21-12-2012: The world will end!!!!! Or not.

The world will end on 21/12/2012.
Yes it will, atleast that is what the doomsday proponents and media has to say.
And to support their claim they present the following ideas which I will try to nullify one by one.

Claim 1: Our planet will collide with another planet called Planet X or Nibiru on that day destroying everything. 

Contradiction: Today is 16th of december and there are only about 5 days left. Now a planet of the size of  Earth or even Pluto would be seen from low powered telescopes and be reported by millions of observers from across the world. But nothing has been reported yet. Forget that, with just 5 days left the planet would be very close to us by now and should be one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Has anyone seen anything yet??? NO. And on that no body, no astronomer has ever cataloged this planet ever. So will it appear out of no where and hit us ???? Think for yourself.

Claim 2: The Earths Poles will shift and everything will come to and end.

Contradiction: Well which poles ???? There are two poles of earth, Magnetic and Geographic. To rotate the geographic poles of a planet of the size Earth, basic physics tells us that the amount of energy required will be so monumental that unless a planet atleast 100 times the mass of earth does collide with Earth this can never happen. In fact my estimate of even 100 times can be unfounded and the size and mass may be thousands of times more.

If it is about Magnetic pole, then I would say YES the process of Magnetic pole shift has already begun. Generally earth's magnetic poles reverses every 20-25 million years and this one is long overdue. But the process itself takes millions aof years and we are in no imminent danger. Also when the pole shifts it will be more of a danger to certain animals and some of our instruments than us directly. So don;t worry, nothing is shifting as of now.

Claim 3: The Solar flare will destroy us.

Contradiction: Solar flares are generated by cycles of solar maxima and solar minima. This is due to a simple funda that the sun is a gigantic ball of hot plasma and its dynamics creates huge magnetic flares which spew out billions of tonnes of charged particle, some of which may head for earth. In fact occasionally  such particles do hit the earth but our magnetic shield saves us from its harms. The only thing that it can harm are our communication satellites and not US.

Claim 4: Kalki Avatar is coming.

Contradiction: By far this is the most stupid reason I have found so far. God, if it exists, has no other work than becoming Kalki and ending us and that too when we have less than a week left and Kalki has not revealed itself so far, if it at all exists. This is one of those news propounded by popular hindi news channels. They are experts in GENERATING NEWS.

So guys, believe me, there is no fear of the world coming to an end. Atleast not now.

Arachnophobia

I am a self proclaimed President of Indian Coward Association and I am not afraid to say this that I am a proud coward. Anyways insight into my cowardness will be provided some other time, as of now this incident I just recalled which happened quite some time back.

I am dead scared of spiders. In fact I am so scared of spiders that if I am given an option of facing a tarantula on one hand and jumping off a cliff, I would take the latter option.

So that day, rather that evening, around 6.30 pm I was getting ready to go out with a friend of mine to a party. Having dressed up I sat down in our bed room waiting for my friend to arrive. I have this annoying habit (annoying to myself !!!) of scanning the corners of the rooms at all levels for spiders or cobwebs. So as per my habit I was passing my time by scanning for cobwebs and spiders when I happened to locate something at a corner just above my sleeping place. Being curious I went forward to look what exactly it is.From a distance it looked like a thick curled up cobweb with a lot of dust in it. I was horrified to find that it was a spider. A pretty healthy spider at that. Curled up in its own fashion but looking ominous.

I decided to do something. So got hold of a slipper and was about to hurl it when my friend arrived. This is one thing I have never understood. Why do people arrive at the worst moments??? Specially when you least want or expect them to arrive. Anyways I didn't want to display my valor !!!! in front of my friend so decided to deal with the spider when I return. Also as I have studied that spiders are mostly nocturnal and usually move around in darkness. On that I felt the spider was pregnant !!! (what a close study I did) and I assumed that like human beings it won't move around much either.

Around 11 in the night I returned and went straight to change my clothes. I was very tired and decided to sleep. So I went to my bed and suddenly I remembered the spider. I looked at the spot I found it previously and to my horror it was not there.

Now that is a very bad news specially for a person with arachnophobia (fear of spiders). I started to search it frantically. A missing spider means it can be anywhere. And imagine I am sleeping and suddenly I wake up to find something crawling on my face. !!!!!!! Yuk!!!! It sent shivers down my spine... Armed with a slipper in one hand and a insecticide (Hit - Red one) in another I was frantically searching for it. It was 12:15 when I gave up my search and prepared myself for a long night. There was no way I could sleep on the bed. I mean just imagine a spider on my head ...... Ahhhhhhh I would be so very very dead. ..... probably a heart attack ....

I have read that sudden fear can lead to over secretion of adrenalin which can lead to cardiac arrest ..... Oh ..... I was too young to die .... and then dying because of a titsy-bitsy spider ????? I kicked myself for my fear of spiders but then what can I do ..... I have always been scared of them ......

That round shape with legs protruding from all sides and the strange way of walking ..... it is hard to say which way they are looking ..... isshhhhhhhhh it was the most dangerous thing on the earth .....

But I was tired and a long days work awaited me. So I went to sleep on a chair. ..... Somehow I managed to keep my thoughts at bay and my eyes closed ......

It was 6:30 in the morning when I woke up finally. As i stood up the bottle of Hit fell down as did the slipper. I looked at the same spot and found nothing ..... The spider was really gone for good ....

It took me three more nights of self hypnotism !!! to make myself to sleep on the bed.