Eclipse Ecstacy

I walked out of the room for my morning jog and immediately noticed that the streets looked unusually empty. I double checked the time and I wasn't early at all. Then I remembered that it is the day of Solar eclipse. People were mostly inside their houses and there were very few vehicles on the road as well. Even the temple by the roadside had a small board hanging outside the gate saying "Today's morning services delayed due to the eclipse". My neighbor was sharing with me yesterday his beliefs about the 'Dos and Don'ts' during an eclipse. According to him we shouldn't even take a piss during an eclipse, forget eating during the time or looking at the sun.

I am not questioning these so called superstitions because I know most of them were introduced into the society for good. In a society where access to information was a privilege of only certain segments of the society, it was necessary to introduce concepts in a little cryptic format. It was useless trying to explain to people about sun's ultra violet rays when most of them worshiped it as a benevolent god. So a story had to be built around the event of an eclipse to prevent people from staring at the sun during that time and getting hurt. The only way to ensure the instructions are followed was to associate them with God and his wrath. Fear has always been the ultimate weapon for controlling masses.

But it is another story when idiots try to interpret and implement these beliefs quite literally, without understanding the real reason behind them. Women are still not allowed to enter a place of worship during her menstrual period. The popular belief even now is that a woman is 'impure' during this time and we don't want her to desecrate the God's abode, do we? In a patriarchal society where polygamy was the norm and women were treated like shit, associating some religious myth was the only way to let her take some rest during this physically exhausting times. That is why the 'wise men' ordered that women should be denied entry inside the kitchen or a place of worship and confined to a room outside the house. The instruction was out of concern for her health and not to imply any impurity on her. But who cares about the reasons.. we are happy following the herd. Probably because that's a more energy efficient and convenient way of life.

Irrespective of how much we have 'supposedly' prospered as a civilization, we still have our soft spots, the ones we keep close to our chest without letting rational or reason touch it.