Bugged for doom

Even as you gulp your morning cuppa while scanning the newspaper headlines on a warm Tuesday morning, a minute of thanksgiving may be in order. For, if doomsayers are to be believed, earthlings had an extremely close shave on Friday. They apparently evaded unadulterated catastrophe foretold in a rare planetary alignment. All the pseudo-scientific predictions of gigantic tidal waves and devastating solar magnetic fields thankfully failed to materialise, as anyone blessed with a pinch of rationality would have told them in the first place. But then gratitude may not be the correct word for doom junkies’ frame of mind at the moment; chances are they’re instead scanning the constellations for the next inkling of impending disaster, for an end to the world as we know it. The fact that last year there was more widespread worry about tsunamis and tornadoes on May 8 is coolly forgotten; no lesson, it seems, has has been learnt from the fruitless flight of workers at the Alang shipbreaking yard on the west coast totheir faroff homes in Bihar and Orissa.

What is it that predisposes vast chunks of humanity to doomsaying? What is it that makes them quiver through their quotidian routines at mere whispers of an invisible hand wreaking havoc? It is no use blaming it all on idle, poorly educated minds who know no better. If planetary alignments spell fidgetiness among some folk, so-called solid institutions foundationed on rational fundamentals too have demonstrated a predilection for doomsday predictions. Like all else, doomsaying too has gone hi-tech. Consider the weekend gone by. Even as astrologers mumbled prayers and even as letters to the editor tremulously spoke of apocalypse, another meltdown was in evidence.

The computer virus — which is a most quaint twist was probably scripted by a schoolgoing girl in the Philippines — unleashed by an intriguing e-mail created ripples of hysterical panic in fortresses like the Pentagon. Cool-headed analysts may caution sobriety, they may reiterate that while damage caused by these viruses could cost money to rectify, it is definitely not irreversible, but to no avail. The spectre of computer meltdowns is clearly the twentyfirst century equivalent of the legendary quatrains of Nostradamus.

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There is a certain aesthetic balance in all of this. This century, after all, began after hair-raising visions of a return to the stone age on account of what turned out to be a pretty innocuous computer bug. The Y2K may be history now, but the Love Bug and the probability of its more virulent mutants appearing soon have sent gusts of fear blowing through the corridors of power across the world. Call it free-floating anxiety.

Apprehensions of nature unleashing its fury, it is found, gain wider currency in periods of calm and tranquillity; similarly, as billions become more and more dependent on a technology they little understand, fears of destruction being unleashed from a little house in Manila will probably grow stronger.