Omens: sense and nonsense

Most of us have our superstitions and naive beliefs in omens, which come in different colours and hues, says S. Raghunath

IN P.G. Wodehouse’s Leave It To Psmith, Mr Ed Cootes, a nimble-fingered card-sharpie, is bemoaning his ill luck to Liz, his estranged accomplice. "Gee, Liz," says Mr Cootes, "a regular voodoo’s there’s been on me. If I had walked under a ladder to break a mirror over the dome of a black cat, I couldn’t have had it tougher."

"You poor boy!" commiserates the kind-hearted Liz. We can all empathise with and relate to Mr Cootes. Most of us have our superstitions and naive beliefs in omens (good and bad) and they come in different colours and hues.

A man will wax forth eloquently about his scientific temper and his cool, rational approach to problems. "Look at Japan", he will declaim dramatically, "look at Germany. What progress they have achieved and where are we? I tell you, superstitions are holding back the country’s progress."

The same man will make sure, when no one is looking, that he is not setting out to the market to buy vegetables during ‘rahu kalam’.

A friend of mine, a post-graduate in science, is so superstitious about Tuesdays and Fridays that he won’t shave on those days even if he looks like the Blue Beard of Paris. Not only is he convinced that the prickly stubble on his chin will flatly refuse to come off, even if he is using a brand new razor if he rashly essays to shave on those two fateful days but also that he is likely to nick his carotid artery in the bargain.

But many superstitions, if analysed dispassionately, do seem to make sense. For instance, it can be argued (and argued plausibly) that a butter-fingered workman atop a ladder will drop his load on you cracking your skull as you walk under his ladder or that a broken mirror might cause lacerations and bleeding wounds or that the 13th child in a family meant to hold to is unlucky.

Gemstones are popularly supposed to attract the magical forces of good fortune from the heavens yonder and ensure prosperity not only for oneself but also for generations yet unborn. This touching belief in the miraculous efficacy of mere lumps of carbon is sure to ensure prosperity for jewellers, if not for the wearers of the stone.

The household lizard is another popular source of superstitions. The linnet-like noise it makes when it is in mood is supposed to indicate one’s good fortune or otherwise, but with one unalterable ‘provision’. The almanac is quite definite (and quite uncompromising) that you have to know the direction the lizard is facing when it sounds off. Now the lizard in my room has made its cozy home in the French window curtains and I can hardly be expected to mount a hazardous expedition to determine the direction of its head when it clears its throat but if that poor lizard, losing its grip, happens to fall on your person, you better prepare yourself for a fate worse than Mr Cootes’. All in all, the lizard, minding its own business, has become the hapless whipping boy for man’s many misadventures.

Even in scientific-minded America, many skyscrapers don’t have, in theory at least, the 13th floor, which seems most unfair for without the 13th, the 14th floor and the floors above it will come crashing down, earthquake or no earthquake.

Let’s conclude by wishing a speedy recovery to the poor fellow who is hospitalised with injuries after the horseshoe he had hung over the door fell on him. As for me, I am making sure that I am going out to post this article only during ‘guliga kalam.’