I live in a country where the history is more important than
the future. The past reflects in the eyes of the folks. While the only people
who really do look into the future are supposedly the astrologers. What I have
never understood ever in my life is how can the movement of a particular planet
or a constellation which may not even have all the stars from the same vicinity
decide how my life will pan out. What intrigues me even more is the relevance
of a pooja to the Gods to plead my
stars for forgiveness, for a clean slate, for all the sins I may have committed.
The country which has produced 37% of NASA’s population of
scientists, who are desperate to find the answers to how the Universe works,
has an even large bunch of morons who relate it to your past, present and future.
I am not saying that none of their predictions ever come true. They are
actually not a bunch of morons. They know their Math better than anyone else.
They play the game of odds while deciding the future of a particular person.
And god forbid if something doesn’t go according to their predicted script,
they would blame it on the Gods and how it’s important to please them with a
particular custom.
Suppose, you want to get married. You’re this one desperate
person who can’t find a guy/girl on your own. So you go to a fool (I will
address all the future tellers as fools) to look for the solution. What is so wrong in me that I am not able to
find a partner? (I am such a pathetic desperate person. I want to have sex
soon. Please help.) And then the game begins. He knows in his mind that there’s
no way you could end up unmarried. Come on! The odds of staying single in a
country like India for an average person is nil. You’re bound to find your match (or so they call a stranger in India
in an arranged marriage). This is where he uses his Math. He tells you that
Jupiter is the reason causing all the problems in your life. If you really want
to find someone, you need to please the planet. He knows that eventually you
will get married and he could all the credit for it to extort even more money
from you when you would want to have a boy instead of a girl as your first
child. Then he says, “Oh wait! There’s Mars on your way to Jupiter too! You
should try to make amends with it as well.” Now, he has all the cards in his
hands. He can even make you dance on his tunes by convincing you that one of
Mercury’s craters is not letting you sleep at nights. Or that your anxiety is
because of the Moon, that it’s not letting you breathe properly since it has no
atmosphere. The fear of offending a random assortment of rocks (Mars) and a big
huge balloon of gases (Jupiter) is both illogical and idiotic.
The Indian, Chinese and the Greek mythology is filled with a
lot of stories about Stars and Constellations. There is nothing more
fascinating to hear about how one of the seven sisters from the Pleiadas got
lost while swimming in the Milky Way, and how Taurus tried to attack her, and
was slaughtered by the knight in the shining armour, with a dagger on his belt,
Orion. He came with his two humungous dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor to save
the day for the seventh sister. You surely must have heard about memory tricks
and how they work. This is how it actually works. In an ancient world, where
documentation was a pretty big burden, creating an unrealistic story in order
to remember the position and the shape of stars and constellations is truly enthralling.
So, it doesn’t mean that a dog up in the sky or twin sisters
above you could change your destiny or have any effect on your future. Maybe the
dog on the street could chop off your balls and affect your probability of
getting married. (A very important qualification to get married in India,
working balls!)
Everything that I have mentioned is not to offend any
believer of God or his own Astrologer. This was to give you a little insight
about what the Universe is all about. Everyday hydrogen combines with hydrogen
to form a new star. Everyday a new black hole is born which could suck you in
it in a jiffy. Would you run to your fool
to save you then? The Stars could destroy you in many different ways. A Black
hole, a Nebula, a solar flare, or mere UV radiation. But they unquestionably
cannot hurt you in the way your Astrologer narrates.
Stories were made to keep the people entertained since they
had no television or internet. They narrated the ill fate of betraying your
God, since they had no law or order. They made up interesting characters of the
stars, since they couldn’t remember positions of each individual star in the
sky without relating one another. Just imagine if they had just written down
all the positions rather than making stories about them, would we have had the “Science” of Astrology. Something to
think about, ain’t it?
Posts
đź‘Śđź‘Ź
ReplyDeleteThank You! :D
ReplyDelete