“She won’t talk to you,” warns soothsayer Vaani. She motions towards the grey-haired lady seated at a distance and says, “She can be brash.” But I trust my stars and walk towards her, hoping her forecast is proved wrong.
‘Jakkamma’ Rukmani looks at me menacingly in the eye. “Your regai (palm line) tells me that…” she pauses. Her nose-studs gleam as she asks in a grave voice: “Are you following me?” In the next five minutes, she foretells my future as “told” to her by the lines on my left palm. “I have the power,” she says. “It was bestowed upon me by goddess Jakkamma when I was 11 years old.”
Rukmani sits on a nylon sheet on the pavement off Police Commissioner Office Road in Egmore. Seated next to her is a wire koodai (basket) that holds a water-bottle, an umbrella, and a lunch box. Her priced possessions — a silver box of sacred ash and two framed photos of gods — stand close-by. This spot has been her workplace for the past 15 years. Wielding a wand that’s almost as old as her, the 75-year-old sits there from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day, waiting to foretell people’s fortunes. She believes that every word she utters adds meaning to her customer’s life. “I don’t tell lies; never have,” she says.
Trucks, autos, cars and bikes roar past her; passers-by glance at her curiously; a bunch of teenage boys mock at the betel leaf she’s stuck on her temple trusting it to cure her migraine… but Rukmani sits unperturbed, her hands rolling 12 cowrie shells, and eyes waiting to catch that of a passer-by.
“I leave my home in Tambaram at 10 a.m.,” she says. “I have a seasonal pass for the electric train.” Rukmani has two sons and two daughters who are all married. “I have a dozen grandchildren,” she grins, revealing chipped, betel-stained teeth. “My daughters-in-law make me breakfast and lunch and my sons provide for me.”
A native of Ettayapuram in Thoothukudi district, Rukmani married a farmer. She left to work in bigger cities hoping to put to use what she learned at her village temple. “I spent many years sitting by a Ganesha temple in Matunga in Mumbai. I stayed at Dharavi with a few relatives,” she says. She has been reading people’s palms all her life; foretelling their travels to foreign lands; marriages to the love of their lives; careers with fat pay-checks… “But I don’t always focus on the positive aspects,” she explains. “I don’t hesitate to tell customers if I read misfortunes. I offer them options to surpass them.”
Rukmani then pulls out a paper with areca nuts and pounds them with a stone. “The first thing I do once I come here is chew betel leaves,” she says. She stretches her folded feet and winces in the process. “My only problem is my feet; they hurt if I walk long distances or sit for hours.”
But Rukmani refuses to retire. “I cannot sit at home,” she says. “I like doing this. I want to do good to people with what I’ve been taught. I will come here till there’s strength in me.” She casts an eye towards her framed gods and adds, “Or till they decide its enough.” She gives away her earnings to her sons, she says. “But I keep some for myself. A woman needs to have money in her hands.”
Every fortune-teller follows a strict rule: that she doesn’t read into the future of herself or her relatives. Perhaps that’s why Rukmani failed to foretell her husband’s death ten years ago. Ask her his name and she looks appalled.
“I don’t utter my husband’s name,” she says, her voice raised. “I didn’t eat my breakfast in the train this morning; it was too crowded. It’s 1.30 and I’m hungry. Can you please leave?” Vaani looks at me, a smug smile on her lips.
