Jinx the Jinx

Here’s the deal; I’m superstitious. Actually, I’m not even sure that ‘superstitious’ would describe what I am exactly. We may have to come up with a whole new word for what I am, because I am not traditionally superstitious; I have my own issues – some of which may fall under the category of “crazy.”

Being superstitious in itself is not the problem; it’s the craziness close to OCD that sometimes comes along with it. For instance, during an exam if, on the first day, I followed a particular schedule and say the paper went well, I would follow the exact same schedule – waking up, brushing my teeth and taking a shower, getting dressed, taking the train, etc. at exactly the same time as the previous day and try not to alter that schedule as far as possible. Following a particular schedule is no issue at all but the pressure of keeping up with it and then worrying when something goes wrong, is too much to handle.

Thankfully, I do not believe in the traditional Indian superstitions and couldn’t care less about not leaving the house when the time wasn’t shubh (auspicious) or going back a few steps or waiting until someone else passed by if a black cat crossed my path (and I’m not even sure which one is supposed to be the good one – when it goes left to right or the other way around!) But it pinches me at the back of my mind. What if something does go wrong??

To add to this mess, I have superstitions of my own. Somehow, I am a little hooked to numerology and try as far as possible to stay away from the number 7. To illustrate, I have gone to the extent of adding up all the digits of the exam form number to make sure they didn’t add up to 7 – anything, but 7. Most of such superstitions have been on the extremes when exams have been closer. I have my own rules like wearing a shade of a particular colour during the exam or sleeping in a particular direction, etc. Not that all of this actually “worked” but however silly or extreme these pseudo superstitions of my own have been, things had been in my favour. Until recently.

Then I started to notice another trend. Since all of my beliefs in these external influences on my life have been a result of keen unnecessary observation and attention to things that are absolutely irrelevant to the matter in hand, this new trend led to a new belief, a new superstition! ‘Yikes! Not another one, please… I’m tired!!’ my brain pleaded but my mind was already made up and the verdict, well it was given even before my brain could retort.

I started noticing – and this was based on incidents that happened over the last two years or so – that every time something good happened or was about to happen and I happened to mention it to people, somehow it seemed to either go down the drain or not happen at all! Now I don’t know if it was someone who wished ill for me or just the fact that I was tooting my horn a little louder than what was good for me or was it just that it got jinxed!

People like to let everyone know when there’s good news because, well, it’s good news!!! Why wouldn’t you want to share?? But I have tried as far as possible to not make it sound like I’m gloating. Even so, there seemed to be a downside to it.

A couple of years ago, we were thinking of moving to a bigger place and we’d found a really good place not too far from where we currently live and everything seemed to be going off well. I told a few friends that we’d found a great place and at the last minute something went wrong and we didn’t get it. See the kind of jinx I’m talking about?

Since I’ve been blogging, I’ve been worried even more because I’m putting quite a lot about my life out there for people to read. I didn’t intend for it to be read by people I didn’t even know; it was just meant to be a diary of sorts and a few friends and some members of my family knew that I had a blog. But later on, I realised that there are quite a lot of people who do read. So how do I find a solution for this???

Fortunately, I have found one – I think and before I start blogging regularly again, I have decided that the time has come to make a few amends and set things right because I don’t want to take any more of this jinx nonsense. I have decided to give the jinx factor a taste of its own medicine. Since anything I mention gets jinxed, I’ll jinx the jinx by mentioning it here. How’s that for an answer, eh? 😉