My granddaughter recently told me that she refuses to write an examination paper with anything but a special pen that was given to her by her grandfather. “It’s my good luck pen,” she says, “and I know that only if I write with it, will I do well in the exams.”
Her remark put me in mind of a story that was told to me about her father, my son-in-law, by his mother. No matter how much she remonstrated with him, she said, he persisted in shunning all the new shirts and kurtas she bought him in favour of the same half a dozen old ones that he wore over and over again. His argument was that he felt comfortable in his old clothes, which in any case, he insisted, had many years of wear still in them. However, his mother saw things differently. She decided to clear out her college-going son’s cupboard surreptitiously and give away those clothes that in her view were really shabby. Her strategy was to give the shirts away slowly and gradually, one at a time and at long intervals, so that their disappearance would not be noticed.
It is possible that she would have got away with it, except for the first choice she made. Amongst the offending garments was a particularly disreputable green shirt. This, she had noticed, was less frequently worn than some of the others, and therefore was less likely to be missed. It made sense to begin her onslaught, she thought, with this one.
And so she gave it away to the chowkidar, who in appearance, was almost as disreputable as the shirt. All went according to plan at first but then, coming back from college one day, her son saw the chowkidar sporting a shirt that looked familiar. It had acquired several stains and marks in the intervening weeks, and the green now had a patina of brown, but even so, it did not take her son long to recognise his beloved shirt. One would have expected him to be distressed, and even angry, but his reaction was out of all proportion to the deed. Absolutely appalled, the discovery threw him into a state of extreme agitation. “That was my lucky shirt,” he cried out, “and now, without it, I will probably fail my exams!”
Alarmed at the reaction to what she had done, and the threatened consequences, his mother literally took the shirt off the back of the unfortunate chowkidar, had it beaten, boiled, dry cleaned and whatever else it took to restore it to its previous condition and gave it back to her distraught son. No doubt, since he passed his exams with flying colours, he wore the shirt again and it exerted its magic on his answer papers!
So, with father and daughter relying in the same way on good luck objects to do well in exams, is it just a question of genes? It would appear not. Superstition lives strongly in most of us, and whether it is examinations or other difficult situations, what sees us through is faith in talismans of one sort or another.
