The Ides of March

                                            Morte de Caesar


" Julius Caesar in derision,"The Ides of March Have come ". The Soothsayer," Aye Caesar, but they have not gone".


Those who extend much credence to the influence celestial configurations exercise on earthlings, wish off ill lucks, good tidings, ill tempered acts and omissions as matters that are not under the realm of ordinary mortals. While the heavens wreck havoc and shower largesse on us they are determined by forces abe initio not within our control. We are just marionettes, mere puppets dancing to the whims of the Puppeteer.

Destiny is written or foretold for each of us, it is said. That happens sometime during the exit from the mother’s womb, it is claimed. The heavens, widely acknowledged as the stars or the planets in the solar system, including the centre piece the sun, aligns in some predestined or ordained way that they directly influence the child that is born. His or her destiny, pallor of the skin, character, and life, all are influenced thereon by the life less planets that were  held also as beacon at night to men of the sea in the past. The trials, tribulations and triumphs in life are chartered by the alignment of the planets. Henceforth each course of events  in the life of the new born  is called fate.

Fascinating raison d'être from the oriental thoughts! Take it or leave it.

Dhuryodahana the villain of the piece in the epic Mahabharata, was obstinately impervious to reason, advice and sane suggestions by the elders and even from the mystical sorcerer Krishna. He was truculent, wanted war and nothing else. The aftermath is well documented in the epic. It is said that Dhuroydhana would never have seen reason because he was consumed by hate and lust for power. These attributes were instilled in him and latched like limpets because the constellation of his birth star was such. That he will have to fall! And hence he could not be redressed by reason and wise discourse. A wise head on those massive shoulders ought to have helped the man see reason and the safety net of a via media and détente. He and his retinue of brothers could have kept the chunk of the kingdom. But that was not to be, he invited wrath and chartered his and the elimination of his clan.

Don’t we see many a similar fate invited with ticker tape parade by many men in high places, Kings, Presidents, despots, and dictators of varied hues?  Manifestation of celestial alignments or otherwise, Man has often displayed bêtise and to great repercussions.

An astute strategist Adolf Hitler refracted on his pact of non aggression with Russia and attacked her. His army went deep into the Russian country and eventually was decimated by the harsh reality of Russian winter and her fire power. The collateral damage was the combined assault of the allies from the south and the west. The rest is history.

In the 1970s Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup in Liberia. It is said that on his way to power he killed the then President by disembowelling him while asleep. As it usually happens to despots he was impervious to reason and finally nemesis caught up when he was arrested after a coup d’état by his former accomplice. One can watch on “you tube” the execution of Samuel Doe. He was mutilated and killed. Alignment of the stars at his birth?

In contrast Iddi Amin one of the most infamous and notorious of African despots , who was quoted saying that human flesh was like Sushi and delicious. He was in fact a modern day cannibal. But when it mattered most he chose the wise way of vanishing to the sanctuary of the Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he lived a comfortable life well into his eighties.

And well in recent memory the despot of Babylon, Saddam Hussein was impervious to reason and sanity, that he chose the path that ensured his destruction. A haven and sanctuary for him with his booty was not a distant possibility, if he had agreed to relinquish his despotic hold on the country. But that was not to be. He was blind to reality of the American fire power and that decimated him and his cronies whole sale.

The harsh sandy desert soil may not have set in his grave, and it looked that Muhammad Ghadaffi was obstinately insistent that he must end violently, and seemed he craved for it. And he did meet the horrendous fate. There was ample opportunity for him and his clan to relinquish power and vanish into oblivion in some tax havens. But again, was it some strange combination of lack of reason, he went the oft trodden path of deluding in his invincibility?

It is said that the ides of his stars could not be resisted, that the demon king Ravana kidnapped the princes Sita. He was reticent to his brother’s pleadings to send back the kidnapped damsel and befriend the warrior prince Rama. The “Ides of March” had to be bewared of. But not, he did!

Is it a desideratum that Man must blame the stars for the ills that befall him? Beware of the Ides of March!