Stupid Superstitions

That's what they should be.

Forgive that more than obvious alliteration of a title :P If the title is NOT obvious to you , well this particular post will try help you understand - hopefully. Well , every one of us has some sort of stupid superstition or the other to keep us going on during our bad days. However, a problem arises when they endanger others , when they are too irrational or tough to achieve and when they finally move away from their cause - to complete an activity and instead hinder the goal itself.
Some of the curious ones:

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• Wearing the right pad before the left  - Sachin Tendulkar and almost every player after him ( because of him of course B) ) 

voldy with a nose and a smile :P

• Holding paper clips in your palm while delivering a speech - 'the senator guy' aka Ralph Fiennes ( Mr.voldy for the HP fans) in the film maid in manahattan 

• 'Lucky bat' to score runs in . In fact , the 'magic bat' as if the bat contains the talent and not the player. It was the story of chain kulii ki main kulii

• The most hilarious one I have heard in my life. In this Indian authored book called 'where girls dare' a young women cadet feels worthless and doomed without her red undies and alas! all of the red ones have gone for wash. Her quirky friend asks her to wear purple ones over peach as it would give red :D ( idk if these are the exact colors although my genius brother swears that these are the exact ones. However when i googled it -'red' is a primary color and cannot be formed by other combinations. So either the girl was fooled or I am in the process of being trolled by my brother.) 

• I have an infuriating belief that I can study only if I highlight every word I read  AND I can study only if the ancient radio in my room is turned on . And one day the last highlighter I had for the day (the psychology book had usurped all  four :/ ) fell into the loo and I was left in a state of irrational panic that I was gonna fail this one. My genius friend chandy made me see sense and I ended up using my brother's permanent marker. And YES I love studying when I pee . 

All the above beliefs are cute at some levels if you ignore the weirdness aspects in the fourth and fifth points. At least they do not torture another person. That being said , we need to keep them in check. What sort of player would Tendulkar be if he progressed from point 1 to point 3 ? Getting riddled in self doubt is the last thing you need , the hindu crossword puzzles are easier in comparison. 

Having a lucky ring or a pen with you surely gives some sort of energy to perform. However the LACK of a 35 rs trimax pen or a 10,000 rs diamond ring shouldn't deter you from performing upto your potential. However reporting the loss of the latter to your mom asap is very important - i.e if you want to really live to perform , that too when the ring was HER anniversary gift :P 

Lets move on to darker waters. 

Everyone gets very passionate when they watch their favorite sport on TV. This could be a liverpool team desperately searching for a goal , a dhoni trying to accelerate his team's scoring rate or even a Randy orton trying to do a RKO. Here is where you draw a line between a fan and a fanatic. A fan accepts his team's loss and attributes it to their own performance while most often a fanatic would try to shift the blame on anything but the obvious - it could be the weather , the umpire/referee or worse the person sitting next to him . 

It is not very strange in my house to see people sitting in very particular postures for many hours as the team scores well when they do it :O I do accept that I am one of the persons who change their playlist and try to DJ their team to a victory but we aren't pinpointing anyone here. Recently , due to csk's dangerous position in the points table , my dad an I have become over reliant on luck. So , the 'bad omen' is my brother now :P 

It is our prediction that the team suffers when my brother is in the room. When we all went swimming yesterday chennai batted very well. Sadly in the last 2 overs when we entered they didn't hit runs. Again when 'he' was in the room sachin and rohit were milking runs of us. We getting desperate for SOME action , begged him to move outta the room. and blimey me!du plessis pulled a catch out of thin air!. My brother was thoroughly depressed by now and went into his twitter world. What a turn around wickets kept falling. When he came back , we begged him to go out as we couldn't bear to lose now. He obviously didn't share our feelings and so my dad ended up switching off the TV. 

Wouldn't you call this a bit extreme? Shunning away loved ones in the name of 'luck' . The above example was a light one , what if we start practicing this in life's more serious problems. Like marriage? (horoscopes are handy examples) 

So do believe in what you feel will help develop your confidence

 and not dwindle other people's confidence. 

P.S - Dwayne smith led mumbai to victory in the last over by smashing 6 4 4 in the last 3 balls. 

        And my brother was sitting next to me watching in the other TV . Can't blame anyone though. 

      After all you can never tell in cricket. 

written by
Semi

editing credits - Siddharth Dinesh