The minute Dadhichi Toth observes me, he clenches his fist and waves it, right to left, like he’s wielding a magic wand. “This movement,” he says animatedly, “It gives you a lot of happiness. Perhaps you play this way… say, a sport like tennis or something like that.” The table-tennis player in me is astounded.
But he isn’t done yet. He beckons my photographer and says, “You, you… have property matters on your mind and they aren’t working out.” The lensman is aghast – he has been looking to invest in a property for the last year or so.
Dadhichi Toth is no magician. But he is a face-reader and Vedic astrologer who spends most of his day, back in a village in Philippines, where he’s based, researching charts and stars.
Born Michael to a Hungarian gypsy-father and a Maltese mother, his early childhood memories include being introduced to the unknown. “Our family on my mom’s side was very psychic. I didn’t know my father well, but I was told that he was an extraordinary impromptu astrologer,” he recalls, “Maybe it has something to do with my genes. As a kid, I always said that I wanted to become an astrophysicist. I didn’t exactly become that, but in a sense, well, I am studying the stars,” he grins.
The first time he came to India was in 1990 – to get to Swami Muktananda’s Ashram in Ganeshpuri, Maharashtra. “It was a harrowing experience,” he recalls, “I arrived at 2 a.m. in Mumbai, jet-lagged and tired. I couldn’t find any place to stay as everything was booked out. So, I hired a rickshaw for what I thought would be just a 20-minute ride… it turned out to be a journey of a couple of hours! Once I reached and settled down, I spent some time doing some quiet meditation techniques.”
Dadhichi was keen on those practices then – but now, his main focus is studying and research. “Since 1995, I have been training under a guru in Chennai, who shuns the limelight. He’s 79, and is an absolutely beautiful being.”
To meet him, Dadhichi has been making a trip to Chennai for several years now. “For 20 years, I saw him as an astrology mentor, but in the last few years, it has changed a bit. In 2014, I realised there was a shift – his teaching was becoming more Advaita, and somehow, I could sense that he was becoming my guru rather than just a mentor. On this trip, he referred to me as his son, something that gave me great joy.”
With the influx of technology, where does he see astrology going? “With computing, you now have the ability to research it. I’ve about 42,000 horoscopes that I’m doing statistical analysis on. I’m currently working on a project in which I’m starting to find common factors… for example, I have a long list of guitarists’ horoscopes… many of them have mangala in the third house.”
Dadhichi quotes from the Vedas and the Gita eloquently, and is obviously in love with the various Indian forms of astrology. “Take the jaimini system – when the astrologer takes the mathematical value of the syllables, it will be the house of the zodiac he’s talking about. Or take naadi grantha, for instance. You bring any scientist, sit him down and give the thumb print… the naadi will give his family names, his birth date. All from the thumb print. This genetic marker here is linked to leaves that were written on 3,000 years ago. You can’t explain that.”
He has a theory to offer though. “I call it the genius of India.”
