A day to remember

Tomorrow is the fateful day, Friday the 13th. While I do not have anything even close to triskaidekaphobia, I do find it rather interesting that the number 13 should have such negative connotations in so many people’s minds. For me, it has always been a number associated with change, with fun and with a whole lot of growing up.

When I was about 13, we lived in a wonderfully situated apartment block in the very posh part of South Mumbai. High on a hill and edged by the sea on three sides, with the best view of Marine Drive from my bathroom window, it was on the 13th floor of a 14 storey block. That was a time in my life when everything was bright and colourful and sunshiney, with nothing really wrong beyond essays that needed to be written, a closet that never stayed clean and obstreperous adolescence that was hard to deal with all around. I was, on the whole, a fairly decently adjusted teenager, without the usual angsts of spots, crushes and horrible parents. It was more about wanting something I could not identify, needing to find some kind of rootedness apart from my parents and looking for a self that I still had to define.

The 13th floor was a fabulous place to grow up, which I did, in almost every way possible. It was an enormous apartment, with huge French doors at either end of the endless living-dining space, the large balconies hanging high over a steep cliff dropping down the hill. From there I watched the year go by, from the chill and breezy days of winter, when women made pickles and papads on terraces below us to the madness of the Ganpati immersion and the wild thunderstorms that rattled the windows and sparked fire over the ocean. And it was on the 13th floor that I learned to hate pigeons, to love the scent of the night queen blooms and to think about life, the universe and everything in between.

When I read about luxury hotels eliminating the 13th floor in their counting and people who refuse to step out of their homes if the 13th day of the month happens to be Friday, I giggle gently to myself and remember where I came from and what made me the person that I am. And I add to that what my stout-hearted friend and colleague said this morning when I reminded him what date tomorrow was: “So? It comes too often for it to be special!” He is right, isn’t he!