Betel Leaf Astrology

Soothsayer: Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that doesn't make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you choose to be.
Kung Fu Panda 2
Sometimes I feel I don’t pay attention to what is happening really around me. That’s why I had ended up at a Soothsayer instead of an astrologer on a Monday Morning at 7 am. My friend had mentioned about this great women she met who had sorted out all her problems, I assumed it was an astrologer. I mean aren’t astrologers a direct link to God like priests to find solutions.
On the way down winding lanes in Rajagiriya with some betel leaves in my hand, I asked my friend, does she need to know my charts and It was explained no she is a soothsayer she only needs to look at the betel leaves. Old habits die hard, it was always astrology, tarot or numerology. I looked at the betel leaves and wondered if I could see anything even a glimmer of my questions. The leaves just looked back at me accusingly saying no I don’t have answers for your questions.
The house was a small dodgy looking place already with eager beavers waiting for their turn. So I am not the only one who wants solutions at this time of the morning. An Old lady walked out, her hair disarray, tooth crooked, all the buttons in her old nightdress had been lost and had an array of pins to hold it together. She looked the Sri Lankan Version of Nanny Mac phee if not for the pins and night dress.
“She is the one!” Whispered my friend excitedly.
I had met a lot of people who have read my future, my past and my present. This old lady staring at me was a vision I had never thought I would encounter. Is she a quack I thought in my mind looking at her?
She stared back at me as if she heard me and said “You all have to wait for 2 hours because the time is not good right now, we start at 9,"

Tuesday Morning

Parked near the odel roundabout with heavy traffic in the morning. My moment of thinking about important things in life is loudly interrupted by mom who points at the Huge Ad tv. There is an ad on analene milk powder. She pointed out that might happen to my bones and it will all break into pieces if i don’t buy an analene and drink it. I was uhminng

Next ad starts she is reading it to me since i am illiterate. It goes like “ is your house safe? Is it protected” thankfully the light changed and we moved off. Mum was annoyed that she could not get my house protected and saved since she did not finish reading the rest of it.

Get to work and she calls me after her visit to the astrologer. I have good news u are going to build a new house and B is getting married before December. But did he not say the same thing last year mum. Well apparently the astrologer had said that your I look distrustful whenever I come for a reading and that I should believe in him.

Eclipse and Us!

From yesterday..
The topic of the day has been the eclipse. Everyone has been watching and reporting about it. I got special instructions from my dad. Do not eat during the eclipse and you must have a bath before consuming meals after. Then special instructions to tell the kids not to look at the sky. I did not bother passing on the message to the kids cause the minute i say dont look up. thats exactly what they will do the little one will spend hours gazing up and we dont want that now.

Olden day belief was your food turned poisonous if u eat during the eclipse cause a huge snake was gobbling up the sun (yes please laugh since i believed this when i was a kid and would starve and shut myself inside a room during an eclipse)

Hindu temples are strictly closed in the eclipse time, the floors are washed after it and then they do pooja. Some of us actually dont cook or eat or drink water at this eclipse time. the kitchen is cleaned and then cooking starts.

Was worried about the astrological thing since the eclipse plays havoc with the stars so its bad again. Wow always its bad and worse only why is that? oh that's how the astrologers mint money.

Friends called up to ask did u see it, its so great. I well just looked at the guys on the road looking up with special glasses and was not brave to look into the sky.

Naming and re-naming!

Its almost the year end. What a horrendous year it has been and am i glad its over. In the end of last year after an astrological meeting my mum made me add a h in my name. My mom is with the astrologer every week like a hobby trying to figure out the betterment of our life. He is full of ideas and the last bright idea was changing my name.

I laughed it off and ignored it. Mum was in argument that she named me that she could change my name. She had rights. I argue that i am an adult that nobody but myself should change my name if i chose to. Anyways whatever u do u know how mom is always right.

In a moment of sheer desperation i added an H in my name and complicated it. Was teased enough with everyone huffing with H in my name and pronouncing it wrong.

H was suppose to bring me harmony, happiness, health, hope and a home. For all those who are laughing (i am laughing too so its ok u can laugh), i added the H thinking i will find it.

Yesterday i was feeling helpless, hopeless and a lot of hatred with life(horrible too if i may add). It was a light bulb moment. I decided to take off the H. I did not huff about it i silently took it off.

If u are adviced to add an extra e in your name for excitement,energy trust me u will end up feeling like an eejit in the end of it.

Mums changed her name too and it sounds all wierd. I am not going to upset her by my announcement of dropping the h. It was silent when it came and it shall leave with a blog post in honour of it..

The BIG Saturnal Change!

There is a big astrological change on this saturday that is tomorrow! So all those who beleive in astrology and stuff (i.e DD ) this might be the big CHANGE we are looking for. ok i better stop i am beginning to sound slighly demented.

But yes the stars and signs that we are born in play a major role in how our life takes its course. I used to question it, believe it, then go half half. But this one on saturday is what i am having all my bets on for cause its suppose to be really good.

yes many times i have seen changes happening in stars and nothing profound in my life but somehow trying to be positive about this.

My dads been anticipating this saturnal change so much and is so very excited about it (yes it runs in the family!).

B will get hitched at last after this it seems (but then again last year they said the same thing but never mind he can celebrate his 25th Birthday in peace this year)

Me hemmm i hope to be going places well if not anywhere far at least to odel to just be happy about it..... (havent been there in ages, i think i am turning over a new leaf)

Mr. Astrologer

It’s that time of the year again. Once every few months I have a meeting with my astrologer. It clearly coincides with some emotional upheaval which runs parallel with the life. So this Mr. A I went to him about six months back and did not return to do the vows I had to do since he told me to change the spelling of my name.

This was round two with the same astrologer. Its usually different ones but this is the first time I am repeating the same guy. Took mom along since she loves listening to my astrological chart (since she has nothing else to do). So off we go in a morning and he waves us in. Mind you I had already seen this guy earlier he goes into a trance and predicts things, but last time around I annoyed him by not asking my questions when he is in a trance. (if u don’t understand ignore this point).

This time he decided he will explain my chart.

First thing he said was something like “you are here without a belief”.

My mum being subtle the middle name nudged me hard.

Well he told a bunch of things like change the spelling of my name and also not to talk to strangers. Stranger danger is huge problem in my life apparently. It was quite eventful with him saying loads of things and asking me to come back to do some poojava to fix things. My mum was gleeful since this is going back there again.

Mum: ask him about the mobile (this is the lost mobile of mine)

I looked at her since I don’t see this guy having some tracking machine to track down my lost mobile.

So mum asks him. Mr. A Looked quite bemused by my moms so called clever question and did the next best thing. He ignored her inquiry about the lost mobile and went on looking at my chart.

Now I am in a confused track whether to go back to him since he says people are doing some voodoo magic to me and he is going to do something back to cut it.

Do I actually go ahead with all this? Or be myself and ignore…..

Disaster Management with an astrologer

This is not about the Myanmar disaster relief. Although my problems are no where near what the people in Myanmar are going through right now. We should all help in whatever way possible. In this short span of life I cannot stop but think what would those villagers have been thinking when the cyclone hit them? It’s really sad that such natural disasters do have to occur.

These disasters in my life have taken a greater turn with my mom and sister running into the rescue with an astrologer. (This must be like the 15th that we have seen). So anyways I completely refused to go with them but then in the end with my mom doing what mothers usually do (nagging) had to go with them. The place is really dodgy in a dodgy area the astrologer looked like a normal our neighbor sort of guy.

After looking at the boxes of my times and drawing more and more charts his prediction was that I am in a real disaster and its not going to be better. I love the way how life takes this turn where you go with some sort of hope and then you learn that no shit happens and you just got to live with it. He kept reading and saying different things (not all good stuff either). First I was listening with a smirky smile then of course got a bit engrossed in the stuff he was saying since some of it did make sense. My mom of course could not bear to hear the bad news that life is not going to be all flowers and bonbons but have I considered separation (this was from the astrologer). No mum wants to hear the D word and the Indian mom that is worse than being ousted from your caste and community. My mom was weeping at this total stranger and sister looked shell shocked (clearly). I was of course bit worried that mum might fall into this mans shoulder and weep some more (have no clue why I thought this). So anyways I stopped him and said now tell me is there anything good happening in my life. He was kind enough to put forward that except the personal stuff everything else will be good. Apparently my horoscope is a perfect match to Jacqueline Kennedy. (Right I don’t have her figure but maybe the only similarity might been the love for shoes and bags and clothes). At a logical moment was wondering how he looked at Jackie’s Horoscope (I mean come on what are the chances?)

Astrologer was a bit worried with the mother weeping non stop and going on to talk about what a bright good child I was in my childhood and some sin she committed has put me in this situation. Clearly this is having a cuckoo effect on mom. Stopped her again and asked what the solution. It was simple enough he told me to pray. As if I have not done enough of that already. But he kept saying no I am serious you have to pray. So today morning woke up to break that new resolution of not praying and made it to temple to do some serious talks with the gods. I don’t know if they are hearing what I have been saying. I can’t believe that I am paying for some Karmas of my last birth. I really hope I am not born again into this world to keep paying for sins that I might have committed in this birth…

Well with that officially the blog is going to be anonymous for the rest of its life….. (except for the handful who know me J )

Astrology, palm reading, tarots n crystal ball

I am really into astrology. Ignoring the fact that I have not seen any improvement with my life although the astrologer’s predictions have been spot on according to them. So I have spend the better part of my life getting the Hindu chart done then the Buddhist chart done and getting readings done. As if this was not enough my mum dragged me to get my life read from a palm leaf. Apparently my whole life is written on the palm leaf and he would read it out from that. He did read some stuff about my life but the whole thing where he keeps questioning me with an yes or no more or less helped him with the reading. He was correct about some important events in my life but then he said I would be in Australia by now and well settled.

About two years back I would read my daily horoscope every day before work. But then it was usually all wrong and the good days would turn bad and then I stopped reading. Now I heard about this tarot card reader and thinking whether I should go see her.

I still get a weekly forecast sent to my mail box by some unknown lady who says all this wonderful things like I am the next Bill gates. I suppose if some things will give us a positive edge in day to day activities its all right.

There was this one guy who wanted me to change the spelling of my name ( mum was really advising to change my signature) and I would not have it. Then santhoshi would be like Santhosheee I would end up sounding like a sheep or something. This guy read a load of stuff but seemed very pre occupied with something. Then I found out that the guy working for him had stolen goods from him. Was wondering why he could not predict that. Mum was having panic attacks when I mentioned this to her and said that by talking like that I bring bad luck.

When I was in England, an old lady once approached me and gave me a four leaf clover and told me some great things. End of it she asked me for five pounds and I was generous enough to pay her. My friend was having a fit about it and said that she was talking a whole bunch of crap and that I got pulled into it. At that point I was treasuring the clover thingy like a priced diamond. I was having a load of problems in life blamed it on the four leaf clover and threw the damn thing out of a window on a rainy evening. The whole scene just stays an imprint in my mind.

Does astrology and your star signs have a big impact with your life? Hemm I guess not you have to work hard to achieve things and take only the good things that your star sign says and ignore the bad stuff….