To learn from birds and monkeys

I live in Tamil Nadu and my community made it clear to me that from about 6:30 AM and for about 18 minutes on March 9, 2016 we would be under the spell of a solar eclipse; suffer through a long list of restrictions.

Before believing them, I had to confirm this for myself. That is no small task. Why, you ask. After all, NASA put out a map showing the path of the eclipse. No, I needed confirmation from higher authorities. Birds and our evolutionarily-closer relatives, monkeys.

Some people who are infused with high levels of scientific literacy claim birds and other animals sense an eclipse, and they start exhibiting weird behavior as a point in favor of their position that solar and lunar eclipses matter in the lives of humans. Further, they also claim, even while lacking evidence from birds, that propitiating their forefathers during and after the fact is a good way of warding off the eclipses’ ill effects.

The way I see it, the claim has its basis in economics; an interim situation in which the earth-moon-sun triad affords the chance for the priestly class to feed/fill its domestic coffers, for who opportunities for making money are becoming fewer even while their numbers are dwindling. Perhaps you would call this weird behavior, but I don’t. Making money is the raison d’etre of human beings.

So, NASA or not, I went to the terrace at the appointed time (slightly earlier, just to be forewarned and stayed the whole duration), and looked out for weird behavior from birds. I scanned the skies North, South, East and West and no abnormal bird behavior did I notice. I looked down from the terrace to see whether monkeys – yes, there are so many of them in my neighborhood and we have to be very careful not to entertain them in our house – joined birds in sort of boycotting this eclipse phenomenon this time. Yes, they sure did, just going on about their daily rituals.

So, for me, the eclipse did not materialize.

Now, I looked at the map from NASA, a little more than closely than cursorily. The path of the eclipse is at best equatorial, indeed, southern hemispherical. If southern India experiences the effect of this eclipse, it cannot induce more than, if that, a quick sneeze in humans! No wonder, birds and monkeys went their way without bothering to go into a tizzy.

But, we humans did.

Birds have more scientific literacy! Being bird brained is better than being human brained!

Raghuram Ekambaram

P. S I know a few educational institutions that adjusted their daily time table on this count. Go figure!