Monday, February 19, 2007

Tamil Voodoo

Something really funny happened last week at my home. Before getting into that, I need to give a prologue. This is not exactly about Voodoo stuff, but the superstitions we carry even in this century, when Sunita Williams is having a stroll in Space.

I had been living in midst of them almost all my life. Starting from Rahu Kaalam to not eating during eclipse, I suffered many. Some of them have scientific explanations and when I get the logic, I don’t mind following them. But this one caps it all.

My wife made coffee one day and I felt it was OK. But,when she had it,felt it was not good and that was endorsed by my daughter also. They went through a very logical fact-finding mission. First she thought that the milk could be bad, and boiled a fresh pot and made another coffee. She still felt it was bad. Then coffee powder became the accused and a fresh brew from a different coffee powder was made, but the result was the same.

This was continuing well into the second day and she was so very perturbed. Having run out of logic, she was lamenting about this illuck to her mom and there was a solution found. My mother-in-law suggested that she takes a handful of salt and rotate it around the milk. Apparently there was a bad eye on the milk. With nothing to lose, my wife went through it. And the next coffee was out of advertisements. Fresh, aromatic and tasty!!

Now I don’t know what to make of this. Can someone really cast a bad eye on an inanimate thing like milk? And how come salt is a bad eye doctor? Stretching logic, I can even understand bad eye on the cow, but surely not on the milk.

Anyway, one thing I learnt from this episode is the power of salt. The Mahatma used it chase the British out of the country, and this for Salt should have been child’s play.

2 comments:

sidwho? said...

Clearly a story to be taken with a "PINCH OF SALT"!!
Have you considered selling the copyrights of this process to Starbucks or our own CCD/Barista?

Shrikanth said...

Already been chastised heavily at home for publicising this.:((

Would that be for letting out trade secrets ?!! :))