Is it me?

I like to think I am a rational human being. Not just in the economic sense (“maximize returns with minimum efforts”), but in a general sense too. I have always questioned superstitious beliefs and meaningless-to-me rituals around the house. Overall, if someone were to design a psychometric test to test rationality, I’d be rated ‘Highly superstitious’… thus proving that I am indeed not…
Why, at one point of time, I even believed in the man-is-the-maker-of-his-own-destiny kinda gyaan. That is why it seems strange that I seem to have acquired an un-Midas touch, or the very fact that I am thinking on those terms.

Once, I told a friend that he will miss his train and meet me for chai at night. He ended up having a picnic at Andheri station. I don't know if he did, but I did not hold myself responsible for that mishap.

Then, this other time, I told a friend at midnight (who had a flight to catch early next morning), “soja beta, pata chala ki kal flight miss ho gaya.” An entirely harmless remark, with no malice in it. He ended up missing his flight, and he did not blame me. Neither did I blame myself.

Then, at Delhi, at the fag end of a wonderful trip, a very bad thing happened. We had deposited our luggage at the cloak room, and went out of the New Delhi Railway station, to see the Delhi Metro. Caught a rick (to some Metro station, memory not what it used to be), and 4 guys squeezed in. One of my friends was carrying a bag, which he handed it to me. I had no idea what it contained. I kept it at the back of the rick (the ‘luggage rack’ they have), and my friend said “yaad se lena yaar bag”, and I shot back, “tera bag hai, tu yaad rakh”… I know, rude thing to say, but politeness was never my strong point. Well, by now you know it, we alighted from that rick, and forgot all about the bag. And with the bag went my friend’s digicam, our return tickets from Delhi to Mumbai and god knows what else. Felt very bad, and my friend (nice guy) didn’t blame me. I partly blamed myself, but never thought about luck or those kinda things.

My mom asks me "Nine years in Mumbai, and not a single girlfriend?". I jokingly tease my mom by asking, "yeah, how will you react if I marry a gal and then bring her home and ask you to say-hi-to-your-bahu?". My mom (you can NEVER fool moms, NEVER EVER), retorts, "go ahead by all means. One headache less for me". Secure in the knowledge that her son is not capable of patao-ing any. Even then, I blamed the girls for being so dumb that they can't recognize real talent. But I never blamed myself. After all, my teacher wrote 'stud-ious' in my report card, year after year.

And, now in my company, every deal that i have touched till date has been stalled... every single one of them... (I hope HR or my bosses don’t come across this before my appraisal).
The reasons have been manifold... client data delayed, deal stolen by competitors, deal shot down by credit dept etc...
The deals were led by different bosses... successful ones who have achieved their targets, not so successful ones who are fighting to meet their targets, and everyone in between...
The deals have been in different sectors... power, oil and gas, real estate...
When I think about it, the only common factor that all those deals had was that one stupid fool who calls himself SRK worked on it... and while the six-pack star keeps making hit after hit, this pot bellied SRK keeps belting out one flop show after another. Not that I did not work hard on them deals, I did… yes, I truly did (even if HR is not reading. I did, promise!). But, somehow, they all ended up down the drain.

None of those bosses have blamed me yet. Thankfully.

Sometimes, I think, “Is it me? Does the fact that I was born during rahu-kalam have anything to do with this?”

shit, where is Bejan when you need him? Since I don't have a wife to love me sweetly or gently, nor do I have a Ferrari, and I hate taking baths (terrific or otherwise), I just want to know, "Should I eat cheese burger with mutton or chicken?"