Tara Bhatta:

I was neither ever superstitious about numbers nor would give it any thought. We used to play with numbers and calculators at school with a passion but that was it. However, after coming this far and at this point of time, the number ‘three’ has really driven me insane.

Well, it started assailing me when I was three. I was so young but I do remember I nearly died of whooping cough. Then I progressed to grade three. I applied for a scholarship scheme and held the top position in the whole far-western Nepal but after the interview, I was placed third and that was it. There were only two seats. The ‘three’ did not stop shooting me down there. For grade ninth, I went to a big private school in the Valley, which meant losing hold on what was otherwise my assured number-one position. Though I later retained the title, I came third in the finals. Again, remember nine is just three times itself.

Let’s say that was not enough to ascribe my misfortune to the third digit. The severest anguish was aroused when I failed to make it to the SLC top-ten list by just three marks - may be because the results were out on July 3. The ‘three’ seemed to pause for a couple of years but then erupted back at what was the biggest issue of my life, the Institute of Medicine entrance exam, which I again missed by the ever-bugging three points. There was nothing to write home about my career in the year 2003. Besides having no academic enrolment and deteriorating physical and spiritual conditions, I wasted the whole year doing nothing.

The number ‘three’ certainly hasn’t quit chasing me this year either. It was on one such third day, I got that doomed e-mail from my former sweat heart. On another third I lost nine hundred dollars on the house lease contract just before one of our friends joined us to become four. On the very next third, I had a clash with a black folk with an earful of his vulgar language.

Aghast at the ascending cruelty of three, I really have developed a phobia for it now.

Exceptionally, the number ‘13’ that most people around me greatly fear has proved quite reliable on more than a few occasions. No wonder I am developing a kind of affiliation for the same. I got my US-visa on the 13th, fell in love on the 13th and got the maximum possible grade point of four in my first semester on a similar date. Perhaps there are more of these numbers left unnoticed. This must be sufficient for frustration anyway. This unlucky three has really bugged me. Or is it? I cannot mention it the third time!