Guest guest Posted July 1, 1999 Report Share Posted July 1, 1999 It could well be Nostradamus' D-day By Nikhat Kazmi NEW DELHI: Guess who's coming on July 4? Mean monsters from Mars making mince-meat out of mankind? Errant nukes from Mir, which blows up into smithereens or more focused Ghauris from the not-so-distant East? Actually, none. Notwithstanding Nostradamus and his eerie end-of-the-world predictions which have already sent the Americans and Japanese seeking out remote sites and subterranean havens in order to escape apocalypse. Which are choking the Net with an unprecedented proliferation of Nostradamus websites, brimming over with the whys and wherefores of Armageddon-round-the-bend. ``Why should we be troubled by this fellow, who lived 500 years ago and still keeps bothering us?'' queries Ajay Bhambi, astrologer. ``He told us the world would end in 1991. It didn't! So, why should we believe him now?'' wonders Bhambi. According to him, Nostradamus was a visionary more than an astrologer. Hence, his prophecies are not fool-proof, since they are not based on astrological calculations. Unlike its Western counterpart, Indian astrology has no theories about apocalypse at all. ``There are no astrological indications of the end of the world in the Indian astrological science. Neither now, nor after 2000 years,'' affirms Bhambi. Most of the Indian astrologers would like to debunk Nostradamus' 16th century prophecies as a marketing gimmick. According to Kumar Jayakeerti, an Ahmedabad-based astrologer, the predictions are totally baseless and mere gimmicks to gain publicity. Each time these predictions surface, the market gets suffused with sundry reprints of "Les Prophecies". Today, in terms of sales, the French seer's book stands second only to the Bible, having sold more than six million copies. Add to this the umpteen doomsday cults - David Koresh, Moses David, Aum Shinrikyo - that keep mushrooming now and then and you have a throbbing Armageddon industry that draws heavily on Nostradamus and his clairvoyance. Shiv Vishwanathan, a science historian, points to the commercialisation of Nostradamus Inc. For, the world market has consistently used the French seer's predictions to market a book out of context. ``There is a lot of overreading, underreading and misreading into his works. We must look at Nostradamus as one of the great fathers of futurology, making room for coincidences, improbabilities, hits and misses in his theories,'' explains Vishwanathan. According to him, the futurologist did not actually give predictions. ``He merely built scenarios for the future; linearity and certainty are not an integral part of the science of futurology,'' he adds. Is there life after the fourth of July, then? ``In fact, we are on the threshold of a grand new century, where knowledge and wisdom shall reign,'' says Bhambi. Doomsayers be damned. (With inputs from Shramana Ganguly in Ahmedabad) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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