Especially if you take it seriously. In India, which is currently in desperate straits, the Haridwar Kumbh Mela religious festival took place early in April of 2021 (yes, just a couple of weeks ago), and has contributed to the Covid-19 wave currently tormenting and kill Indians.
Shuddhabrata Sengupta is furious.
Kumbh Melas are held every 12 years. The last Haridwar Kumbh Mela was held in 2010. The actual due date for the ‘current’ Kumbh at Haridwar was 2022, not 2021. So how did it get advanced by one whole lethal year at a time India’s second Covid wave was expected? And when epidemiological studies indicate that second waves of infection are always worse than the first. Let me tell you the reason.
It was ‘advanced’ by a year, to 2021, because the ‘astrological configurations’ of the ‘Sun entering Aries’ and ‘Jupiter entering Aquarius’ were available for 2021 this time. This happens once every 83 years, and it happens because of the need to reconcile astrological configuration charts to calendrical years. The calculative arcana of this ‘adjustment’ is beyond my capacity. I suggest none of you try it if you don’t want to give yourselves a headache. [The Wire (India)]
They do take their astrology seriously in India, as I learned during a business trip to Pune years ago. Unfortunately, I fear that this time it’s going to cost them: in lives, in wealth, even in prestige.
But it’s of a piece with various forms of quackery, from acupuncture to therapeutic touch to whatever your favorite form of pseudo-medicine might be. They may seem like a harmless alternative medicine, but there’s often a hidden danger to them. This one is rather exotic, but that neither invalidates nor excuses astrology.
