December 21, 2012

For the past few days, a lot of our news channels have been beaming all kinds of news stories into our homes. One of them is the alleged Doomsday forecast of the end of the world as we know it on December the 21st, 2012. I checked it on the net and found many sites, including Wikipedia entries on the subject. Apparently, this date is the last date of the Meso-american calendar that was used by the ancient Mayans. The end of the day does not indicate the end of the planet, but the end of a major epoch, and a major upheaval across civilizations, perhaps leading to major changes to life on Earth. However, seems like post Y2K, not many people are very serious about doomsday forecasts. But still, in many pockets of America, it seems, people have again started stocking food, duct tapes and what-not. As if these things could actually help people fight natural or climatic changes (as professed by the 12/21/12 followers, there would be major geological changes and some are even claiming polar reversal - without elaborating on the causes or the source of energy to effect such a radical change)....and as so common across the US, there are tons of merchandise available (really wonder what makes people buy such stuff - if they really believe in this stuff, its just 3-4 years for them (or us, rather) to live. What, therefore, is the big idea behind building a whole, new merchandise industry behind this date?)...