Blog

Perfecting Buri Nazar

For all those unfamiliar with how my family just refuses to give into some harmless superstitious traditions read Dahi Shakkar before moving on.

Now let’s get some background facts straight. Saade saati is described as a period of 7 and a ½ year time period which is characterized by turmoil in one’s life be it on the personal from or professional. The victim suffers pain, distraught and general suffering. For those with a scientific bent of mind, think of it as chances of Murphy’s Law (Everything that can go wrong, will) happening is 1 i.e. absolutely certain. Why give you this information that you might already know? Because I believe that I today experienced my saade saati. Yes, one day. Don’t worry, nothing major went wrong. But a string of tiny inconvenient occurrences leads me to believe otherwise. Am I being too naïve by declaring it as a one-day saade saati? I mean, tomorrow could be worse, can’t it?

Coming back to how my family deals with it? They go to great lengths and do NOTHING! I get laughed at for suggesting that I might have actually been prey to someone’s buri nazar. Let’s be honest, I have haters. And shaking them off does not seem to be working right now, okay Ms. Taylor Swift! I am calling it buri nazar and not kaali nazar because I don’t really remember the eye colour of my haters. Is that why people say, “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer?” My family refused to analyse the convexity of my eyelashes. And no matter how hard I tried; I couldn’t figure out if the derivative of the trajectory of my eyelash was positive. So, I just assumed that it was probably because I indeed have been buri nazar-ed. Next step? Obviously getting rid of it at the earliest. Again, I faced rejection and mockery by the people who ARE SUPPOSED TO BE VERY VERY CONCERNED ABOUT MY GENERAL WELL-BEING!

Left to my own resources, I obviously googled on how to proceed. Interestingly enough, the top two results were mind-boggling. Somehow, I was more intrigued by result two. See for yourself.

I mean need I say more? The second article had two parts: Giving evil eye and Perfecting giving evil eye. What do they mean PERFECTING giving evil-eye?! I think just reading it gave me buri nazar. Now I definitely have to resort to some Chhapal, Mirchi or Paani methods. Anyone who has expert knowledge in the field, please revert. I need divine help.

Also, quick question. Is it wrong to ask someone who has burnt their finger and is asking for toothpaste, if they prefer Pepsodent or Himalya?

Genuine Question guys.

From Room 27 to Lab 9

College classes are about to resume. Online. Well, at least that’s what the latest notice from Delhi University states. The efficiency of online classes has now been debated upon for long with the only conclusion being that they are the best option during this time. Keeping the academic factor aside (I usually do), what will happen to the whispers and comments I am used to in a classroom setting? These are as essential in my learning process as the notes. That is how I remember stuff. I correlate the content with what happened in the class at that time or what comment was made.

To illustrate my point, I remember my Linear Algebra Professor hell bent on explaining dimension of a vector space while the three of us were hell bent on deciphering the accent behind the messages sent by a certain individual. The concept I remember the most from Mathematical Modelling is of ‘per-capita’. I will not elaborate on this further. Even though I should. But no. Now, don’t get me wrong. It is not a mockery of the teachers. Absolutely not. It is just the circumstances or the ambiance that makes one chuckle.

Half the fun in attending Statistics classes was the adrenaline rush we got from rushing from Room 27 to Lab 9 in time, fearing been thrown out of class for turning up a couple minutes late. It just won’t be the same switching from one Zoom meeting to a Google Meet. Also, what about lab lessons? The best part of a college day? The potential to wreak havoc in a practical class is humongous. Where’s the amusement in having an entire 3 course meal behind a switched off camera in an online class, if I don’t have to slyly hide my steaming hot maggi under my desk, taking mouthfuls when sir was busy deriving another Real Analysis theorem.

Notice the stark contrast. In a regular classroom setting, the teacher repeatedly asks us to keep quiet. On Zoom classes, the teacher repeatedly asks us to speak up. Even if its just to provide confirmation that we can indeed hear them. More importantly, how will I coordinate my pen twirling shenanigans? Howwww? How will I gesture a fire with my fingers right in front of my friend’s face, that even makes the teacher laugh? No more of that. No more of taking the long route to the Tut Block to avoid society work. Will there be society work now?

The only good think out of this entire situation will be the WhatsApp sticker collections I’ll end up with. WhatsApp stickers do have the ability to magically turn a bad day around. Here’s hoping I can learn a thing or two in the virtual set up.

Maine raita faila hi diya

Story Update Time. For those of you who have been lame enough to have kept track and actually read Curie: The Snow White did you ever think it might actually save you time one fine day? No, right? Now, for those who either are new Swagsti followers (Gina Linetti energy 14/10) or accurately judged that reading it is a waste of time, read up. You’ll need the background story.

How often have you heard, ‘Karma is a bitch!’ 50 odd times? Well, make it 51, because Karma is indeed a bitch. Curie had her revenge. And the worst part is that she probably doesn’t even know she did. Or maybe I turned into Curie. Any-which-way, here goes the very tiny basic (barely an) incident which I will blow out of proportion, because I ain’t Swagsti for no reason.

I was churning (yahi hota hai na mathna ka English?!) some yogurt to make raita. I felt that I should add in more yogurt. On a separate note, will someone remind me to never trust my instincts in the kitchen? Pretty please? So then, I yanked open the refrigerator door, which I have been told not to n number of times, proceeded to extract the first red packet I see and add its contents to my bowl. The yogurt was unusually runny. I remember even exclaiming to my mother that there was something wrong with that packet of yogurt. It was milk. It was a red coloured packet of milk kept next to the red coloured packet of yogurt.

I failed to notice the vast difference between the textures and quality of the yogurt/milk. My absentmindedness made me pull a complete Curie. Now, what is better than a Karma is a Bitch angle in an anecdote? Two Karma is a Bitch angles. Yes, in the same story. A night prior to this incident I was reminded of my coaching Chemistry teacher whose character cannot be justified by words in the English language. In German? Maybe. I don’t know. So, the best part about him was that to explain certain chemical reactions he would have the most absurd analogies and illustrations.

For the love of God, I have tried and failed miserably to recollect what was the exact reaction that resulted in the following conversation. Just trust me on this. It happened.

We are just going to call him ‘Yeh question 100% exam mein aayega’ aka Scent Percent. Pun intended.

Scent Percent: Ab maan lo ghar mein shaadi hai. Ab shaadi mein coffee machine toh hoti hi hai. Sadi hui coffee hoti hai lekin saare mehmaano ko coffee toh machine wali hi chahiye. Ab samjho jis doodh se coffee banni thi, usmein kissi bache ne dahi gira di hai. Sharaarati bacha tha. Daal diya dahi doodh ke bartan mein.

The entire class: (internally) What the actual fuck?

Scent Percent: Ab mehmaano ko abhi coffee chahiye. Kaise bachaoge doodh ko?

Me: (failing horribly to conceal my laughter and being the unfortunate one to be sitting on the front bench I just use one hand to cover my smirk and the other to just gesture a picking up motion (Imagine someone picking up an orange, let’s say) to convey that my rescue plan was as simple as going in and picking up the yogurt from the milk vessel)

The people sitting beside me saw this and started smirking too. Unfortunately, Scent Percent saw this too.

Scent Percent: Arey aise kaise utha logi dahi haanth se? Tut jayegi na dahi. Haanth mein thodi aayegi. Aise nahi bachega doodh.

And all hell broke loose. I was laughing so hard, with tears in my red eyes. So busy laughing that I forgot to actually then pay attention to the chemical reaction that Scent Percent taught to somehow get milk back from yogurt or whatever that was.

Cut scene to me standing with a bowl containing a mixture of yogurt and un-boiled milk in my hand. I should have listened. I should have listened to the chemical reaction. What I had failed to realise at that time was that when Scent Percent said, ‘Yeh question 100% exam mein aayega’, he was referring to the exam that life is and not the superficial ones that hand out marksheets. Stupid me.

PSA: I will now also be responding to the name of Curie.