It was seven years ago and I was on a week-long vacation home from engineering college. Ours is a devout Christian family and every evening, before dinner, the members assembled in the living room for a session of prayers and Bible readings. I had just stepped off the train that morning and my grandmother made sure I was sitting up and awake and leading the prayers. She believed it made up for the months of paganism that I pursued in college between trips home. 

Halfway through the prayers, and while one of my cousins mumbled sleepily through a portion of a novena, I noticed a medium sized white piece of card sticking out of the family Bible. Out of curiosity I pulled it out and began to read. It was so gripping I rushed through the remaining prayers so I could read through it at leisure. While my grandmother frowned I rushed through the little prayer book. When everyone got up to eat I sat back. 

The leaflet was a short guide on how to ensure the family (whichever was reading and not just the Vadukuts) lasted through imminent apocalyptic events. It was a just a few weeks to the end of 1999 and the author was absolutely confident that the ‘world’ would go through terrible trauma the night of December 31^st. He had penned down detailed instructions on what to eat and store, what time to gather everyone indoors and lock the doors, and even what electric appliances and which one to switch off. It sounds ridiculous now but back then it sounded ominous. It had lines like: “If you are traveling in an airplane on New Year’s Eve you will most probably die in a plane crash. Most train passengers would also die.”

Theories of the end

The ‘Year 2000’ apocalypse theory was just one of the more recent manifestations of one of mankind’s most lasting fascinations: The End of The World. Man has been speculating on the ‘apocalypse’ or the end of the world pretty much since the world began. Due to no small influence of Hollywood and movies like Omen and trashy flicks like ‘End of Days’ many think that the concept of a scheduled and sudden end of the world is one of a Christian or a Judeo-Christian origin. That is not necessarily true. 

Just as each religion and society has its own definitions of the beginning of the world so does each one nurture an image of the end. And each of these images is unique and somewhat amusing in their details. The Hopi Indians in northeastern Arizona believe that the world will be overrun by a large-horned bull and be entangled in giant cob webs. Christian theology paints an awe-inspiring picture of horsemen, angels, trumpets, mysterious seals being broken and much pageantry. The Buddhists believe the end will be, somewhat understandably, a slow and sad affair with the world slowly letting go of all memory and respect of the Buddha. 

Closer to home we have the Kali Yuga. South Indian grandmothers evoke the name of this period for all the evils they see around them. “What is the girl wearing on TV? Shiva Shiva. This is Kali Yuga after all.” The Kali Yuga, according to an ancient astronomical treatise called the Surya Siddhanta, began on the 18^th of February 3102 BC. (Those guys were good. Or confident.) So we are pretty much in the middle of it all. Kali Yuga will end with the arrival of the ‘Kalki’ avatar who is expected to improve things considerably leading the world into an age of purity and virtue called the Satya Yuga. 

Triumphant climax

A common thread that connects all these divergent philosophies, or eschatologies, is the expectation that things will come to a close after a colossal battle between good and evil. Norse mythology pits Odin and his good soldiers against Loki and his ‘forces of Chaos’. The fighting is expected to be bloody and spectacular with the good guy expected to win but only after a nail-biting finish and after the last few believers (of the concerned religion) rising to the occasion. Tremendous Hollywood stuff. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

No wonder that ‘end of the world’ theories have always evoked deep speculation and public interest over the years. Who would want to miss out on all the action? My grandmother firmly believed the world would end in the year 2000. And she was not a little disappointed when by the evening of January the 1^st 2001 things still seemed normal and planes had not begun falling out of the sky. Not that she was impractical or anything. I offered to drop out of engineering college and hang around at home reading and eating. After all I would only graduate in 2001 and by then a degree in metallurgical engineering would be ridiculous and I would have to help the Christ fight Satan anyways. She would have none of it. 

But of course all is not dim and gory. After the battle to end all battles the earth will then settle into a period of great calm, peace and virtue. This is a relief, albeit predictable. I do not think any religion would market itself on the premise that the believers would put up a sprightly last stand but then be mowed down by Satan anyways. “Sorry parishioners but that’s how the cookie crumbles” is not nearly as engaging as a majestic victory in the end and a ring-side seat while the ones who’ve been snorting coke and stealing from children line up for the ‘Final Judgement’. 

A saviour or prophet, like our Kalki, everyone agrees will then appear to carry out some serious business process reengineering. Out with the old and in with the new. And there is a whole set of myths about this good ‘King’ too. But no one can challenge the Mormons for accuracy. They believe that the Christ will appear at the very end in all his glory and pomp at Jackson County, Missouri in a red Lamborghini to save us all. (Okay I made up that bit about the Lambi. But the rest is true!)

Super Nova!

It’s not all good and evil and faith and deliverance though. There is some scientific evidence to show that the earth has a closing date stamped on it already. While this may seem a long time away the earth will almost definitely vaporize into nothingness four or five billion years from now. That is when the Sun swells into a red giant and possibly explodes into a pretty little supernova. Some damp squibs also speculate that the sun might not explode and instead shrink back into a white dwarf. But before you say “Phew mankind is safe!” remember that by then our atmosphere and water bodies would have boiled away. Thus leaving behind a period of great peace and calm and quiet. But not in a particularly appreciable way for human beings as in the theological models we saw earlier and got all pumped up about.

This is of course if the earth lasts for all those billions of years without meteor strikes, alien attacks, simultaneous volcanic eruptions, ozone layer depletions, massive nuclear war (Strangelove! Ahmadinejad! Kim Jong-il!), rogue solar flares, ‘Year Ten Thousand’ software bugs, family pack Tsunamis and so on. Perhaps even the core could stop spinning. So one way or the other, unless we establish space colonies outside the solar system, we are not going to be around for ever and ever. Amen.

Another perspective on ‘end of the world’ theories could be that for human beings the world ends when the last human is wiped out. Philosophical perhaps but there is a pretty good chance mankind will be absent from the face of the earth when the earth is finally reduced to a nebula or something like that.

Bye bye cruel world

This opens a whole new can of worms. War, disease, depletion of natural resources are some of several theories put forward to describe the chances of a human-less planet. An interesting treatise I came across recently is the Olduvai Theory. Truck loads of information and criticisms exist on the internet but the theory, on its first reading, was rather chilling. It postulates that human beings will, sooner rather than later, perhaps in the next thirty years, be pushed back to the Stone Age due to a drastic drop in the supply of critical electrical energy to run our present-day population centers. Do read about it. It is a fascinating story of science, greed and a certain shocking inevitability. Mortality levels will be inhuman with only a small portion of Homo Sapiens around to pick up the pieces and start civilization again. 

Grim indeed. Under the circumstances I would much prefer the theological ending to things. I have been a nice straight-backed fellow so far and would make a great addition to any ‘army of the good’. Though I would prefer administrative jobs deep in friendly territory. Store manager or database administrator would be perfect. 

Bugger!

But to be fair we won’t be around much longer. And, as several documentaries constantly remind us, if we do die out insects could possible inherit the earth. They are sturdy, well adapted and diverse and can apparently even outlast nuclear winters and other unpleasant turns of events. Makes you look at dung beetles with a whole new respect does it not? 

But then even they can’t handle the sun blowing up or dying out and the oceans steaming away. And that HAS to be oddly comforting for the average human being. 

The End.

[Sidin Sunny Vadukut is an avid blogger and proud author of a book which is currently undergoing a severe quality control program. He wishes to make it clear that he does not internalize too much. He once walked eleven kilometers in pouring rain because of a flash bus strike and the next day ate eighteen idlis with surprisingly little coconut chutney. You can read more of his work at http://sidin.blogspot.com]

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