Astrology evokes strong emotions ranging from defiance and denigration to blind belief. A friend used to start his new projects in the so-called rahu kalam, an “inauspicious” period of the day. On the other hand, in my childhood, I had come across a government officer who was once advised by his astrologer to be careful while driving because his horoscope indicated that he might meet with an accident. He did not want to take any chances because an accident could even be fatal. So one Sunday morning, he took out his car from the garage, closed the garage door, and then drove to bang the car into it; not very hard, of course. He was unhurt, but the bad omen had been taken care of, so to speak.
Ambivalent approach
My attitude to astrology has been ambivalent for various reasons. My father, an electrical engineer by profession, practised astrology as a hobby. As a matter of fact, several of my science-type colleagues and acquaintances are astrologers of repute: “hobbitual” as well as professional. And that makes me wonder whether there is any connection, at least in India, between astrology and science, which is quite different from the unending controversy whether astrology is a science or nothing at all and only a hoax to entice unsuspecting clients, spider-like.
My father told me that astrology does not exactly predict the future. It only indicates likelihood or propensity, which could be buttressed or countered, as the case may be, by human effort.
Growing up in my father’s company as a very young school-going child, I, expectantly, came under his influence and picked up a few bits and pieces, here and there, sitting with him and listening to him. One day, an acquaintance of my father came to consult him about a personal problem when he was in the bathroom. I asked the gentleman to show me his horoscope, which he did unaware of the disaster awaiting him. I studied the horoscope as carefully as a 10-year-old novice could; and then dropped the bombshell. I told him: “Sir, you will not have any child and even if you have one, it will die.”
The gentleman was, understandably, aghast. So was my father who had just then walked in, when stuttering incoherently the gentleman told him about my prediction. My father, I vaguely remember, looked at me very disapprovingly but diplomatically gave the visitor some explanation about my incorrect reading of the horoscope. I got an oral hiding after the gentlemen left. I was debarred from looking at visitors’ horoscopes, come what may.
The last straw (on the camel’s back, as they say) was waiting to descend. My father, perhaps in his desire to get a latter-day part-time assistant, had made me memorise some Sanskrit shlokas from Bhrigu Samhita (an astrological classic), et al. One day, I fell sick and was running a high temperature. My mother was nursing me with a cold pack placed on my forehead. She heard me incoherently muttering something. It was late in the night. She called my father and he understood that I was reciting one of the astrological shlokas he had made me learn by heart. I do not know what really transpired thereafter. What I do remember is that I was stripped of the astrological apprenticeship of my father.
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