Within the last month, the human race witnessed two annual comic plays — the eclipses, solar and lunar — and in the varied ways in which we reacted, we showed the universe how vastly we differ in our understanding of it.
As we witnessed it, we were one human race, but obviously, two clearly distinct sets of people. One set, comprising people who either figuratively or subconsciously, or others who in a more literal sense hold the mythological sense of life towards it. Oh, there are these monsters of epic proportion and size, which, once in a while, gobble up our sun or moon, but if the gods are pacified, they will release them.
Such people respond to these cosmic events with prayers, some yielding to and spreading the ominous mood founded on superstition, and advocating mandatory rituals and commandments — don’t eat, don’t go out, don’t deliver your baby during this hour.
There is another set, those who succeed a line of thinkers, scientists, rationalists, astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and philosophers, even rebels and contrarians, who have sought and found scientific explanation to the annual cosmic theatricality.
They have sought to find out answers and show the reasons of why the eclipses happen, with the ease to make it comprehensible to school students — and have enjoyed in appreciating how grand our universe is, that a small show in the sky, of light and shadow, of an object intercepting light, can create such a stupendous impact.
As we look at the skies, filled with stars and such large objects, we also wonder about ourselves as a race — and comprehend the progress of mankind, from a time when the explanation of appeasing angry gods to ensure the monsters release our sun and moon, to a point where we can predict the exact time, extent, location and duration of the next eclipse.
The two groups will always remain, and the gap, ever-astronomical.
