Chp 81. Vaastu for Web: A Sham?

When it comes to Vaastu, I think there are three types of people: Those who firmly believe in it treating it as the Sacred Word of God itself, those who find it utterly ridiculous and mock those who believe in it, and those who don’t believe in it but respect the feelings of those who do. I think I fall in the third category.

But much as I try to have an open mind about it, when I read an article in the Mumbai Mirror a few days ago about Vaastu being applied to the internet and website designing, I tried my best to suppress a light snicker. What will they think of next?

Before I came up with this post, I just wanted to know the reaction of the blogging Nation about webVaastu. Since Vaastu is related to Hinduism, I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s sentiments (Just because none of my Hindu friends believe in Vaastu doesn’t give me the right to make fun of it). Patrix, Deep, Ian, Shivam and Vasanth had already written about this and I found their posts pretty mirthful, the way they talked about webVaastu.

According to wiki, Vaastu Shastra is “one of the traditional Hindu canons of town planning and architecture. Distinction of style exists due to each document’s place of origin. Vaastu Shastra deals with various aspects of designing and building living environments that are in harmony with the physical and metaphysical forces/energies of the cosmos such as the gravitational, electromagnetic and supernatural.”

Similarly, the dictionary definition for the Chinese version of Vaastu called Feng-shui, are rules in Chinese philosophy that govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to patterns of yin and yang and the flow of energy (qi); the favourable or unfavourable effects are taken into consideration in designing and placing buildings and graves and furniture. Just like Vaastu, Feng-shui also tries to harmonize the flow of energy (The Life force, known as “Prana” in Sanskrit Vaastu, is the “Qi” in Chinese Feng-shui).

At this point, a mind can easily get influenced. How can the two largest populations in the World with completely different religion and traditional backgrounds end up sharing the same belief? Surely this cannot be a coincidence.

Well, maybe this might have something to do with scholars of both Ancient Kingdoms visiting each other and sharing their scripture, who knows. As for me, superstition is a complete no no in my life. Sometimes I wonder how come I’ve never believed in Vaastu or Feng-shui. I’m a Mizo and Mizos ofcourse don’t believe in these two, but I’ve lived most of my life with non-Mizos. Thinking about it, none of my South-Indian and North-Indian friends ever believed in Vaastu. I’ve met their parents now and then, and boy some of them were hardcore superstitious. But the children of my generation however fail to share their parent’s enthusiasm. Growth of modernism?

Anyway, I have no objection with Vaastu as it goes way back to ancient Hindu beliefs, but webVaastu???? For a non-believer, the only word coming to my mind when I hear that term is “CON”.

I mean, take a look at India. A huge majority of Indians believe in Vaastu, and with the internet boom even reaching across rural India, what better ways to make easy money than by combining these two. To me, a webVaastu consultant is nothing but a con artist out to swindle your hard earned money. But then ofcourse, this is just my personal opinion.

According to webvastu.com, Vaastu comprises of five natural elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space. Each of the elements corresponds to a natural force that affects our lives. They are:

• Earth : Magnetic field of the earth
• Water : Gravitational force of the Earth
• Fire : Solar radiation
• Air : Wind energy
• Space : Cosmic radiation

I agree with the author. So far so good, because this is what Vaastu is all about. This is the Vaastu that was written down nearly 3000 years ago. But as the chapter progressed, things became more and more hilariously ridiculous, especially as the author of the book tried his best to link these five elements with the internet. He even had the audacity to point out which “natural forces” of a website these five elements correspond to! This is what he came up with:

• Earth : Layout of the webpage
• Water : Fonts and Graphics
• Fire : Colour scheme
• Air : HTML
• Space : Name of website

Damn! I’ve never laughed out that much in a long time. But I gotta hand it out to the author; he really deserves a couple of points for creativity! And to do it so convincingly with a straight face must be one of the hardest tasks to do.

What will people think of next? smsVaastu? Lol! Let me give it a shot!

“smsVaastu” by Kima.

Have you ever felt like nobody’s paying attention to you? That none of your friends are replying to your smses? Ever had that funny feeling they are trying to ignore you? Don’t worry, for this has nothing to do with you or your personality. It is only because the flow of energy within you is not harmonized. There are more negative forces around you than the positive ones. To obtain more positive forces, you need to consider the five natural elements and what they correspond to when it comes to sending an sms:

• Earth : Your mobile phone, which company, which model.
• Air : The network you’re using, post-paid or pre-paid, roaming etc
• Fire : Whether your phone display is in colour or black n white, camera/video/mp3 option etc.
• Water : Whether your mobile is water proof, dust proof, shock proof.
• Space : How sleek/small is your mobile phone and what’s the size of your memory card.

Once you buy my book “smsVaastu” for just Rs.750/- I assure you that you will get so many smses from people, you will not be able to handle it. And yes, I promise that, that cute girl in your computer course whose phone number you slyly obtained from the registration desk, will definitely reply to your “Hi, want to be my fraand?” sms, once you follow the instructions in my book.



See! How difficult was that? I guess anybody can become a tech related Vaastu consultant. Lolxxx…

Coming back to webVaastu, you don’t need a professional to tell you what to put and what not to put on your website, nor does it take a genius to figure out which layout is the best for your site. The most important “element” is the content. You get visitors for what is there in your site, and not for any flashy heavy graphics that takes ages to download. After content comes the layout. It must be appealing to the eye. No matter how good the content of your website is, nobody will feel like reading it if the rich colour contrasts hurt their eyes.

Unless ofcourse the author here is going deep into astrology and numerology trying to calculate which direction the webmaster must be facing while designing the website. Should he face East as he type? Or South? And where should the mouse be located? How far apart should the two speakers be from each other? What is the appropriate song to play while designing the site? Is it ok to keep the cabinet always open (like mine) or it should be screwed shut while designing? Should I use a 17 inch or 15 inch monitor? And did the Vaastu Shastra written thousands of years ago mentioned anything like whether I should specifically use only Microsoft Frontpage Editor for designing my website or I can any other Editors? Unless webVaastu is going into those, I see no reason why you cannot be a webVaastu consultant yourself.

Google on the net for tips on designing a good website, and you will get much better result than all the webVaastu consultants put together. Simple facts. Like, unless you are going for a Flash™ website, try to have a simple HTML layout sans flashy heavy flickering graphics, something that is appealing to your eye. But then, the term “appealing to one’s eye” cannot be generalized as one type, because one man’s meat is another man’s poison. For example, according to a Govinda fan, what is appealing to his eyes might be a bright orange fluorescent background with shiny green fluorescent fonts . And oh, try to avoid pornography on your website, especially if your website is about religion or an NGO organization . Hope I make a good webVaastu consultant! Feel free to call me anytime. I charge people by their level of Hotness. Lolz.