The Beginning of the End??

Just around the turn of the new year, I took my parents out to watch a movie called 2012. For all those aren’t aware, this movie dealt with prophecy that the world we live in will cease to exist in 2012 – less than 2 years from today. It showed huge volcanic eruptions, series of earthquakes and tsunamis and all other possible natural calamities converging at one point of time, making humans feel helpless and timid. As I got out the movie hall, I discussed fleetingly with my parents – do we really have only 2 years to live now?? And the next day, the thoughts had been wiped off and life seemed beautiful again.

Almost 4 months into the new year, I have been forced by nature to revisit my fears of that day. The thoughts were re-generated as I recollected a few happenings in the past months & their stark resemblance to what they had suggested in the movie.

To help the discussion, lets look at the facts I am talking about. Here they are:

• There are have been 7 major earthquakes this year above the Richter scale of 6. The worst three being: 1) Jan 12 – Haiti – 7.0 – approx 2,30,000 killed. 2) Feb 27 – Chile – 8.8 – 486 killed. 3) Apr 14 – China – 6.9 – 1,144 killed. And just as if these were not enough, the Haiti Earthquake was followed by 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or more on the scale, while the Chile earthquake caused Tsunamis to swell in the ocean!

• The eruptions of a Volcano named Eyjafjallajokullin (don’t know how something can be named so horribly!) in Iceland on April 14 has lead to all of Europe’s airliners to ground their services for a few days. This has led to millions of travelers being stranded at airports all over the world!

• On April 13, a huge storm struck in northeastern parts of West Bengal and Bihar states, with winds estimated from 120–160 kilometers/hour (75–100 miles/hour), which then moved into Bangladesh. Nearly 500,000 people were left homeless or otherwise affected by this storm.

• In addition to this, there were various cyclones in the US and Australia which are specific to those regions and  floods and mudslides in Rio De Janeiro this year.

• And rather than looking all over the world, lets just take an example of my own city – Mumbai. Winters in Mumbai are just for the namesake, where the minimum temperatures drop only to about 17-18 degree Celsius. But suddenly out of nowhere, it dropped to a minimum of 6.1 degrees about 2 years. It was the first time I saw so many Mumbaites buying and wearing woolen clothes. Also how could we forget the torrential rains and flooding on 26th July 2005, when the city received a staggering 994mm of rains in 24 hrs!
  And this year, we have witnessed rains in the month of February and March, which has never happened before in my lifetime. And as I write this post, temperatures throughout the country have soured beyond 40 degrees even before May has arrived.

Looking at all these facts, I cannot stop myself from thinking that we definitely are moving towards the end of the world. These changes in climate and occurrences of disasters are becoming too frequent and too extreme when compared to past records. And the scary part is that we have nothing to combat them or predict them accurately in advance. So we lay in the merciful hands of god and nature.

So, say your prayers daily & life every moment life has to offer you! You just never know when the ground below you will engulf you OR the air around you will blow you OR the water around you will drown you!

May god prove me wrong & let us all die in peace!

Amen!
KS

Source for data on natural disasters: http://www.wikipedia.org