Have you heard this in your life time from your mom, aunties, grannies and neighbors? I did and couldn’t understand the logic. Asked everyone but no one had any answer. All they would say is that we were told by our mothers and grandmothers and so you must also follow this else the baby will have disfigured body!

Now that kind of chance no mother would like to take with her yet to be born baby so everyone complied. Then it all came to me that night.

Well the reason is very simple but no more applies to the modern day after electricity was discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy and finally what we have is the bulb that was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879.

Earlier there was no light. So when the sun set, there was darkness which was countered by diya or lamps made of oil and flick. Obviously in 1800 – 1900 and much later too people did not have the luxury of seeing things after sunset. SO the household chores like cutting, chopping and cooking had to be finished before sunset. People would infact sleep off after sunset!

So when a pregnant woman would try to chop or cut vegetables or fruits in the evening, there were accidents at times and she would end up nicking herself. Now obviously that would sometimes lead to septicemia leading to fatal results. So use of anything sharp and rusted blades and knives were not allowed in the dark after sunset.

But in eclipse unlike today it would be complete dark  on earth for that much duration when the moon came in front of the sun.  So the old ladies thought of creating a fear in the minds of their young daughters and bahus. They must have thought no woman will try to knowingly harm their unborn baby out of fear. And that was spread from one generation to other.

Till Sir Alva invented bulb.

A few more silly related to sunset are the following that were spread only to prevent people from harming themselves in the dark.

1.       DO not chop your nails after sunset.  ( In the dark when there was no bulb people would cut their fingers )

2.       Do not clean your house in the evening else Laxmi will go away. (When you can’t see dirt in the dark what is the use of cleaning the house after sunset in the times on no light and no bulb.)

But now when we all have access to light at any time of the night and day, eclipse should not blind us with darkness anymore. And yet the fear has covered the minds with a mindfold not blindfold. Educated ladies still continue to follow this silly superstition and continue to force their daughters and bahus to not go out of the house in the eclipse or touch any sharp object during eclipse.

High time ladies, moms and whoever is reading this, take a few seconds to THINK before advising anyone about eclipse related superstitions.

Reference:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/edison/lightbulb.shtml