It was February 4, 1962, and the Sun, Moon, and the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were all aligned to come into one ‘house,’ and people believed that all hell would break loose because astrology predicted a catastrophe.
On that evening, we had the annual day in St Joseph’s College, and Principal Father DSouza, an astronomer himself, had a telescope set up on the top floor of the college. He had invited Prof H Narasimhaiah of the National College as the chief guest. It was rumoured that, as a physicist himself, HN and several of his students dared the evil spelled by one and all, squatted in front of Vidhana Soudha, and had partaken food in the near total curfew before coming over to our college. Typically as teenagers, we were rather eager to listen to the two principals from north and south of Bangalore and not so much to the restraining advice of parents to stay home on that day, which was also the eve of a total solar eclipse.
We were richly rewarded by the brilliant lectures of the two legends drawn from different faiths, one a Christian and the other a rationalist. They clarified that while all those planets came within 17°, they were all one behind the other by millions of kilometres each, and where was the question of their catastrophic clashing? Prof HN removed once and for all the mist in our minds from confusing science with popular beliefs.
Later, we came across Prof B R Narayan Iyengar, the doyen of mechanical engineering, and civil engineering by Ameer Ahmed sir, etc. What was notable was that none of us were concerned about their background beliefs and were charmed and immensely benefited by what they taught. We had neither the time nor the inclination to carry any baggage other than studies, sports, etc. Nothing more, nothing less.
Why not take a tip or two from the young, who are happy to be just alive, eating, playing, learning, going about exploring what is around, getting enchanted, and falling to sleep unwillingly, ready to face the next day. Not opinionated, no hatred, no undue hero worship other than harmless movie or sports stars, and may be love without any boundaries. All faiths merge into a glorious oblivion in the young mind.