Carl Sagan

 

A couple announced to a group of people present at their house that they were expecting their first child. Everyone was happy but one man in the group said 'I checked your horoscope with my astrologer and he told me there is NO chance until next year'.

 

There are millions of people like the man in this scene who are satisfying their curiosities and spreading ignorance. The couple was obviously stressed during all the months of pregnancy thinking 'what if the astrologer was right'. Well, they have healthy kids now and they produced them without checking with any astrologer. 

 

I wonder how can anyone predict sperm count, suitable conditions of the womb and free time that the couple was going to find to make babies! How can the faraway planets play a role in anything? It is quite pompous of humans to think that the planets are aware of our individual existence and have nothing better to do than to affect our futures.

 

It is funny that a lot of people refer to astrology as Science. Astrology is not a science, its an art. Art of selling dreams. Everyone needs emotional support and astrologers take advantage of it. They just not sell dreams, but they make people emotionally and intellectually handicap. People start relying on astrologers on almost everything. For marriage, business transactions, the birth of children, names of their babies and everything under the sky. Unfortunately, astrology is more popular in India than astronomy.

 

A few years back a lady on a road asked me to give her money when I denied she said 'My goddess will curse you, bad things will happen to you'. I found it ironical, if there was a goddess cursing or blessing someone and this lady had control over the goddess then why was she herself begging on the road? I left the scene but from a distance, I could see many people giving her money. Reason? Simple - Fear of unknown. 

 

Every single person is scared of the unknown, be it the future, entering a dark room or the reason for our existence. Out of our fears, demons are born they are nothing but superstitions. 

 

There is a movie called 'Little Boy', someone tells the little boy in the movie that he has the power to move land. Then this boy tries to move land all the time. One fine day there is an earthquake at the same time when he is trying to move land - the game of probability! And then everyone starts calling him a miracle, that is how superstitions are spread.

 

In India, there are many such miracle people, the babas, Maharaj or whatever you want to call them with millions of followers. People, irrespective of how much educated they are, believe in things like Maharaj and black magic. 

 

I wasn’t born with any superstitions, I don’t think any of us is, but the world makes sure that we learn them. Carl Sagan’s book The demon-haunted world helped me get rid of my superstitions and it feels quite liberated to live without any.

I wish every single person in the world reads it.

 

Cosmos 

Cosmos is a thoroughly enthralling read that takes you on a breath-taking journey from the inception of the Universe to futures that may never be and allows us to ponder what it truly means to be human and what our place, our purpose, is in the vast expanse of "this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky" I also highly recommend the show called Cosmos by Neil Degrasse Tyson, which is available on Netflix instant.

 

Pale Blue Dot 

 

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. Reading this book was the most humbling and character-building experience for me. 

 

These are my recommendations of Carl’s Sagan’s books, I hope you like them.