Superstition tells you not to visit ill or injured Friends on Thursdays

I already explained you why some people thought it to be strange that my friend Govind’s accident happened on a Tuesday. Today I would like to explain you why these people also did not want his surgery to be performed on a Thursday!

When we had brought Govind to the hospital, right after the accident, the doctors ordered to get X-rays done. When the report was there, they told that it was not only a small fracture but that the bones were completely broken. This meant that they could not put a simple plaster on the leg but that they had to do a surgery and use screws or something similar to hold the two parts of each bone together. Govind’s relatives and family members who had gathered all seemed to agree on one thing: whatever the doctors wanted to do, they should not perform the surgery on Thursday!

I did not really understand it in the evening and there was too much going on in that time. I had forgotten about it when I went to see him on Wednesday but one of his visitors, who was about to leave, said ‘I will come to see you daily, just not tomorrow!’ When he was gone I asked Govind what this was about – why don’t you want to have your operation on Thursday and why won’t he come by on Thursday?

Govind thus told me about a superstition that I had had no idea about! Thursday is not considered as a good day. On the contrary, if something happens on a Thursday, it will be repeated, so if it is something bad, that will happen again!

In practical life this means that they did not want any surgery to take place on Thursday, believing that it would be a failure and the doctors would have to repeat it! He and the present family members told that even some doctors would refuse doing surgery on Thursdays.

This made me think of the doctors I knew and a realization dawned on me: a lot of them close their practices on Thursday! It is not only that people don’t like going to the doctor on Thursdays, thinking that they would then have to go again and thus rather waiting until Friday, the doctors are superstitious themselves! I have seen so many clinics with a sign against evil energies at the gate and many signs in hospitals: ‘We serve, he cures’. They study, they learned a lot of science and they know about the body, its diseases and cures – but that does not keep them from believing that Thursdays are bad days!

What about the visitors though? Why would you not visit on a Thursday? It is the same concept: If you visit a home in which someone died on a Thursday, you will come back to visit for someone’s death – so you are actually wishing that there will be another death in this house! In the same way, I was told, you should not visit someone who is ill on a Thursday! He told me that I was like family so it doesn’t matter but people who believed in this would actually be angry if I came to visit on a Thursday – they would think I was not a well-wisher, wanting for such an accident to happen again!

I protested, asking what happened to innocent people like me, who are not aware of those superstitious rules. He smiled and said ‘You live in this society, shouldn’t you know the rules?’

Well, no, I don’t know all such things and I can assure everybody, if I come to visit you on any day that you believe to be inauspicious, I have no idea about it and don’t mean anything bad. You may have to accept my non-religious innocence just like my friend Govind and his family.

I spoke with Govind on phone this morning to ask him when he would be released from hospital. The doctor had come in the evening and had a look at the new X-ray. Two days ago we were already talking about the question when he would leave the hospital. His relatives, who had come to visit him, too, said ‘If he will be released on Wednesday, it is fine but if the doctor releases him on Thursday, we will stay one day longer and go home on Friday.’ They don’t want him to go home on Thursday – otherwise he will have to come home from hospital again! I protested ‘He is fed up with being here! He has been in the hospital for a week, in this one small room – he will be allowed to go home but you think he should stay here and even pay one more day in hospital because of a nonsense superstition?’. The answer was surprising: ‘If you have ever a bad experience on a Thursday, you will believe this, too!’ This is how the religious business continues: they simply threaten you into their belief! I decided not to argue with people who have sold their intelligence to religion. In this kind of situation Govind likes taking a way in the middle and he said ‘Yes Balendu, I know you are right but we follow the tradition and do what those who are older than us tell us.’ This is how I was not surprised when I heard in the morning that he would be allowed to go home – but that he would not leave the hospital today but rather tomorrow, on a safe Friday.