I’m not very superstitious – infact i dont have a single superstitious bone in my body ;
ive walked under ladders just after a black pussy cat had crossed my path;no bad luck
ive broken countless mirrors (but most people attribute this to my Greek godlike looks 🙂 ) but never had bad luck
my roll number in the class X matric exams was 1013... still no bad luck..(infact my final state rank was a permutation of these numbers but im not boasting 🙂 )
however there was this one time when I had to fly down from Calcutta to Bangalore and while booking the tickets i was aware that the only choices i had were to fly down on the 12th which was a thursday and 13th which was a Friday..
i was kindy icky about choosing the 13th of Friday ! in the first place i agree with whoever said that if God had intended us to fly he would have given us wings.. so ive never felt totally comfortable with flying 10 kilometres above the ground; this minor fear of flying added to the fact that it was Friday the 13th aroused the sleeping superstitous part of me although i thought to myself that it was a really silly thing and i should book my flight on this day.. (i would have one xtra day to spend at home );
finally the rational part of me won over and i booked my flight for Friday the 13th. on the day of departure i left my house in a taxi.. we didnt see no black pussy cats – we did go under a footbridge but i guess that doesnt really count as a ladder;while checking in i almost decided on sending tearful final goodbye messages to close friends – “destroy my porn collection” or “i will always love you” and “Dad and Mom – Im actually Amitabh Bacchan’s love child..” etc but i didnt
Reached the airplane parked on the tarmac and climbed the stairs – (which technically is a ladder but i was climbing it not going under it) – to the aeroplane; the plane was an Airbus A320 (3+2+0 = 5 okay not 13 so we were good!)
i said a little prayer settled down in my seat next to the emergency door clutched my rabbits foot tightly im my right hand and my four leaf clover in my left and knocked on the wooden table i had carried along with me ; i half expected the inflight magazine to carry an article on the movie Friday the 13th but luckily it was on a movie called “Se7en” (which we all know is God’s number 🙂 )
i asked the (pretty) airhostess if they had any special insurance cover for passengers flying on Friday the 13th but apparently they didnt but she did put on her lifejacket really quickly (after all we were going to fly over the Indian Ocean)
They say the most dangerous part in flying an airplane is when its actually taking off but luckily our Spanish-English accent sounding pilot knew his flying better than he could speak English and soon we were winging our way across the country
Looking down below from my window I could actually see the beaches and the waves crashing onto the beaches and the cast of Baywatch shooting for their new show Baywatch in the Bay of Bengal and then our Spanish pilot chose that exact moment to dip and turn the plane some degrees south east and my bawkbawn bai and vawksa rep almost didn’t stay down in my stomach
Well anyway my boss has been giving me dirty looks for the last 10 13 minutes so I better land this plane and end this story so to cut a long story short we landed safely in Bangalore and here I am safe and sound telling you the tale of my personal Friday the 13th
for the record there have been no reports or incidents of any plane crash occuring on Friday the Thirteenth
Fact: in the year 2013 the months of September and December have their 13th day falling on Friday you guys plan ahead .. just in case..
The origins of Friday the 13th
