Sunday, July 15, 2012

Weekly Forecasts – A Personal Experience


Weekly Forecasts – A Personal Experience


Last Sunday, my daughter’s weekly horoscope read: “There is international travel ...” When I showed it to her, with a grin on her face, she nodded in understanding acquiescence. For we had just applied online for passport and taken an appointment with Passport Seva Kendra (PSK), Thane, for getting her credentials verified. Since reading sun-signs-based forecasts was a taboo at our home we made no overt comments on it further.

After a couple of days, on 19th June, as we got entry into the PSK office in Thane, and stood in queue for the ‘token’ to be issued, the memory of the forecast generated a tint of smile on my countenance, escorted by an optimistic anticipation … Thanks to Bejan Daruwalla. (Pun intended.)

But, lo and behold, after standing  in queue for over an hour, the fair damsel, an employee of TCS (if the letters on the cord of her Identity Card are to be believed) politely refused to issue the token since my offspring had not brought her SSC certificate nor mark sheet. All our protestations that this was not mentioned at the website in the list of documents to be produced fell on deaf ears. My sweetie was also not allowed to return later or the next day with the required documents: a fresh appointment had to be taken online and return when my PC gave consent!

My first reaction was to curse the prophet who predicted the foreign jaunt of my Aquarian progeny.... However my ever-optimistic mind said: Hold. Appointment can be taken in the evening by logging on to the website at 7.30 pm.

Dutifully, having cancelled all my evening engagements, I booted my PC ten minutes before time. But my master refused to budge till 7.50 pm by which time the last available slots were at 13.45 hrs and 15.15 hrs on 4th July! And by the time I discussed with my better half and agreed upon the slot, even that got filled. The PC instructed me to log on at 7.30 pm the next day for fresh appointment!

Even the slimmest modicum of faith I had on Bejan Daruwalla and his ilk who predict the future of gullible mortals was dashed to the ground.

Earlier on Sunday the 17th June 2012 when I had pointed out her ‘bhavishya,’ my wife had dismissed it with a scorn. Being a Post Graduate in Science besides being a teacher, she made me do a wee calculation. She wanted me to compute the world population and divide it by 12 – twelve being the number of zodiac signs. I griped: ‘The number of digits in that numeral is so many that I can’t even pronounce the figure.”
“Take then the approximate population of India and divide it by a larger number of 100.” This, I felt was more within my brain capacity.

After some back of the envelope calculation I wondered, even if one-hundredth or one-thousandth of Indians were Aquarians, how many of them would go abroad or begin some activity this week that would lead them abroad at a later date. Or for that matter, get some kind of personal news from abroad?
The whole prediction sounds so inane!

There are forecasters who caution people born between certain dates to be alert while driving on a certain day or week, implying that these people are more prone to accidents than others during the week in question. How many of such warnings come true? (Perhaps if the driver is so obsessed with the expectation of an accident it might really occur.)  Will any research prove that all or a majority of those who had met with accidents during the period were, say, Arians or Librans or Scorpions or whatever?

What, then, is the value of these predictions? – one begins to wonder. What is the ratio of ‘truthful’ versus bogus predictions? How many of these predictions and predictors go wrong everyday!

 The absurdity gets compounded when one realizes that innumerable reputed magazines, weeklies and dailies all over the world pander to such forecasts, despite being cognizant of their futility. The need of the hour, instead, is to wean people away from giving credence to such unproved and unprovable casuistry and inculcate scientific thinking in them.

Dominic A Mathias


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