Only Superstition?

Ahh…Smell that? Yep, that’s fresh stench of pure struggle and strife. The nose tingling fumes of frustration and anxiety. Because it’s that time of the year again. The time where all tenth and twelfth grade students are confined to about two months of house arrest, the dutiful task to swallow all their text books, and to eat steamed vegetables for supper. Believe me, exams are one of life’s grueling obstacles which are just not worth the backache, nausea, damaged corneas and swine flu. But along with the exams comes an interesting, if not completely desperate, plea to the Gods to survive the entire ordeal. I’m talking about superstitions.
You know, the lucky sock that got you to score your first goal, that lucky pen that earned you that perfect score on that test, the lucky song that was blasting in your head at the time you were writing the previously mentioned test with that lucky pen of yours…you get it. We all have these tiny little superstitions, routines and rituals to make a seemingly impossible day, possible for us and to stop our absolute worst fears from coming true. Gives desperation a whole new and bizarre meaning, eh? Especially for exams, which have set out to determine your immediate future for you, most people need to take measures so that everything goes according to plan.
When it comes to being superstitious, I’m not you’re conventional operator. No, I don’t own a lucky pen, nor have I ever scored a goal with socks on. That being said, I did score a goal once, but I think it was by accident. Anyway, being superstitious isn’t just about owning various items of intrinsic value, it’s actually more of a way of life. That’s why, at approximately this time last year, I went a tad bit overboard with this noble art. I recall watching a melodramatic Marathi serial known as ‘Kalat Nakalat’ from time to time to make sure the Maharashtrian Gods were on my side. Plus, I was bored of studying Hindi. Apart from that it was essential for me to keep a certain song in my head as I studied, so that I would be able to remember what I’d learnt. Also, for a good part of those two months, I was obsessed with some sort of mad Gujarati play called ‘Rock On, Faiba’. A play which I had never seen in my entire life, mind you. Though that was purely for reasons to entertain myself since I was going nuts. Then, I refrained from going out onto the terrace at night, just to avoid a nightmarish paper the next day. Don’t ask.
Well, after all that eccentricity I don’t quite know how it all affected the way I did in my Board exams. I mean, I did fairly well, but was it just the because of the overwhelming sway of the superstitions? Or was it because I had studied well beyond saturation point? Or, maybe it was those steamed vegetables after all...

Drop Before I Shop

What is it with women and shopping anyway? I mean, the second you mention the words ‘shopping’, ‘sale’, ‘bags’, ‘shoes’, ’Prada’ or any of those insanely priced brands which design clothes fit for Barbie dolls, things happen. Appallingly abysmal things. For the aforementioned are enough to make any woman drool and rush out of the house before anyone mentions the word ‘bankrupt’. It’s amazing, really. Women have antenna-like ears and no matter how much they glitter, dazzle and create a scintillating aura of wealth through their copious amounts of bling-bling, they still manage to eavesdrop on conversation within a half-mile radius. Especially if those snippets of conversation are centered around the next sale at Mango.
Sure, I’m a girl. But that doesn’t stop me from detesting shopping. The whole idea has never quite appealed to me. Some people find an it okay, once-in –a-while kind of experience. I myself find it irregular and agonizing. After a recent shopping excursion, the scene was this: Me in the midst of a war field of clothes of every possible shade and hue, being ravenously devoured by blood thirsty women of all ages. Let me tell you, the Battle of Waterloo was just about as fierce as this. But this has, of course, resulted in me going colour-blind and becoming dangerously claustrophobic. Don’t worry, my condition is stable as of now.
Oh, and there’s the whole process of trying on the clothes. For some odd reason, the clothes at certain places never mange to fit me. I always have to try on the clothes and then realize that they’re either too tight or too loose. Then there’s the whole production of finding exactly the right size for you. I could have written an entire novel in approximately that amount of time. Who knew that shopping could be this frustratting? Though one of the things that amuses me the most is when women intrepidly traipse from store to store and flit from corner to corner in search of bags, fancy footwear and the occasional necklace. I‘m sure they use them from time to time and all, but I’m beginning to suspect that they shop for them partly to open museums in their houses with a flashy, display of the said materials. Trust me, this is materialism at a whole new level. But, they do frequently say that they find shopping therapeutic and equivalent to finding yourself amidst a world of deep, dark bonhomie. Oh, well. Let them engage in their enlightening endeavours. For all I know, I’d rather drop before I shop.

Keeping The Fate

I don’t know about you but I’m a huge believer in Fate. To me, it’s not only a force which shapes and guides our lives, but it’s also a person. The way it throws things at us when we least expect it, the means with which it shrewdly manoeuvres us through the course of our lives and its ability to make us experience a myriad emotions and spectacular views. Fate is the ‘reason’ in ‘everything happens for a reason’. It prods and pokes us gently with ‘What is meant to be is just meant to be’. For years, I’ve tried to figure out how accurate these sayings actually are, mistaking them for useless proverbs made up by a bunch of completely clueless Chinese people. But everything does really happen for the best and things which don’t usually seem right can just be a blessing in disguise. Trust me, I know. It just takes a rather long while to see it.

Sure, it’s responsible for the maximum number of natural disasters, plane crashes and train derailments for the last few centuries. It’s also guilty of several murders, untimely deaths, other countless turmoil and turbulence and damage to the mental health of many innocent people out there. It’s almost as if Fate must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed and been forced to find out that there’s no coffee at his house, on those days.

Mid-Morning Musings

Robert Frost was right. Life certainly does go on. Though sometimes it feels like it’s at an absolute standstill. Don’t you find yourself sometimes in a rut, going from morning to evening at the same velocity and through the same itinerary? Ever been so deplorably bored of life and society that you begin doing things in a sleepy daze? Because from time to time, people keep propelling themselves through all the days, weeks, months and years, battling the seemingly stormy sea of the same old jobs, same people and same type breakfast cereal every morning. Think about it.

‘Innocent’ little school kids are forced to trudge grumpily to school every day only because it’s the law. Though there is some momentary ‘enthusiasm’ during exams. The same goes for teachers too. Their surly countenance looms up before you, as they prepare to teach the same chapter which they’ve only just finished explaining to the previous two classes. College students applying to all the big universities around the world would probably be having daily nightmares of exam papers stalking them. Thirty-something year olds obediently oscillate from their homes to their desks and cubicles at their offices. The senior citizens and old folks do seem to enjoy their long retirement by watching television shows, eating ancient fruitcake and barking orders into the phone. But they can get a little too comfortable by that routine.

Apart from the aforementioned long, drawn-out daze, have you ever gotten to a point where you find the people from society starting to get on your nerves? Where they just seem to be too conventional, too conforming and all of a sudden, extremely annoying? Well, I’m not exactly a people person but I can tell you that half of the scenery around me is inhabited by people falling prey to mob psychology, getting influenced and swayed by the people around them. I mean, it’s like school all over again. Everyone’s the same. Where’s a Howard Roark when you really need one?