The eternal optimists, who have perhaps managed to see the silver linings through the dark clouds of last year and believe that we have left behind the annus horribilis called ‘2020’ and have migrated through time to the annus mirabilis called ‘2021’, must be told that you are turning superstitious.
And your understanding of science, nature and more than anything, the facts which are before all of us, is wrecked. The problem is not with optimism or to hope against hope but in doing so with absolute foolishness and with contempt towards common sense and the best practices of precautions for averting spread of coronavirus infections.
It was observed that despite night curfews, people partied late in the night on December 31 as if all is well, but fact remains we are already four days into the New Year and the mutant strain of the coronavirus has already taken the rail route to travel across India; and under such circumstances, wilful ignorance shall make things even worse.
Most of us cribbed and moaned as we went through salary cuts, job losses, but there are still a lot of us who took ‘learning experiences’ and understood the great potential in the digital avenues and healthy practices.
But it seems many are yet to understand the relevance of abstinence from crowding and adherence to decent and cautious modes of celebrations.
Another interesting thing that was unravelled and got proved as we passed through 2020 is astrologers can’t predict the reality, all of reading palms, numerology and believing that things will magically change in 2021 are fallacious as the virus remains unpredictable.To quote Dr Faheem Younus, “Covid can’t read a calendar. Nothing magical will happen on Jan 1, 2021. Vaccines/masks/avoiding crowds will slow it down and ultimately end. Our actions will end the pandemic, not time.” And to take it further, our acts over a period of time and not the time that will end the menace, neither can any amount of optimism without the right thought and action can do so.
However, it has been quite amusing if we go through some truly ridiculous claims last year about the pandemic like the popular astrologer Mahesh Bang predicted the peak of the virus basing upon the movement of planets and stars and further predicted that by November 2021, things will be back to normal. He is further reported to have told, “We must acknowledge that the global horoscope is overpowering each country’s horoscope for a few months.
Due to the rare configuration that occurred in December last year, we need to understand that it will take time.” And the most unfortunate part of the whole story is such predictions were put across social media and news channels and, ironically, the virus is still there even after December 31.
The essential take-away from the whole experience of 2020 is life can’t be predicted, but it can be lived and experienced on real time basis and not superstitiously on the predictions of astrologers. If a report in The New York Times (NYT) is to be believed, the market of astrologers has grown significantly during the pandemic.
It was mainly due to the uncertainty of 2020, for which none of us were prepared in the worst of our dreams. This, the NYT has termed as the ‘confirmation bias’. It has further narrated the reason behind the human tendency to seek the help of astrology to understand situations and resolve problems.
According to the report, “Most psychologists agree that astrology’s appeal relies largely on “confirmation bias”, the human tendency to seek out, recall and favour information that confirms what we already believe.”Now that 2020 is part of history and the vaccines are almost here, we can have a more genuine optimism that the economy will pick up and consumption will revive and society can go back to 2019, from where it left, but this should certainly be on the strength of our experience that we have in 2020 and with the help of the best practices to sail through the ‘threat to humanity’, called the ‘coronavirus’.
The virus has undoubtedly bruised humanity, but we are far from being defeated. Hopefully, offices as we used to have them, shall come to normal; so shall be schools, colleges and various other institutions; so shall be love and the various contours of human relationships.
But we have to differentiate between hopes etched on ‘science and normal human prudence’ and ‘illogical antics, which include superstitions’. It is a fact that most of us prefer to take refuge in what is easy for us than the little more difficult practice of washing hands and wearing masks, avoiding crowded places even after the pandemic.
It is time to be practical and prepare for any eventuality, even a worse disaster. Then not only we can survive better but shall also keep the speed of development uninterrupted.
(The writer is a lawyer and public policy expert and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law and Media Studies at School of Mass Communication, KIIT University. He can be reached at sjyotiranjan3@gmail.com.)