The curse of the Indian mangoes

I have payed dearly for my cheekiness. The mango gods have struck me down for my blasphemies and put me in my place. Pretending Mexican mangoes were better than Indian ones. What nerve!

This weekend I went to Kumbakonam for an Indian wedding (to be recounted shortly). The wedding was great, but I had a lot of misadventures coming back to Hyderabad. On Sunday I got very sick, but I decided to still take the train to Chennai in order not to miss my flight back to Hyderabad on Monday morning (enough plane stories for a summer, or so I thought).

After a miserable train ride, feeling terribly ill, we got to Chennai at 5 am. I was half asleep and in a lot of pain, I couldn't walk for fear of having to run to the bathroom at any second. After taking a shower at Olga's house, I called a taxi to get to the airport; the taxi didn't show up, so I ended up taking an auto (by now I'm cutting it really close to my flight and autos go at 30 kmh, max). On the way to the airport the auto driver stops for gas and asks me for a fare advance. I look for my wallet and... it's missing. It probably fell out after I took it out in the train station in my dreamy-sick haze to pay something. Woe is me. I had money and, more importantly, my debit and credit card I've been using to get money while here. And I also really liked that wallet. Double woe.

I freaked out but I pushed on to get to the airport. I would figure a way to pay the driver. But I got to the airport at 8 am and my plane left at 8:20 am. There was no way I'd get on the plane. So I turned back to Olga's house (poor Olga is paying some past life dues: she is always around when these things happen to me), who payed the driver, gave me money, consoled me and helped me get a train to Hyderabad that afternoon.

Since then I've been trying to understand why these things happen to me, it's not normal to have something happen every other weekend, is it? So I started wondering: Did I do something wrong? Was it my fault? Could I have done something differently? (not in this case, I think) Has someone put the evil eye on me? Whyy? Is some occult power at work? As I've said before, we try to find reasons for things, no matter how absurd, even when there are none.

So I was trying to convince myself to be rational and stop trying to find ludicrous reasons, when it hit me: It was the mangoes!!

It makes perfect sense:

1. I angered the mango gods. I challenged them openly and thought I could get away with it.

2. In Hinduism, the perfectly ripe mango is often held by Lord Ganesha. Outside the wedding hall there was a Ganesha statue. AND Ganesha is the creator and remover of obstacles.

3. Ten days later, which coincidentally is the crown radius of a mango tree and the duration of Ganesha's most important festival, I got terribly sick after drinking mango juice. This caused all the other problems.

This is not superstition. It's scientific. So there's only one thing to do: Extend a public apology for saying Mexican mangoes are better. I take it back! Forgive me! I was arrogant and conceited. I was presumptuous. I went above myself. I will never do it again!

(I hope this is enough...Cross your fingers. Maybe i should do a mango offering at the temple? coconut?)