Hallo Frands, Dahi-Shakkar Khalo!

During the entire last decade of me appearing for all sorts of examinations, I have never had dahi-shakkar before any of them. Even while being eager to have the good-luck bringing sweet yogurt and asking for it before an examination, I was denied access to it. The standard reply I received was, “Believe in the hard work you’ve done. Dahi-shakkar won’t help you in any way.” Made me wonder, why I couldn’t have it just for the sake of it. Moreover, I never say no to anything sweet. I think we were out of yogurt probably. I never checked, so who knows? On the other hand, I have seen my friends being force-fed all sort of (mostly edible) stuff ranging from sane ones like dahi-shakkar to questionable ones like chewing a gum. Scientifically speaking though, chewing gum while studying has been related to greater concentration levels and greater retention levels. Just saying.

Moving on, everyone in my household forgot to tell the pickle to go bad when a menstruating woman touches it. I really think awareness is the problem sector here. Should we start a campaign to let every pickle jar know that they have a right to rot on being touched by a menstruating woman? And I trim my nails, wash my hair, wash my clothes, get a haircut, buy utensils without calculating what day it is and what disaster might befall me if I do so on a wrong day. This leaves a lot of vacant thinking space in my brain. And khali dimaag toh shaitan ka hota hai na? Maybe that’s why superstitions were invented. So that people can be pre-occupied by what day it is and what are the activities they can or cannot do, that they don’t have enough thinking capacity left to offer to Satan (or Mrs. Chatree, as I like to call it). I don’t have a lucky pen, pencil or for that matter any piece of luck inducing stationery. Neither, do I have normal stationery with me. Curse you, lockdown. Before you come at me with all your logical stories about it, I am not mocking people who do believe in this. I know all (most of them) are done in good faith. I am just stating how my life has been in its absence. There was never a dramatic moment where I could say, “Oh no! Yeh kya anarth hogaya? Aaj toh Saturday hai!”, after trimming my nails.