"Everything
in life is based on luck," commented Donald Trump
once
showing his unflinching faith on the philosophy of "fortune".
While
philosopher Ralf Waldo Emerson said the opposite: "Shallow
men believe
in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
Thus, the debate
over fortune is perhaps as old as human nature itself.
Almost
all religions and societies have their share of
fortune-tellers. At the same time, societies also have
their share of
pragmatists, who strongly believe in "karma"
and discard luck.
Ranchi,
once more, is thick with the talk of relevance of "luck"
and
astrology with Ranchi University inviting applications
for admission
to its astrology department. The former Union human resource
minister
Murli Manohar Joshi initiated the process to introduce
astrology as a
subject in all the universities of the country in 2002.
Jharkhand,
a BJP-ruled state, responded to Joshi's call introducing
astrology in RU. And M.M. Joshi's protegee S.S. Kushwaha,
who took
over as the vice-chancellor in 2003 worked hard to strengthen
the
subject. However, other states – particularly the
non-BJP ruled ones —
like Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa did not follow suit
nor did they
pay attention to the "ancient" scope.
However,
despite its introduction, the students' response remained
poor. Only five to six students took admission in RU's
astrology
department headed by R.P. Dubey in 2002 and 2003. M.M.
Joshi's dream
department managed to admit only 10 students in the past
academic
year. And, university authorities believe that the department,
which
is supposed to have one reader and two lecturers besides
the head,
would not be able to attract more than 10 students this
year around
too.
I
wondered why our students, otherwise so intelligent and
focussed,
were not taking interest in a subject, which managed to
attract great
sages.
Referring
to the lack of interest in the subject, the present RU
vice-chancellor A.A. Khan offered an explanation: "Perhaps
students
prefer a more career-oriented subject. The study of astrology
and
other ancient subjects is not associated with jobs."
But here, I beg
to disagree with the erudite VC.
I
strongly believe astrology offers more lucrative career
scopes than
any other subject, which may demand harder work and mental
acumen. At
least the print and electronic medium has taken care of
that.
The
growth and diversification of print and electronic media
has
increased the scope for astrologers and fortune-tellers.
There is
hardly any newspaper, periodical and TV channel that does
not invite
fortune-tellers to contribute. In fact, a newspaper, a
TV channel and
a periodical is not complete until it has drafted some
"big names" in
astrology to tell fortunes.
For
a pen pusher (like yours truly) it is hard to befriend
stars like
Amitabh Bachchans, Rekhas and Madhuri Dixits. But if the
newspaper
reports are to be believed, and had I known a few Bejan
Daruwalas, Ma
Prema Ushas and Kusum Bhandaris, we, the stars and I,
could have been
friends.
Many
of us take the soothsayers' predictions on our star performers
like Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguli and Rahul Dravid
as gospel
truth. Newspapers and periodicals are filled with predictions
about
the fate of the country, prime minister, Leader of the
Opposition and
other politicos in the beginning of every year.
Moreover,
a focussed student of astrology may also open a website,
like eastern and western soothsayers, that will earn them
more dollars
and rupees than engineers and doctors combined. I recently
watched an
astrological website known as www.sara-freder.com which
charges $ 29
on preparing one's "holistic horoscope", predicting
the future and
suggesting lucky numbers. There are umpteen websites like
www.sara-feder.com.
My
Marxist and pragmatist friends may be angry at a subject,
which
promotes "superstition" and "obscurantism".
Personally I neither know
of the truth behind predictions nor do I have an interest
to study
them.
What
I do know is that astrologers and their prophesies are
read with
more interest than news and facts. Thus, students aspiring
to study
astrology should go for it as the subject offers a lucrative
prospect,
especially if one wishes to remain in the media limelight.
