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