Mitali Saran: Stet anniversary

And a good number of wishes to you

Numbers exert a strong gravitational pull on superstition, as everyone knows. Some buildings skip a 13th floor. The Chinese don’t like the number 4 because it sounds too much like their word for ‘death’. They also consider the number 250 to be an insult, because in Mandarin it’s pronounced the same as ‘imbecile’. Christians don’t care for 666, which John the Apostle said was ‘the number of the beast’, aka the Antichrist. In Afghanistan, the number 39 means ‘dead cow’, but also ‘pimp’—hey, don’t look at me, look at Afghanistan. If you walk 10,000 steps a day you will live a hundred years and have skin like a baby’s bottom, or at least the company that sold you your pedometer will.
 
It’s not clear to me whether numbers are actually magical and capable of summoning demons, or whether they just seem that way when one doesn’t understand them well. I have very middling mathematical skills, and am always being blindsided by my household budget, so when numbers emerge out of their numinous fog looking overly coordinated, my instinctive reaction is suspicion. When I consider that I am the second child born to my parents in the second hour of the second day of a year ending with 2, my inner argonaut thrills to the symmetry, but my inner villager pulls out her pitchfork. (Disclaimer to agriculturists and manufacturers of pointy things: It’s just a figure of speech, I’m sure you’re not all ignorant barbarians who express fear as violence.)
 
My point is that it all probably means nothing, but it feels as if it definitely means something. It is in this context that I noted, the other day, that this is my 365th ‘Stet’ column. That’s as if I had written one every single day for a full non-leap year—a thought so horrific that I had to sit down and have a cup of tea. Writing several hundred words every day, come rain or shine, is of course how proper writers operate, although I also have a friend who churned out a book in a few weeks, living exclusively on cigarettes and chocolate, and that worked fine too even though he was a bit twitchy in the aftermath. Anyway, 365 columns x 600= 219,000 words, so the next time my mother asks what exactly I think I’m doing with my life, I’ll tell her I’ve written the equivalent of four novellas. I have no idea what a 365th column means, but I feel it must mean something. Maybe it’s actually just the number of times people have asked me what ‘stet’ means.

It’s not clear to me whether numbers are actually magical and capable of summoning demons, or whether they just seem that way when one doesn’t understand them well.Photo: iStock

 
By the way, I looked up what’s going to happen to us in 2018, numerology wise, and discovered that 2+1+8=11; and 1+1=…2! If you don’t think that’s a conspiracy hatched by my stars, you’re just wilfully obtuse and probably also don’t believe that the US organised the 9/11 attacks or that Britney Spears is a clone. I also found that if you stop at the 11 part, that’s a sign of enlightenment and peace and such. In sum I remain confused about the flavour of the year to come, but it fits nicely with my confusion about the year just ending.
 
So, dear readers, my warmest wishes to all of you as we embark on yet another ride around the sun. If you too find that the journey makes you slightly vomity, check your seat number. For example, 57B means 5+7=12 and 1+2=3, which means that green rabbits are playing poker at The Hague, and you should keep your pitchfork handy. Or change your seat. 


Mitali Saran is a Delhi-based writer
mitali.saran@gmail.com