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!!