Misfortunes mushrooming from the malevolent glares are beliefs, as the common water hyacinth. Eying me drooping in dejection, grandma takes a nip of salt, a red chili and some mustard, locks her palm, rotates her fist over my pate thrice, and then throws the ingredients of charm into the embers in our hearth. I refresh, fooling myself. A scarecrow hanging in front of building construction is another Patriot system against eye-missiles. Defense is diverse. Evil eyes thrive from the rhizomes of envy. They have been on the earth since the inception of thought. First appeared in The Literary Hatchet