Solar Eclipse - 19th March 2007

I got up at 6:00am to watch the rare occasion. I was in Hyderabad with my elder brother staying with him and his family in HAL quarters. My brother’s wife was preparing morning tea when I got up. I brushed my teeth, made my camera ready and went to the terrace of the building to watch and take photograph of the eclipse. Solar eclipse started little bit earlier than sun rise, countries to the east of India would have seen the eclipse from the start. While I was taking snaps, my brother came up his cup of morning tea, and another for me. We had tea, watched sun the eclipse, had a good chat and took some snaps. I couldn’t continue since the cells of my camera got depleted.

Conservative beliefs about the eclipse

Two days before, while I was in Bangalore, I read in Times of India about the eclipse timing. I was always fascinated about the solar activities and all other astronomical events. So I read the news to the end. I was ashamed to read the second paragraph of the news. Who ever wrote the article (I forgot) authentically stated not to have food at the time of eclipse. On the day of eclipse (Sunday, 19th of March) some one told that the reason for not having food during eclipse is that some poisonous gas forms in food during eclipse, and people are supposed to have food only after eclipse and after having a bath. Yes I agree taking a bath is always good for health. But the relation between the eclipse and the bath was not explained. If an eclipse produces poisonous gas, then the same is applicable for every new moon day, since trajectory of moon and sun is very near. During every sun set, earth is eclipsing sun from our sight, does it have more effect.

Of course there is a lot of effect of the increased gravitational pull during new moon and full moon days. It is reflected in the life cycle of many creatures, the tides happening in the sea etc. But it is ridiculous to predict the future life in terms of stars which we see after many thousand years, yes the light from the stars reach our eyes after thousands of years. The star itself may not exist at the time of the birth of a child, only the light which emitted thousand of years back creates the image of the star in our eyes. But still people believe that the same light can predict the future than the light from the sun, which is billions of time stronger, as well as have a big gravitational pull on each.

Gravitational pull or push will be almost 95% or more for every new moon or full moon when compared to a lunar eclipse or solar eclipse. The discussion will go on for ever; people will be always looking for a reason to attach all the bad things happening in his/her own life, instead of looking into the actual reason of a failure. It is interesting how astrologers change their predictions according to the era to earn food. Once, in India or at least in Kerala, society believed that traveling overseas is against religion. But now astrologers started predicting the happy event of a foreign journey for everybody.

I believe that when time goes forward, all religions will continuously evolve which was happening always in the past, and good beliefs and practices will be separated from the bad. But the percentage ratio of good and bad people will remain the same. Hope I have not hurt any religious feelings.