Covid-19, the Deadly Pandemic
Covid 19, the Corona Virus, has proved to be the biggest curse on humanity. No one alive at present would have seen anything of this sort anytime in his or her lifetime, earlier. Also, no single factor would have gripped the entire world and cast its dark shadows on all the inhabitants of our planet in some form or the other, as this deadly virus has done. It has indeed played such havoc on almost everything on earth, and it is a fact that humankind, with all its medical and technological advancement, didn’t simply have any answer for this quite an unexpected catastrophe!
And how Corona has cast its lethal net far and wide! It infected and killed so many people, made many others sick and confined them to hospital beds for weeks and months, and locked millions of people inside their homes. It has also ruined businesses, destroyed many small scale industries, factories, and trading operations, rendered many of the employed jobless, denied those working in unorganized sectors and the daily wage earners their livelihood, and made many from the marginalized sectors of the society pauper and depend on others even for their daily bread.
When such is the negative impact of Corona on the people at large, can there be anyone thanking this great malady?
It looks highly unlikely, but that could be a reality!
The Other Side of the Corona Coin
There are strong possibilities of at least a section of the society smiling secretly and expressing their gratitude silently to their stars and Corona, even in this difficult situation. And those could well be the astrologers!
Shocking….?
Then, please check this data.
Google had seen a sharp increase in search for the term ‘astrology’ after the middle of March 2021, when the Corona infection began spreading very fast all over the country. As if to match this, some popular astrological sites had claimed that they have recorded more ‘look-ins’ and that their revenues had gone up by more than 40% during the period when there was uncertainty everywhere, and the financial condition of the common man was actually worsening. Those who took recourse to astrology during this time included the likes of even students and stock market investors.
Here it is worthwhile to pause and think with an unbiased, clear mind as to where astrology stood vis-à-vis the pandemic of the scale of Corona.
Online Astrology
Astrology is an ancient system, which has now adapted itself to technological advancement. This has contributed to many astrological websites, which facilitate people to contact astrologers online and talk to astrologers from their homes or consult such online astrologers.
Online astrology has become very popular as a large number of people are availing the astrologers online or talk to astrologer facility, and are taking guidance from online astrologers.
Where Astrology Stood vis-à-vis Covid
While there were some muted claims that some scriptures or old texts have indicated about this sort of a calamity, that was only after the pandemic broke out with its full power on the people. Here the fact remained that no astrological study or assessment worth its name had foreseen such a calamity or made predictions or forewarned about it, at all. On the contrary, many astrologers were only waxing eloquent on how great the year 2020 is going to be for the people at large before all hell broke loose in March 2020.
But refusing to concede the obvious, some astrologers started blaming the movements of some planets like Rahu and Saturn for the outbreak and began suggesting their own religious or astrological remedies like worshipping the Sun, chanting some Mantras, or observing some austerities.
Not to be outdone, the numerologists, too, jumped into the fray. Some of them claimed that the ‘occult number’ of Corona is 21 and hence recommended a 21-day lockdown for eradicating the pandemic from the country. But there were other claims which cited 4 as the ‘occult number’ of Covid, and with the digits of the year 2020 adding to 4, they said that this signified harmony and that the Virus should go off in 2020 itself.
That none of these worked is the ground reality.
While astrology is definitely an ancient system that people believed in traditionally, it has its limitations too. Further, many astrologers have commercialized this for their own petty pecuniary gains, which has robbed this system, at least some of its authenticity. And even otherwise, it is also a fact that astrologers, with all theirs claims of being the practitioners of a system of great antiquity and infallibility, failed miserably as a community to foresee such a big threat to the entire world and warn people about it in advance.
Answer Lies in Science
It is unfortunate that the Indians lacked the scientific temperament to look for science-based solutions and not be misguided by hoax-claims about the pandemic cure.
While the World Health Organization has predicted that Covid is likely to continue to hold sway for quite some time, scientists have put in stupendous efforts and invented many vaccines, which are being administered to the people in many countries.
Unless people go for vaccinations and also strictly follow the guidelines for safety like social distancing, wearing masks to cover the nose and mouth, frequent handwashing with soap, etc., one cannot help some unscrupulous elements, which may include a few astrologers, too, using people’s fears to improve their fortunes.
