The numbers game

It came and went without so much as a whimper. I speak of 6-6-06, the date of the devil, a day that has occupied much media space ever since some bright spark somewhere figured it out and decided to kick up a storm about it. After all, it was stated in the Bible in Revelations:

Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

In other words, 666 is not a NICE number. Ask anyone who does these little numerical tricks – you get many sent to you on email, like I do, I am sure. They told me, most recently, about how Pramod Mahajan was very 3-connected, how there are just so many times that you can count your blessings and that how, if you eat four peas, it is healthier for you than eating three-and-a-half, because four is a more propitious figure. There are so many of these things that can, eventually, probably be credited to Mercury being retrograde at the same time that Mars goes into trine with Jupiter and Saturn. Something of the kind anyway, which will be discussed later, another day, when the stars are in the right alignment for me to discuss it.

We have never been numerologically inclined. As a family, we once lived on the 13th floor of an apartment block in Mumbai. It had the most fabulous view, was well above the floodwater line and had an address that yelled all the right noises. And, as it was the much-dreaded 13, it worked wonders for us. We were a healthy, happy, hassled family, like every family should be, making money, enjoying life, squabbling and making up and having a blast. Somewhere along the way, the fact that we were based for so many years on the 13th floor became personal legend, a tale of good fortune instead of bad in many ways. Maybe that was because 13 actually adds up to 4, which is perhaps not a negative number, even without the sign in front of it? Can someone tell me about that?

Numerology is hardly a science, in spite of all the convolutions, calculations and complications that numerologists go into to prate their guruspeak. Add a letter here to your nameand take one away there and your fortunes change, they say. So if someone tells me – as they once did - that I should spell my name with a double mm and add an extra i, would I? Does the presence of that extra i make me a different mme? And if I become Ii, am not I the me that I was before the i took over my fate, but now mme? Does i become my magic number? Or did the
mm do the trick, if indeed the trick is done? And how do I know that the trick is done if I has changed to Ii and me is no longer the me I was but a new mme?

The mind boggles. And so does my keyboard. If I believed in numerology, I would probably change me into mme and I would now be Ii. But then, if I did believe in this stuff (which is not the same ‘stuff’ as the media has been yelling about all these days, believe me – and mme), I would also wear six amulets (six being my number, I am told), dress in colours as per the day of the week and go back into my house if I was headed out and met a single Brahmin on the way. And I would be a dreadful-to-spell Rammiya, double-m, extra-i and all.

But to most it is all not funny. It’s all part of the great game – the numbers game!