New : Talespin – Column for The Wagon Magazine – July 2016 Era.Murukan

What the stars foretell and the sub-text of it

I just glanced through the astrological forecast for the week for my star sign, that was published in an internet magazine. The 300 word weekly prediction written in a tech-savvy lingo nudges me to stir out of my castle without losing further time and acquire a few heavy-duty electrical appliances like a state of the art cooking range for my kitchen, as this is the best time for me to procure assets of this kind. It also hints at my front loading washing machine becoming non-functional any time this week and that by tying a green piece of cloth on my left wrist, I can turn around my luck to be positive all along.

Now, I am surprised beyond any reasonable limit as to how and why the stars and planet constellations that constitute the universe and are in perpetual motion, take all the trouble to make it favourable time for a tiny, insignificant speck of galatic sub-particle dust like me, to procure a cooking range with the most recent design features that include a 6mm thick glass ceramic cooking surface on 2 independently controlled induction zones with a power of 3.5 kW per zone, all coming with a sleek illuminated console control?

And why would the same stars put their high temperature heads together and come up with a sinister plot to make my fully automatic turbo wash machine to stop unannounced its lovely hum and go on to add to the entropy in the isolated system, which my house always is.

Not only that, I am shocked to find that the cyber oracle rounds up his or her forecast with a strict warning made to me being, ‘Don’t have any interactions of whatsoever kind with thy neighbours, this week’.

I am aghast at the last byte of astro-advice as my ground-floor and up-one-floor neighbours are in perfect bonhomie and harmony with us for the past thirty years or so. We, all the good folks we always are, have met around 200 times in these 30 years on the elevator and have had exchanged smiles as elevator communication every time we went up or down together. I don’t think they will be envious if I go for a new cooking range or they would be a part of a faceless gang that would render my washing machine inert.

It is lamentable that all the technological advancement in the form of broadband internet dished out as 3G and 4G net connectivity has to end up at the binary doors of digital morons, like the folks behind the internet magazine I read.

I have come across another form of net astrology with no free counselling to unfriend my neighbour factored into the future-talk. It normally goes on with suggestions of the sapphire and emarald kind. The terse astro column would as a matter of fact observe that by wearing my blue diamond ring on my left index finger (note, index finger) my impending promotion at office will be a cake-walk and by wearing pure gold in the form of a necklace, my luck will be in ascendance especially if I indulge in horse racing, lottery or betting wherever it is legal. Taking four-weeks predictions together, a quick reckoning will yield the observation that I may require at least 10 different rings with embedded precious stones, a gold necklace, a pair of ear rings and diamond studded nose rings, the last three compulsory pieces of jewellery not suitable for me, a forty plus greying at the temples, Indian male. And if I am amenable to wear these queer ornaments, I may have to invest a million rupees an year to keep my ornamental inventory position up-to-date, in sync with what my stars foretell. I have a vague doubt these predictions are published at the instance of a cartel of all jewellers small and big breathing around in the planet now.

I remember going through an article at another astro-site with a tag labelling the write-up as ‘Chinese astrology’. The Chinese, I learnt by the time I read the article in full, do not go by star signs or are guided by the axiom, diamonds are for ever. Rather, they base their sooth-saying and crystal glazing on the birth dates. And it is not a miserly weekly prediction we are talking about, but it covers the entire year.

I with trepidation glided through the drop-down menus that obtain the information from me on my year of birth, month and date. The forecast page opened up immediately with all information that looks good for me in the year that is to be. It is going to be the luckiest period ever with income raining in incessantly, from all sources known and hitherto unknown to me. To make the cash-flow smooth and non-stop, what all I have to do is to have a Mandarin goose in my bed room.

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and read it again. Yes, I understood it correctly –I should have a Mandarin goose in my bed room. Now, I don’t think with a live goose quacking in the bed room and moving around with unsteady steps, it would be possible for anyone to have a peaceful sleep at night. Still worse, the goose may climb up the bed and being not house-trained, it may soil my blanket or my face or both.

As at cue I went through the Chinese predictions for all my family members, my in-laws and after a series of invented elevator meetings with my neighbours, for them too. I was keen to find out which animal or bird each of them should have in the bed room. Of course, in our master bed room we cannot afford to have the junior entering with a squirrel, the sub junior with a rabbit, mother-in-law with a Cheshire cat and father-in-law with a guinea pig somewhat resembling him. It is after all a bed room and not a mini zoological park. And horror of horrors, how can one anticipate one’s life partner entering the bed room with a monkey in toe, grimacing, jumping and diving around merrily?

Chinese are not that cruel, I found to my delight. Whatever be the date of birth, each of us had received a suggestion to go to bed with a Mandarin goose. It would certainly be not the night of the iguana to worry about but could be the night of the Mandarin geese for the whole residential apartment complex, tonight, tomorrow and thereafter.

Whatever grouse we harbour against astrology, it has to be agreed upon that thirty years ago, astrological columns that were published in various newspapers of those times were much practical and in a sense ‘healthier’.

‘The planet Saturn is looking at your birth star and to ward off any hardship you may face due to it, visit every Sunday evening the village shrine, light a lamp there with sesame oil and go round the abode of Saturn in the shrine for a minimum 31 times, clockwise. You will have all your days happy and successful’. Thus ran the predictions of those days.

Telling the reader to visit the temple where you worship and socialize, light a lamp within the precincts making the pathways a little more illuminated and to go round the abode of Saturn under the neem tree 31 times breathing fresh air and getting provided with the much needed exercise for your limbs, these predictions offered the best psychological and health counselling with the least financial outlay. The simple and plain astrologers of the past are to be venerated for their service to humanity, even if you do not believe in their trade per se.

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