On 22 July 2009 part of India is going to witness a total Solar Eclipse. Scientists from India and abroad have already started arriving at various places lying in the path of the total eclipse with their equipments to study this celestial spectacle. Scientifically aware common people are also waiting for this moment with their eclipse-viewing glasses, pinhole cameras, and reflectors including ordinary mirrors. It is indeed a spectacle to be witnessed and experienced.

At the same time in India we have the largest number of superstitious masses, fear-mongering astrologers, and religious preachers who treat this beautiful natural phenomenon as a bad omen. Hiding inside their homes, they stop eating and drinking anything during this period. The pregnant women fear to venture out. The really religious ones throw away the cooked food, as the eclipse would make them inedible! They conduct pujas at their homes and in temples and take a dip in their ‘holy’ rivers and ponds to cleanse themselves of the ‘evil’ effects of the eclipse, when their pet god is being swallowed by the demons! Read the full story

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written for Mangalore Today.

The ten year old waited with bated breath, anxiously listening to sounds of the wind, he huddled close to his mother. The other siblings were busy playing and the youngest, a babe in arms, was asleep. He kept asking his mother when the winds would blow, the deluge start and the world come to an end. Mother told him to chant Ram’s name and that it would perhaps save all their lives. He did so with all the sincerity that a decade in this world could ensure. When the clock struck the appointed hour, his heart was racing, the prayers became more fervent. Father was not at home and hence it was his responsibility as the eldest son to save the family when the predicted deluge came. He wondered at the callousness of his father who was busy with his shop when the calamity hit.

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Solar Eclipse

Are we a nation of gullible people? This rhetorical question needs no answer. The month of August, 2008 was a period when gullibility ran riot. Thanks to a solar and a lunar eclipse and the magical date of 08/08/08!                                        cc : Pandiyan

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