Developed Superstition

Football fever is on and is about to end in another two days. Today would be the game for the third spot between Uruguay and Germany and tomorrow would be the final between Spain and Netherlands. Amidst all the predictions that were going on for the winning team right from the league matches and the way people believed in them, I started to wonder which country is most superstitious in the world. Like always, I happened to Google my query and typed ‘Land of Superstitions’; within milliseconds pages related to the query came in front of me. Though in my heart I was suspecting what the answer might be, therefore I wasn’t surprised after looking at the third link that was written on 24th April 2010 by Intigritti on http://trifter.com/asia-pacific/india/india-the-land-of-superstitious-beliefs/ and has titled it as India – The land of superstitious beliefs.

The writer being an Indian himself gives several instances where we Indians have been superstitious about certain things, but there is one superstition which I would like to particularly mention:

Revenge of the Serpent!
Hindu’s don’t take too kindly to killing snakes as they believe that the snake would get its revenge sooner or later, in its next life by killing you are a member of the family!

For all these superstitions we Indians have always been mocked and have been laughed at by the people of the developed countries. Though many of us, ourselves don’t believe in many of the superstition, yet once a superstitious belief of one community comes out, it has been generalized for the entire country and have at times also been tagged as ‘backward thinking of the developing countries’.

So let’s move to the forward and practical ‘beliefs’ of the developed countries:

1)No.13: The number 13 is considered to be unlucky and is ‘believed’ to bring bad luck. They consider it so true that they don’t mind leaving one floor of their high rise building either empty or number the floor as 14 immediately after the 12th. With no intention to mock, I think in future, when the children will be taught counting, it would be 10, 11, 12, 14…

2)Nelson: The number 111 is sometimes called "a Nelson" or "Nelson's" after Admiral Nelson, who allegedly only had "One Eye, One Arm, One Leg" near the end of his life. (This is sometimes bowdlerized to say that he lost "One Eye, One Arm, One Life" during his naval career.) It is particularly known as a score in cricket or darts. In cricket a score of 111 or multiples thereof (222 = "double nelson", 333 = "triple nelson" and so on.) is considered unlucky. This may be because the figures "111" resemble a wicket without bails. Some people, most notably David Shepherd, practise superstitions when the score is on a Nelson, typically by hopping in the air so that neither foot is touching the ground, then standing on just one foot until the score has moved on.

I think the above two beliefs when also included with 666 would be called Numerphobia / Arithmophobia.

Now for the last and the latest:

3)Oracle Paul: The octopus named Paul which is considered to have powers of predicting the winner of the match and has been right all throughout its ‘career’ life except once. Being a strong supporter of the German team I didn’t (in fact still don’t) believe on Mr. Paul. It never looked as if it was the same German team which went for a kill against the Argentinean team. Spain just outplayed the submissive German team in the semis and therefore deserved to win. But what’s worse is that people of the developed country wanted to kill the octopus just because it predicted against the German team and the players seem to have escaped from facing the music at the moment. Though Germans eat octopus and I believe it perfectly fine. But eating octopus Paul just take revenge of the loss in the semis doesn’t seem to be satisfying meal!

After seeing the behavior of the people in the developed country towards Paul, I couldn’t stop smiling and commenting that if this is what developed thinking means, we are happy having a developing thinking, at least we are not harming another creature for revenge (even if it is out of fear of the creature taking its own revenge as mentioned above) and we eat to fill our appetite and not to fulfill our revenge.

Lastly, with all due respects to other countries, nations and their beliefs, I would like to say that I’m proud to be and Indian!!

The Hea(rt)dbreak

Many of us in our life have faced heartbreak at some point of our life. A couple of us crib and sulk about it for quite a long time and a few learn to accept it quickly and move on. But at the time of heartbreak a person is under turmoil and agitation and his productivity level goes down drastically. The ability to think rationally goes for a toss, the entire time is spent on analyzing what went wrong and who was at fault. They look for answers for their questions at several places; friends, colleagues, parents, psychiatrist, internet and if nothing works they talk to their pet(s) and seek answers from them. A part of them does tell them that the answer they are looking for is well within them or they have already found out the answer from someone, yet they are not able to accept it as a solution and look for ways that can end their mental pain instantaneously. There are certain suicidal cases as well which make them think that once the life ends all the pain and misery ends.

Now whichever way a person reacts, there’s one thing in common in them and it’s certainly not a heart failure but a head failure. A smart person becomes insane not because he is a heart patient but because he has lost his ability to think and analyze. The brain which was working faster than a supercomputer becomes slower than a snail. The dull, pale and dumb look on his face clearly shows that he’s ‘lost it!’ After cribbing continuously to friends without paying any heed to their advice, eventually the friend too come out with their white flags and say that the person is out of his mind at the moment. Despite knowing all this, why on earth it is called HEARTbreak? The heart is performing all its duties regularly and with 100% efficiency. Then why are we insulting and blaming the poor heart for no fault of his? A person falls in love because he/she ‘thought’ that the other person’s company would be enjoyable and after he/she breaks-up again the ‘thinking’ capability buggers up. So when the thinking process is being done by the brain, let it get the blame, after all when all the credit for good thinking goes to the brain let it also be made responsible for the failures as well and not blame the heart.

So in future if anyone (god forbid!) has to separate from their loved one’s let’s call it a Headbreak and not Heartbreak!

The Human and the Being

The world has become very small for everyone to fit in, and these days it's the survival of the fittest and the fastest. Life has become a rat race. Everyone in this world is trying to run faster than the rest. Some of them choose a direction for themselves to run and there are some who just run because others are running in that direction. Despite not knowing what they are running behind/after, they just think that when everyone is running they better be fast to lead the race. A journey which started with being a mere 'following the crowd' transforms into a race and then a war. And this is where everyone starts saying "Everything's fair in war'.

The corporate world is just another race. The first organization of a specific field was started to satisfy a need and the rest came either to prove themselves better or to just grab a share of the pie. But then it just didn't stop there. The greed increased and the follower wanted to become the leader and soon the jargons like Market Share, Share of Wallet, Bottom Line, Margins..etc came into existence. Everything changed into numbers. Right from the employees to the customers (both existing and prospective) everyone became numbers. If an employee joined you added a number, if you added a customer you multiplied a number, if more people joined the numbers were divided and when an opportunity was lost a number was subtracted. When everything becomes a number then there is no value for the humans.

These numbers are slowly rearranged to form a series just like a Fibonacci so that the next has to be atleast equal to the two of its predecessors. The new employee has to surpass the numbers of the previous person, the existing employee has to surpass his own. One might say that these are all challenges that one needs to take up, and I don't deny it either. But at what cost? Employee Number 27: "It's my son's b'day, I need a holiday", Employee Number 10(he came before no. 27): "You cannot get a leave you have a number to achieve and if you don't, your favourite number (salary) will not be increased. It is tough at the intial stage to cope up with this, but gradually one gets used to these numbers and in few years this very Employee Number 27 who was a human before would tell his subordinate say Employee Number 75: "You cannot get a leave for your sickness as you have a number to achieve and you better achieve it by hooks OR by crooks or....."

When asked about what kind of creatures we are, we unanimously say we are Human Beings, but "Where is the Human left in the being?" Right from schools to jobs to the government everyone is behind a number. Marks in schools, Financial jargons in jobs and Votes to Money in politics. Parents not just bothered about their kids' marks, they are also bothered about the rest and want their kid to get the most. Fair Enough!! But at what cost? Companies want to do well and want their employees to do the best. Fair Enough!! But at what cost? Right from grabbing the maximum votes to making money is every damn possible way without even bothering about the people who voted. Fair Enough!! BUT AT WHAT COST?

If we don't treat ourselves and the rest as Human Beings then where is the Human? And when we are just like some other creatures, "What is the pride in calling ourselves just a Being?"