....in this world and the next

This is a crazy world. While Mayans created a lot many splendors for their posterity to admire and extol, what drew the world’s attention was that capacious calendar which the Mayans simply used for fixing public holidays. The peculiarity about the Mayan calendar which sent a shiver along the equator and hemispheres above and below it is that it augurs the end of world by 2012. The day I was enlightened about this, I slapped my forehead and wondered how prudently I could’ve invested my engineering college fee for something less pedantic and more enjoyable. Nevertheless hackneyed this phrase might be, I strongly believe that it is better late than never and consequently I’m thinking of asking for a refund. Since the day this prophecy came into limelight, every morning my father grabs the newspaper with a sense of foreboding and, on reading some vexing news like a gory murder, a heist or about a terrorist who could not put off the craving to blow up a train, inhales loudly and invariably says, “Kalyug has arrived. End is veritably near”. From the tidbits of knowledge I possess on Hindu mythology, I believe Kalyug started when Mahabharata transpired. Never mind. It’s a reaction aptly mirrored by the thousands around the globe. My mother, on the other hand, is an unreasonably optimistic woman who wants to outlive the banyan tree standing right across the street. I would like to believe my mother but the constant clobbering of ‘end of the world is near’ news reinforces my father’s belief.

American film fraternity thrives on the paranoia of fellow human beings. As the entire world is in the clutches of a common fear, Hollywood comes up with two movies unmistakably titled-2012 and The Day after Tomorrow. Such movies provide an opportunity for those men whose one foot is in the grave to get a general idea of the cataclysmic events which will decimate the earth of its behemoth population. They commiserate with their children and grandchildren and wish God had given them an eviction period of a decade or so. These movies edify us on the symptoms that will manifest before the earth disappears into the vastness of the universe. Like a hot lava bubbling up somewhere while you are sipping coffee in the comfort of your house or an ocean waves lashing on the shoreline of a tiny pacific island.   Also, it enlightens us on how to build the modern version of Noah’s Ark. Richard Branson’s sub-orbital spacecraft Virgin Galactic would serve this purpose. Needless to say, in that case only the opulent and the powerful would survive .It is advisable to have several straitjackets on board to keep the world leaders and business rivals from murdering each other).After hovering in the orbit for few days, when the spacecraft would land back on this earth, then bereft of humans, the people emerging out of the vehicle would be autocrats, bureaucrats, businessman, and political warhorses. With no territorial boundaries to quarrel for, no business empires to boast about, no religions and societal dogmas to uphold, may be then they’ll give peace a chance to prevail.

 While reading this article, a dear friend of mine, who is devout critic of a leading Bollywood actor, opined, “As far as Bollywood is concerned, the new trend of making those movies with clumsy superhero itself signifies the beginning of the end of the world”. Point hit home.

With so much frenzy surrounding this issue, we simply refuse to recognize the fact that compiling a calendar is an abjectly mundane job. It must’ve been one of those jobs with a high employee churn rate-something comparable to the present fast food industry. When the banality of this job became well known, no Mayan chose to fill the position. That is how the position of a ‘calendar-compiler’ became defunct, and which, by no means indicates that earth is going to end by 2012. If you think my theory doesn’t hold any water, start saving up money to board Virgin Galactic. As for me, I’ll accost my college administration for a refund.