Flatist!

Happy with this one!

“The ship disappears on the horizon with the waves
We now live in high rises, not caves!
Then again you may still be old!
Even if a million ‘facts’ you are told!”

You would think that it is unscientific to even think now that the Earth is flat! But do you know that there is a group of people who are called the Flat Earth society which exists even now!?

By the way from ages; the name of Earth in Sanskrit was Bhugol!

This means Bhūgola (भूगोल)—or Sphere of the Earth!

read on!

Ever since I can remember we have been drawing the map of India and the world the way we know them! Indian map was simple enough since it was almost like a human with a head and arms and neck!

The world map was a little difficult since there were so many twists and turns! Of geography madam who was Yadav madam always used to tell us that we are not supposed to draw the map by ourselves anytime since the map must always be to scale!

She used to tell us how it was prohibited to make our own maps of any country for that matter! This was good since then all we had to do was get the pre drawn maps and then fill them with the areas!

The only time we needed the maps was when we had to know about the geographic areas like deserts, plains and mountains! Another time was when we had to mark which place had which mineral or ore! Most of the time it was easy since most of the minerals was in Bihar!

Those days general knowledge was knowing the capitals and places where you have the famous factories! If you knew that the capital of India was not Delhi but New Delhi then you were considered having a good general knowledge!

But (he he!); even the dullest person in the class would know that the Earth was round! We all would have heard the word Bhugola so many times!

In fact we know earth by this name only! In fact for many the subject of Social studies namely History, civics and Geography was in Hindi itself!

I learnt these in Hindi till the class 7th after which some of us who were more comfortable in English shifted to the English versions! The name of Geography though in Hindi was, yes! BHUGOL!

So it is confirmed that ancient Indians were clear that Earth was round and it revolved around the Sun. ‘Bhugol’ is the Sanskrit word for Geography in which ‘bhu’ means Earth and ‘gol’ means round. Our world was also known by the name ‘jagat’ that has roots in the word ‘gati’ meaning speed and thus, ‘jagat’ meaning ‘the one with a speed’. People of that time knew that Earth was not stationary but moving. In many mythological scriptures it was clearly mentioned that earth was spherical. Difference between stars and planets was also comprehensible to ancient Indians.

Star Antares is the 15th brightest object in sky. In ancient India it was known by the name ‘Jesta’ meaning the biggest, largest and the eldest. Jesta is the star that is 40,000 times larger than our Sun!

Then you have the flat Earthers!

This is the perception that Earth exists as a flat disk, either circular or square-shaped. This view persisted in the ancient world other than more ‘enriched’ and ‘scientific’ places like India until observations revealed that Earth’s shape was spherical or ellipsoidal!

In modern times, however, the notion of a flat Earth has been revived and promoted on social media despite scientific evidence to the contrary!
There is a new generated interest in those who believe the Earth to be flat! So much so that there are articles and blogs and also membership criteria! There is one blog which tries to prove that the Einstein’s theories and Newton’s laws of motion actually prove that the Earth is flat!

There also also ‘scientific’ ‘evidences’ given and a whole plethora of images and ‘experts’ all over the world who have been known to be Flat earthers or as they call themselves, FLATISTS! Of course the ‘evidence’ went above my ’round’ skull so to speak! I guess I am too ‘simple’ and round! Simple and down to ‘earth’ reminds me of celebrity Sasikumar Mahalingam!

Unconventional and routine to a point is how I would describe him and his movies! Now lie down ‘flat’ on your bed and sleep!

Shubh ratri!