OF ILL OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS

                                                                                

                                                 
                                               OF ILL OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS

                                                   Decades back ,when I first went to join the bank where I had secured a job, the first question the branch Manager asked me was “Madam are you superstitious ,you have chosen a very good day and time to join duty ?” .Before I could blurt out that  it had nothing to do with beliefs and that I had to join  on the day  to meet the deadline, my father who was with me, mumbled something like yes yes ,we were etc. I was taken aback, as my father ,who was an Army officer, just did not care for such beliefs and superstitions . Later on my father told me that he did not want the Manager, who appeared to be a very God fearing religious type, to get the impression that I was a total rebel when it comes to such matters !! First impressions count , you know !

                                                 Over the years  working in the bank , I kept encountering such situations quite often .There were customers who  would request the  disbursal date and time of their sanctioned loans  to be changed  just  because they felt that the day was not auspicious or the time allotted to them for availing the loan was  “Rahu kaalam”. Well, no one has so far undertaken a statistical     study of the   “ timings “ of the disbursal of  loans that go bad  in a bank, so we have no idea whether the  time chosen by the customers for their loans from banks was really auspicious or not .Or may be it was auspicious for the borrowers who had no intention of paying back !

                   I remember  a colleague  who kept observing the Navratna ring that I was wearing and remarked,” Madam I trust you are wearing this  for good fortune but it appears that whoever advised you to wear it has not told you that the diamond on it should face this side not on the side you are wearing “. He was aghast when I told him that being fond of rings, I  wore rings to match my dress and the Navratna was chosen as a short cut as it had all the colours , when I wore a dress  for which I had no ring with a   stone of matching colour , or had no time  to rummage through my collection!

                 Once  my mother,  a friend  and myself were to  go on a  pilgrimage  tour  .The moment our  car left the gate of our house a  jet black cat chose to cross our path.  Our friend  kept cribbing from  that moment  that  the journey was going to be a fiasco .But God willed that everything went off so smoothly  with good darshans  at all temples that the cat was soon forgotten by our friend. The Gods   perhaps  decided to take away all the impediments of the journey by sending the cat at the right time so that the obstacles remained only in the mind.

                I have always been amused  by many practices followed by people, like  watching out  for the first person who comes  from the opposite side when you are embarking on a  special mission, tying lemons and chillies at the entrance of houses to ward off evils, citing   the timely ring of bells or the clicking sound made by the house  lizard as a reinforcement of the veracity of something stated etc

                          Recently my niece ,who is more a daughter than a niece  gave birth to a baby girl and the baby who was perfectly healthy and cheerful during the day,  started crying non stop at night after a few days of her birth. The doctors did not find any special reason for the wail at night . My niece and her husband , who hails from Delhi, discussed between themselves and decided that  may be the unintentional  ‘nazar lagna” (casting of eyes)    by visitors, could be the reason for the incessant crying. So they did something to ward off the evil  eyes by lighting a wick and waving it around the child and then putting off the flame by keeping it on a tap and sprinkling water on it and watching  the flame flicker and sputter out. And lo the baby stopped its howl from that night. This was repeated whenever there were  visitors  to have a peek at the baby and surprisingly  it worked !

                 So now I have an explanation as to why  I  have started wearing my Navratna ring with the diamond stone facing  the way it ought to , why  I check  out what kind of  people  come from the opposite side when I leave  the house . I now watch out for the black cat in the neighbourhood  lest he cross my path and  I also prick up my ears for the clicking sound of the house lizard whenever I feel like having an endorsement to my views ! Why invite misfortune when you  can ward it off?? Ha Ha Ha.......!!!!

LONGING FOR THOSE OLD CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR TIMES ...

                                                                     

 LONGING FOR THOSE OLD CHRISTMAS  AND NEW YEAR TIMES !

         We are on the threshold of yet another Christmas and another New Year. Watching all the frenzied activity I see on the Cochin roads ,related  to shopping for Christmas, which I notice is mostly for Christmas decorations and textiles/garments, my mind goes  four decades back to our days in College. Those were the days when we   used to “GO “shopping  for Christmas and New Year cards for our friends and relations. I use the word GO , because today people do not have to do it . It is the age of messages/images through WhatsApp /Face Book etc,which is accessible from your chair or bed! But those days we used go out shopping to  search and buy cards which had beautiful words to specifically  express our wishes for each person  the card was being send to. The  money  at our disposal of course would be limited. Those were not days when parents could  spare  pocket money  like they do  now a days. I  remember ,  most of us in the college hostel where I was put up ,would get a hundred rupee Money Order from our  home. From this,  eighty five  rupees would  go for our hostel fee. Out of the remaining fifteen rupees  a  bottle of Horlicks would take away  seven rupees. Wonder why, but a Horlicks drink at night was a must for us in the hostel, those days! So most of us had to manage all  our  needs for the month including the  visits to College Canteen with  the balance of eight rupees .And we managed to do it ,although we would face funds constraints by the last week and would cut on our canteen trips ! The cost of a Masala Dosa those days was just 25 paise !! And a Masala Dosa or a Cutlet were the richest treat , unlike the present days when a sumptuous choice  of eats is available to youngsters .

                                  In December  our parents obliged us with an additional five or ten bucks  for the special purpose of buying  Christmas and New Year greeting cards ! The    shopping for cards started with the visit to the Higginbotham’s store in the City. The cards would be  displayed ,  price wise on the stands .The prices ranged from  25 paise to a kingly sum of  five rupees ! To   mix and match the price and our sentiments was quite a job! Of course we would also go to smaller shops on the street where  we could getter cheaper cards .It was  an enjoyable exercise ,though. We had to do all the shopping  much before Christmas holidays as those days  the Post offices  would be so  overburdened with  the plethora of   greeting cards  that  the delivery of the cards  continued till mid-January even if posted  mid -December.

                               We hostellers in the Convent college where I studied ,were allowed  to go shopping only once in a month , of course accompanied by a  Senior or a Nun .One particular year ,I  remember we  had  the Half yearly exams early in December so we were not allowed to go out shopping. There was no way to go out to make our purchase of greeting cards. Some of us  then  decided to send hand-made cards. Paper was available in the hostel store. We got water colours and oil paint and  made the cards  for Xmas and New Year. Leaves and flowers were plucked and dried and pasted on the cards and some more innovative among us even got poor butterflies and stuck them on to the cards!! The main idea was that our friends  and cousins, aunts and uncles  should get  a personal card from us !Of course we also used to receive such cards from our friends and relations  and I still have some of these preserved till date, for sentimental reasons!

                                                   

                            Now things have become so easy  but so impersonal .All we have to do is send an SMS  or Email or use  WhatsApp  /Face Book  . Greeting cards of all varieties  can be downloaded and send by email. There is no fun of shopping and searching for cards  to express our feelings ,no hassle of writing out addresses and sticking stamps, no trip to the Post office or  finding someone to post it for us. But the charm is lost, somewhere something seems missing. Although we have come a long way from those days, we  of that  generation do miss  the bonhomie and fun, the joy of receiving and sending greeting cards. I feel like crooning with Mary Hopkins... “Those were the days my friend/we thought they’d never end……?

THE BREAK UP PARTY

                                                                    

                                                 The other day I was  having dinner with my close relations at a resort .It was a special occasion  to celebrate the Golden wedding anniversary of  our Uncle and Aunt. Quite  close to where we were sitting , a party was going on in the lawns. It was  a boisterous one and  we saw a big banner  propped up   on one side .  It depicted a huge heart and a girl jumping out of it. Next to it was another displaying a Mobile phone number. All around there were balloons and festoons. We could see about 15-20 people .Mostly  young girls and a few  young boys.    They seemed to be celebrating  some occasion. Speeches      were being made     by the girls  in turns. It was        really distracting us. My cousins who had arranged the dinner , were  a little annoyed and  called the manager  to find out whether we could be given some  tables  at a distance from the  cacophony going on. It was then that I   happened to hear one of the speeches. I may say that  it was quite loud and did not need any eavesdropping  to hear it! From the speech  I made out that the party was being thrown to celebrate  the break-up of a  relationship one of the girls ( the host )  had with a boy  , for a couple of years . Needless to state that the boy in question was not among the guests !  I could hear snippets from the speeches which derogated the boy who was supposed to have flirted with other girls apart from the one he was going steady with. The   jilted  girl  having found that out , decided to  walk out of the relationship although she had “dearly loved him “ till then.  To come out of the “grief “ she decided to  throw a party to let her friends and well wishers  know of the BREAK UP   !

To say that I was shocked  to hear of the   reason for the party , would be  understatement.  Where has the world reached ?  For a moment I  wondered whether I was in India . Yes, we have to  grow with the changing times –but does that mean we should be so shameless to  forget our   culture and give scant respect to the age old  values  which have  such deep roots  in our society. We have heard  about lovers  ending their lives  in retaliation of the  impediments posed by their families ,  as they could not think of  living without each other  . We have heard of many a  Devdas  who  hit the bottle  to overcome the pain of separation from their lovers. But a celebration of  a break up  !That really takes the cake . Could not the girl just talk it out with her lover and  call off  the relationship if convinced of his guilt ? Was the party intended to be  an open invitation to peers  as   she is now  “free “ and  “available “ for anyone interested ?  Or is it  a  public declaration that  a break up hardly matters these days as  our young people are   ready to change partners  without  any compunctions whatsoever ? I wondered if a jilted boy would also be throwing such parties !! We do not expect the present generation to emulate Sita or Savithri, but to be so brazen about  relationships   indicates how much rotten the  minds of our young generation has become.  No wonder the rates of Divorces have  gone up so much. Values  are eroded   and  the sanctity of  any relationship  or marriage is  defiled. A stage has reached when  the girls of the present  young generation   plan   and scheme to “fall in love “    after ensuring that the relationship will  ensure them  all goodies  .True love  and understanding has no place  in the relationship and  when a relationship sours for whatever reason , it is celebrated ,  unlike in the past when  all sorrows would be shared with only the closest friend or a relation  and  washed out  by tears. Was it an irony  that on this side we were celebrating   50 years of married bliss and on the other side of the hedge  was a celebration of a break up  of a two year  “relationship “   ?