By Karan Thapar

‘R u superstitious?’ read the SMS from Vasundhara Raje Scindia. Her question was justified but it took me aback. I had just forwarded a Sanskrit shloka received with the promise ‘send on to seven others for luck’ but also the warning ‘don’t risk breaking this chain’. I immediately thought of her.

A week earlier, in an interview for the BBC, I had asked Vasu if she was superstitious. The press claims she organised special New Year’s Eve prayers at 101 shrines and is unembarrassed about completing her own worship in her official car or even helicopter. Her answer took the sting out of my criticism.

“Yes, that’s true and I am superstitious” she said smiling broadly. “I’ve always been and, I’m afraid, I’m going to continue that way.” Now it was her turn to question me.

Unlike Vasu I’m neither candid about it nor comfortable with what I believe is the truth. For the reality is I am and I’m not. And I suspect that most of us fall into this vague, uncertain, indefinable but totally understandable hypocrisy.

The rational side of me laughs at superstition and, at times, mocks those who give in. I don’t read my horoscope, I don’t have a janampatri and my fingers are not covered with rings nor my neck with good luck charms. That, at least, is the image I present to the world. But behind this superior facade is a more shaky and unsure reality. For instance, I would hate for a black cat to cross my path and without batting an eyelid I will walk around any ladder in my way. Oh yes, and if you sneeze when I’m stepping out of the door I’ll instantly stop and think of something I forgot to say. These three may be the only popular taboos I observe but they are so deeply ingrained they have me in their thrall.

However, believing in conventional superstition is not my real ‘weakness’. That lies in the way I succumb to habit. Once I start to do something in a particular fashion I find it impossible not to continue. Sticking to a routine of my own creation gives me comfort. Breaking it feels risky.

I’m not talking of significant or even ritualistic habits but small inconsequential matters of detail. Procedures no one would notice and certainly no one could guess. How I brush my teeth, the order in which I soap my body, the pen I use or the cufflinks I consider lucky. I’m not sure how these habits formed or what invested them with meaning but in each case there came a day when I became aware I was doing this by pattern and that it was important to me. A habit thus formed becomes difficult to break.

Yet the paradox is that every now and then this routine is shattered. Suddenly, inexplicably, I will forget and, occasionally, not even know I’ve done so. When I realise, the habit is ended. But, oddly enough, a new one, perhaps very different, soon takes over.

I am therefore a creature of silly but obsessive habit or, at least, that’s how I would describe myself. The only codicil I would add is that it’s not the big momentous moments that hold me in their control but foolish and footling little things.

But aren’t we all like this? Don’t we all fall into habits that we ourselves create and then persist with because they give reassurance and comfort? And even when we realise we are being silly, even when we laugh at ourselves and make a joke of it, don’t we silently continue to do what we admit is foolish? Surely, the answer is yes?

I know when philosophers talk of the certainties of human existence they don’t mean these little obsessions but I would say they influence us more than the big platonic verities which most of us either can’t recognise or, if we do, blatantly ignore. Hobbes and Rousseau defined the human predicament in terms of a single grand truth but in reality it’s better understood as a prisoner of small and silly habit.

Think about it. God, no doubt, is always there but he remains in the background; at the forefront are the habits (or superstitions, if you prefer) of our own creation. They determine our actions even if the justification we offer comes from religion or ideology.

So my answer to Vasu’s question is yes, although I prefer to call it foolish habit.