The Brave Pedestrian

OK, I expect to draw some serious flak for this post… but here goes, anyway. Our relationship with entities is as complex as it is with other human beings and other species. We exploit and are exploited by, derive sustenance from and give sustenance to, large numbers of entities all the time. But they, not we, are the prime movers of our relationship. For millennia, they have shaped our future by selectively breeding us, whispering (so to speak) ideas into our little heads, nudging  homo erectus  to become man-the-toolmaker, and then man-the-wordsmith and finally man-who-inhabits-the-world-of-ideas. Humans today live and swim in ideas the way fish live in water. Ideas are their home, their natural habitat and the means of their continued existence. Rabbits cannot live without their intestinal flora, and humans cannot live without their ‘cranial fauna’. Rabbits are rodents whose lives depend so heavily on harbouring the right sort of intestinal bacteria, that at the time of we...

May 29, 2006: A lot of people try to change their lives by numerologically altering their names, consulting tarot-card readers, wearing special gemstones on their fingers, chanting special mantras, wearing a  taveez  from Ajmer-baba  etc. In other words, they try to intervene in the karmic process of their lives. I feel it is somehow “wrong” to seek to tinker with your life in any manner. My analogy is: God gives us a car and entrusts us with the job of becoming careful, skillful drivers. He keeps for himself the job of traffic administration, as well as road and vehicle maintenance. Apart from periodically checking the oil-levels and tyre-treads, we should not concern ourselves too closely with internal mechanisms, because it distracts us from our main job of learning to be good drivers! If we sincerely feel that our life is somehow out-of-sync, and we have a bad feeling about things, the remedy is not to try to contact our guardian angel, spiritual guide, ...

“ Maanglik of the worst sort. The malefic influence of Mars in her kundali ensures that if you marry her, you will suffer an unnatural death before the year is over. No two ways about it,” said the old man gravely, shaking his grey locks. “What about my horoscope? Don’t I get any protection from my own astral heritage?” asked the young man. “None whatsoever, my son! Forget this match and move on in life! You have a full life ahead… your planetary influences are good, and the stars indicate success in most of the ventures that you will undertake…” “Let me think about it, Uncle. I need to consult with Shalini first. After all, humne pyaar kundali dekhke nahin kiya tha, ” said Vishal, rising. Damn, he should never have gotten into this astrology chakkar. But trust a woman to insist on some superstitious mumbo-jumbo before taking an all-important step in life! When they met that evening, he was silent. “What did Panditji say?” Shalini asked. “You knew what exactly he was going t...