The dread of future has become a fast spreading disease. I have nothing here against astrology, palmistry, tarot-reading, numerology, vasthu, soothsaying or anything that dwell on why we are and what we are, and in the same breath, guarantee how we can be what we wish to be if we follow the remedial prescriptions suggested therein that involves costs ranging from a few paltry rupees to the cost equivalent of a palace. But what intrigues me is, why a few generations before, these were not as enthusiastically pursued by our forefathers as is being adored now by even the learned many.
I don’t remember my poor parents, who raised 11 children, ever having consulted an astrologer or a palmist in their lifetime. I never heard of Vasthu specialists until I turned 40, some 30 years ago, which was when I first came across a bank customer who was a vasthu practitioner, but strangely an atheist too (sounds like a roadside hotel that announces itself as pure vegetarian and non-vegetarian).
My parents accepted there lot, and went about life nonchalantly. They never complained when there were famines and floods or ups and downs. They went through droughts as comfortably as they faced deluges.
They took things in their stride. Poverty was never deemed a curse, nor pestilence a catastrophe. They went through the drill of life without protests but enjoyed every bit of it as though it was a passing show.
In contrast, today, we find every third or fourth denizen a life patron of some astrologer or palmist. Come exams, youngsters are seen thronging places of worship, with their parents in tow. Anxiety is writ large on their faces, like those of politicians, a few hours before the vote counting starts. Come elections, avowed atheists are turning ardent believers.
Consultations peak when it is time for marriage of boys and girls. Then there are special deities to grant the boon of overseas visas, carrying a premium for the U.S. ones. I never knew of this when I was unemployed. I could have tried my luck to go to the nearby Gulf at least, with relatively less expensive rituals. Some Vasthu man says that our dear motherland itself has terrible vasthu dosha (negativity or deficiency) as it is precariously perched along the Indian Ocean to the south with the steep Himalayas in the north.
Fate of cricket matches and prospects of politicians are decided more on astrological calculations than on their field performances. People are fearing planets and are in a hurry to calm them down. Predictions from centuries ago are dug out and men are being demonised. Modern-day technology tools and devices have come in handy to roll out custom-made life charts and horoscopes for gullible customers. The addiction has become universal, like a pandemic.
Why this dread about future? Who created this phobia? Why die a daily death?
Could these clairvoyants across continents predict that the coronavirus would wreck havoc in the world, a year and a half before? An unsuspecting world is just being tossed upside down by an invisible organism. Economies are nosediving. Nations are plummeting. Where were these Nostradamuses?
In our craze to be future ready, we are sinking into the bottomless pit of doubt, suspicion and suspense. We are summarily losing the confidence to take adversities head-on. Anxious men stare at daily predictions on lifeless TVs that script our day-to-day lives, every morning. We are losing the fun of living life fearlessly. We are besieged by assorted terrors. The courage to face life is eroding. An eclipse, a comet or an asteroid is blamed for manmade calamities. We are forgetting to lead life, unencumbered by these meaningless curiosities. We are forfeiting the freedom to live peacefully. We are inviting stupidities into our lives in the process.
If we believe in destiny, then we should not be bogged down by other determinants. If we don’t believe in it, then we should work our way out of life. In either case, we should live as human beings and not waste life in the grip of fear of the unknown and untested. Let not someone else rewrite the Will of our lives.
