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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