Nostradamus back again

 Whenever a major global event happens, Nostradamus is back again in the news cycle. If the noisy charters in the social media is to the believed, the 16th century bearded French Seer centuries ago envisoned the ongoing Ukraine War and also added that it would lead to World War III.

The bearded Gothic Clairvoyant is known to have correctly predicted the rise of Napoleon, both the World Wars and even named Hitler as close as "Hister" nearly 500 years ago. He said Hister will cross the Rhine River blitzkrieging through his opponents before finally destroying his country, killing millions and killing himself. One of his numerous predictions was about the rise of the New Land (as present day America was then referred then) as Superpower, with a Black President at the turn of the 21st century. He was laughed at then, as there were more Bisons than humans in America those days.

Nostradamus wrote all his predictions in an indecipherable cryptic form in his book aptly named "Centuries". Conspicuously, all his predictions are connected through dots only after an cataclysmic event occurs because of his indecipherable lingo. Social media posts about his predictions have gone viral, translated from cryptic Gothic to sensible meanings by myriads of self proclaimed translators and honorable graduates from the Whatsapp University, a la a computer translating binary code into readable text. Almost all predictions of the seer appearing on social media platforms appear bogus to me. Imitating his 15th century latin, there are so many horrendus predictionus or simply "fakus newsus" in his name circulating around.

During my college days in REC (now NIT) Rourkela, a common question during Quiz competitions was to name this great psychic and clairvoyant from France - the answer to that was Nostradamus. Those days his name was unheard of, enough to be part of any quiz questionnaire, a trivia for challenged brains. No more. His name is way too common these days to be part of any trivia/quiz question.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center e-mails (there was no social media at that time) started circulating about Nostradamus's predictions - "At 45° (the latitude of New York) Big Birds (airplanes) will strike the heart of the most powerful nation". Regarding India he supposedly predicted the Queen (Indira Gandhi) who would rule India will be assassinated. She will be followed by her son.

We Indians in general are cynical in nature. So lies spread faster than Corona virus. Nostradamus also said to have predicted Corona virus pandemic and the arrival of our Messiah Narendrous Modus (Narendra Modi), who will be chosen over "Moronous Rahulus Gandhus (Rahul Gandhi)". Modus Operandus of Narendas Modus will take India to great length, breadth and heights of success, a superpower by 2024 - per his prediction. Well already in 2026 Mr. Modus doesn't have a great number of achievements to boast about, so being a superpower by 2050 now looks distantly impossibulus. Interestingly the French legend failed to see the rise of China as a superpower which is already happening. He also failed to see the rise of a class of Moronus Bhaktus in India.

However, the seer was silent on Odisha, probably outsourced the predictions to our own MAALIKA PANJI, the Odia version of "The Centuries". Not sure if there is print version of it or anybody has ever read it - it supposedly predicts "BAAISI PAHACHE KHELIBA MEENA (The legendary 22 steps leading to the Jagannath temple of Puri will be submerged in water with Fish playing on it). It was expected to happen during the tropical Cyclone Phailin, but our Lord Jagannath decided to take a Rain Check. Not sure if Nostradamus or Malika Panji predicted arrival of "Gullius Spreaders" on Facebuckus and Whatsap Alumnus on Whatsappus !