Not once, not twice, it is bound to happen thrice!!!

There is this old saying in malayalam, “onnil pizhachaal, moonu” which roughly translates to ” if you fail once, in the third attempt you will win”. It makes you happy in the third attempt. It’s like let’s say you are making chicken curry and it flopped once, twice but in the third attempt you would have succeeded in making it worth.

Well my experience is a little different. If something bad happens to me once, I have this feeling that it is bound to happen twice more and it does happen that way. It’s not a one time event, the cycle keeps repeating. 2-3 years back, during one of the rains, while I was riding my bike, I missed a pothole and crash landed on the road. I was in a position to pick myself up and continue riding. I was shaking and nervous because I knew 2 more is going to come. Then it happened I missed one more pothole and slipped to the side. I started cursing in all the English words I knew. I fear for the third one the most. I was so frightened that time that I purposefully fell into a pothole so as to get rid of the following curse and got it out of me completely.

Well, just like history repeats itself, this “onnu pizhachu” incident occurred again. While I was getting out of my house for office, I banged my forehead against the front door of my house. Such was the force that I was blinded for a minute or so. I could feel the pain resonating in my head. I could feel the bulge growing with time. I had to ride to office and the fear factor caught up with me again. I knew something was going to happen, something terrible which I didn’t want to happen though I could sense it. It’s like there’s someone, watching you, right behind you, ready to push you down, unexpectedly, out of the blue.

So I got onto my bike and started riding extra carefully. I seriously hate to have a bike accident because I have had a major one a few months back. I wished in mind, maybe this time, “can’t it stop at one instead?” On the way, I witnessed an accident that was pretty bad and I kept telling, ” banging head was ok, I wouldn’t have survived that accident”. I kept riding with more confidence, ‘ maybe this time, it won’t repeat’.

I had to make a u-turn at a junction and the vehicle right in front of me was a driving school red car – Celerio. I was like, ‘wow, they teach on brand new cars these days’. There was a signal and when the turn came, I started to turn right while the Celerio was supposed to speed forward. Suddenly it happened, the car stopped moving and I hit the back of that car, oh damn. I was shaken beyond words, though nothing major happened in this case, it was so disheartening. The car guy scolded the driver (in this case student) and sped away. I was shocked and took time to regain my senses.

I wanted the number 3 event to happen quickly. I tried to cheat it out with my old trick, trying to skid purposefully, falling into 2-3 potholes and concluded that ‘yes, its all done for the day’. I reached office, parked and started walking happily. Then it happened, a piercing pain on my leg. An iron screw from the parking ground was the culprit. I have walked multiple times on the same area, never had I noticed this screw. It was something like a permanent thing adhered to the ground.

With a swollen forehead, a swelled up feet and a broken heart, I concluded that ‘ the events for the day has ended’. ‘Not once, not twice, it is bound to happen thrice’