them. Perhaps, like religion, superstition is an integral part of the human soul.

      Delete
  3. UnknownJune 17, 2017 at 12:43 AM

    "Superstition is all about creating scapegoats" Well said

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 18, 2017 at 9:10 AM

      We need to shift the blame to someone or something :)

      Delete
  4. parwatisingariJune 17, 2017 at 4:20 PM

    :) cross my heart my views are similar.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

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
37 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more