If people want to stop superstitions, they would do well to start at school level. I have witnessed and practiced some really weird eccentric things, which felt like norm then. I would never arrange my books in standing order, with the spine showing the name, like how they keep in libraries and they would always be on stack mode with one on top of other. How much ever difficult it was to pull the book at the base and be it may crumble the book tower while pulling it out, the format stayed for a really long while, for the belief was that, if they were arranged in any other way, I performed badly in studies that year. Pretty soon my marks proved that apart from arranging, it requires reading and understanding the books as well. After a while, with varying sizes of books, the format went for a toss anyway and it all became a cluster taking dynamic shape, depending on the volume of scolding from mom. Similarly, the label on the book should always be at the exact center and not on right top corner. This later "evolved" into, one format of label sticking across all books. It can never be one book carrying center label and other deviating from the norm. Unable to cope up with the continuity, beyond a stage, I stopped getting wrapper for books.
Like some other kids, I also had this fetish to kannula othify, if inadvertently stepped on any paper, for Saraswathi ummachi resides on them. Its one thing I even practice till date, more towards avoiding stepping on any books. But a friend of mine took it to deiva level. He would mimic something like udukkai adichifying pose whenever he stepped on any paper and there was no restriction on the kind of paper or the place. Even while walking on road, if something hits by his leg, he would perform his act a good ten times. We used to gang up on him, throwing paper at his feet, to make him do his act, but would still secretly kannula othify ourselves to appease the god. It was unputdownable a practice for him and his mom had to intervene to put a stop to it when the practice of udukkai adiching continued even without any paper being involved. He now heads LATAM division in an IT company. Hopefully the uduakkai should've tuned to samba beats by now.
When we switched to writing with pen from pencil/chalk/balpam, it was a tremendous change for us. The font size with which we wrote underwent several changes and having been forced to adopt to unruled notes from ruled ones, the sentences were as straight in lines as our traffic. To avoid getting scolded, I reduced the size of my writing to microscopic levels. It got full blown publicity courtesy my English teacher, who had given me only 1 mark for a five mark answer. When enquired she said I had written only 4 lines for a 250 word answer and asked me to be more elaborate. I counted the words from my answer sheet in front of her and it came to over 650!!! She was stunned and just for fun sake asked for a recount to confirm. Instead of the usual 16 word per line norm, I had crammed 60 plus in a sentence. The exercise ended in me losing even that one mark and an earful for improving my handwriting. She should've seen that coming as I had completed the entire question set within the second page of the main sheet itself. Nowadays only pharmacists and ECG lab techies can make out my writing.
There are some more that would find a mention to this elite list, which also have a backstory. So reserved for some other post. Till then..tatttta byee.
Like some other kids, I also had this fetish to kannula othify, if inadvertently stepped on any paper, for Saraswathi ummachi resides on them. Its one thing I even practice till date, more towards avoiding stepping on any books. But a friend of mine took it to deiva level. He would mimic something like udukkai adichifying pose whenever he stepped on any paper and there was no restriction on the kind of paper or the place. Even while walking on road, if something hits by his leg, he would perform his act a good ten times. We used to gang up on him, throwing paper at his feet, to make him do his act, but would still secretly kannula othify ourselves to appease the god. It was unputdownable a practice for him and his mom had to intervene to put a stop to it when the practice of udukkai adiching continued even without any paper being involved. He now heads LATAM division in an IT company. Hopefully the uduakkai should've tuned to samba beats by now.
When we switched to writing with pen from pencil/chalk/balpam, it was a tremendous change for us. The font size with which we wrote underwent several changes and having been forced to adopt to unruled notes from ruled ones, the sentences were as straight in lines as our traffic. To avoid getting scolded, I reduced the size of my writing to microscopic levels. It got full blown publicity courtesy my English teacher, who had given me only 1 mark for a five mark answer. When enquired she said I had written only 4 lines for a 250 word answer and asked me to be more elaborate. I counted the words from my answer sheet in front of her and it came to over 650!!! She was stunned and just for fun sake asked for a recount to confirm. Instead of the usual 16 word per line norm, I had crammed 60 plus in a sentence. The exercise ended in me losing even that one mark and an earful for improving my handwriting. She should've seen that coming as I had completed the entire question set within the second page of the main sheet itself. Nowadays only pharmacists and ECG lab techies can make out my writing.
There are some more that would find a mention to this elite list, which also have a backstory. So reserved for some other post. Till then..tatttta byee.
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