The educated & the superstitious…

Last week, one of my very close college friends called me frantically. She told me to delete one photograph from the social media that reminded her of a photograph that another friend of ours had put online and sadly lost her husband the very next day. I love this friend of mine, but I thought she was over reacting, she also agrees she was just being paranoid.

Another such incident happened when we were driving down to Goa, I saw over a dozen missed calls from Mom on my phone. Apparently she was having a panic attack since the wind blew a photo-frame of me and shattered it to pieces. That added with me on the road trip pushed her to the limits of worry.

I am not superstitious. Or I would like to believe that I am not. I don’t stop when a kitty cat crosses my path or start worrying when some mirror breaking happens.  But then there are some things I follow, maybe believe in too. Its not that I would want to be superstitious, maybe it’s just the conditioning that makes us follow these seemingly harmless customs, or it’s a matter of a habit more appropriately put.

Few of mine are saying ‘Touch wood’ to un-jinx stuff, to do the ‘Evil Eye’ voodoo kinda stuff on kiddo with mustard seeds and dried chili when he is unwell after an outing (nazar utaro), to start analyzing life choices when one of the two (or both) eyes start twitching. Fortunately (or unfortunately), these are the only ones I am restricted to. Despite being educated and modern why do we end up believing in these superstitions?

My logical answer is self-preservation and faith. It makes lot of things easier to explain that aren’t pleasant by way of dismissing it on ‘jinx’ or evil eye.  On the contrary, on part of me believes in ‘signs’ and the un-explained science. Does this puzzle you too? Are there customs that you in believe in, yet question? I have been hanging somewhere in between logic and the super natural for a really long time. And the more I read the more baffled I become.

Image courtesy – http://www.istockphoto.com/