Who will tell the President?

Sunday, August 22, 2010 - This morning’s paper had some strange news; that a village called Thulukkarpatti in Tamilnadu, refuses to hoist the national flag year after year because they feel they would all die if they ever did so! According to them several years ago, many in the village passed away under mysterious circumstances, and those deaths were blamed on the flag hoisting that had taken place the previous day! Strange beliefs! Not that only villagers have such: A few days before Independence Day I decided to ask an old Punjabi lady to hoist the national flag in our colony on Independence Day. I told her son that I would be coming to meet his mother. The son took the news to his old mother who was having visitors at that time and told her the good news. She was overjoyed, till one of the visitors, an old lady shook her head, “Don’t do it!” “Why not?” asked the mother. “Because my husband died the same year he hoisted the flag!”

“Beta,” said the mother horrified, “tell Bob I won’t be doing it!” And she didn’t. Someone else hoisted the flag and now I call everyday to ask whether he’s okay! Ha, ha! We all fall a prey to superstitious beliefs don’t we? We have a lot of superstitious beliefs in our country, one I remember very well, is being told never to sneeze in odd numbers! And after the last sneeze, you find horrified that it’s the thirteenth and struggle to get one more out even tickling your nose and then come three more and its another odd number! Then my friend Ajit telling me as we speed on his motor bike for an exam that no widow or a single Brahman or a man carrying oil or milk, or even a cat should cross our path as it would bring us bad luck and later when we do badly, blaming it on a cat we hadn’t noticed! Oh we humans are superstitious by nature! Not just bad luck, but good luck too, like sighting a married lady with kumkum on her forehead was supposed to bring luck and if married ladies were stared at as they walked by me, it was only for luck and not for their good looks!

And then this one about a lizard falling on your head: Yuck! It’s supposed to be lucky; but with no stretch of my imagination do I want that reptile anywhere near me. We could do without such luck, right? Quite often my hands itch, and I think, “Wow money! Some newspaper is going to send me a cheque.

The doorbell rings; it’s someone asking for payment!” Coming back to the flag hoisting, I wonder what would happen if nobody wants to hoist the flag? Would we cancel Independence Day celebrations, or would Dr Manmohan smile sheepishly and say, “Tell the President to do it..!” Now I wonder who will tell the President?

—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com