Me ? Superstitious ? What an idea !!!!!!

I am not known to be a superstitious person. Yet, for all these years I have had my own set of rituals. Ones which were not overtly visible at all and were meticulously guarded in their execution. I never resorted to them in 'times of peace' as opposed to 'times of war' as we called our examinations during school. Those two dreaded weeks in the year when there was hardly any 'light and happiness' around you. Wherever you looked there were bespectacled boys and girls cramming their last minute notes, revising the revision-worn revisables for the umpteenth time. On the other end were 'Us' - a bunch which swung between amused ridiculing of the 'Others' and feeling the pangs of tension ourselves. Whenever glancing at the sea-like syllabi, taking stock of the situation and resolving to give our 'reasonable best' a fear of retribution at having mocked all the studious people seemed to hang over us ominously . And deep down in our guts ( I say 'our' because I am sure the others felt the same way) there sometimes arose this sinking feeling when D-Day dawned and hence the refuge in rituals. This selective fidelity perhaps makes me inadmissible to the hallowed club of 'Devotedly Superstitious People', the ones who did it all year round. But, then we have our arguments too. We were never the ones who studied anytime but just before the exams were thumping at our noses and knocking at our doors. So, we, of all people had the right to be superstitious unlike the ones who put in their hard-work on a daily basis. They were destined to succeed. We only had hope to do so.

Enough of arguing my case.


My 'acts of faith' during exams ranged from waking up at the same time as the first exam, pouring a generous dab of oil on my hair, bathing with exactly the same number of mugs of water ( and yes, never hot water. Not even in chilly December), combing exactly in the same manner as yesterday, tying the shoe-laces in a pre-fixed order and taking the same seat in the bus/auto-rickshaw that took us to our school. Nothing fancy. But as the years rolled on I suspected I was developing some kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I quite liked the name of the ailment then and I have renewed my fascination for OCD since I watched Jack Nicholson in 'As Good As It Gets' but, at times I felt 'it was time to change'.

"What with this silly fixation with rituals? I am getting hooked!"

So, I began to test the efficacy of my 'little acts' by being random from the next exams that I took. I didn't do too well. But then, who does in +2 Science ?

Slowly I desisted from my set of superstitions one by one and finally I was 'cured'. ( I know I sound like those dubbed dum-dums in Asian Sky Shop commercials). Now I hardly have a pattern to my activities. Any of them. I am the first one to cross the road after a cat has crossed it as perplexed onlookers, themselves reluctant to cross the road, gaze at my arrogance.

Why this long winding post on personal superstitions then? All the talk about rituals ?

I have this habit of never leaving a book unread for a long stretch of time once I start reading it or leaving a film midway. I have done just that, unintentionally though, in the past two days. ( I don't consider leaving 'A House for Mr. Biswas' after reading the first 200 odd pages an authentic 'exception' because it was, to put it very politely, a forgettable ordeal. An instrument of sheer torture by virtue of its literary stagnation) I left 'Judgment at Nuremberg' and 'Citizen Kane' midway and went off to sleep. Though I was dog-tired on both the occasions the old ghosts of OCD were troubling me a bit, to have left two films midway in their run in two days. I have never done that before. Hence the post. Hence the remembrances. This might just redeem me.



P.S - I know a boy who had all the makings of a perfect OCD specimen. Someday I intend to write an epic-post on his gamut of rituals and beliefs. But, I hear he is improving too.
He is superstitious about 'improvement'. :)