I wasn’t a believer. But the day dawned when the planetary alignments declared I had power to influence world peace. Had I but known earlier……As it was, my sphere of influence extended over the limited 1200 square feet of my own home. But I consoled myself—peace, like charity, must begin at home.
Deeply impressed that the distant planets had recognised my latent genius, I kept a sharp look-out on the ‘what the stars foretell‘ column forthwith. But the predicted windfalls never materialised, and my faith in planetary alignments wavered. Till that fateful week.
The week that was
It was a bad week. I found myself surrounded by oppositional behaviour of the worst kind. Missing maids, locked accounts and misdirected electromagnetic transmissions, the malevolent Murphy’s law was at work again. It was like one of those school essays on ‘A day when everything went wrong‘, but real.
I was locked out of my bank account for the unforgivable sin of withdrawing a substantial amount of my own hard-earned money. (Or as revenge for repudiating their beseeching requests to accept a loan.) The digital world locked me out of my mail accounts insisting that my passwords had been changed. Missing the deadline for bill payments, I had to stand in queue and pay a fine on the electricity and phone bills.
The way of all dust
The neighbours went in for Diwali renovation with unparalleled zest. The workmen hammered and drilled, scraped walls and painted with an enthusiasm only the promise of a substantial bonus can generate. They trudged in with buckets, tools, ladders, and paints, leaving behind a trail of plaster and cement dust from the front door all the way to the stairs. Useful for tracking burglar footprints but not conducive to a clean house, already compromised by a missing maid.
You get the gist, right? Not a good time.
My husband was supportive. He said he would provide dinner while I swept and mopped. Swiggy was summoned on day 1, Maggi (noodles, not aunt), saved the evening on Day 2. That was as far as his resources for dinner extended.
earth, moon and stars
We went to the bank to rectify matters—a bit of shopping and a hot lunch included. It felt good. For a while. A very short while. On the way home, we were sandwiched between bright yellow school buses for the better part of an hour. Messages on the bus exhorted us to ‘Save Planet Earth‘ while we negotiated craters like those on the moon. Meanwhile ‘the bright stars of the future‘ that the bus declared it was ferrying (was I seeing heavenly bodies everywhere?) doused each other with the contents of their water bottles; and then fell asleep, exhausted. Blissfully unaware of astral alignments!
The retrograde planet
Next morning was no better. My worktable piled up with two laptops and a phone which refused to speak to each other. (An element of sibling rivalry with the new arrival, I suspect). My husband was concerned. He looked in on me between patients. Expecting a wild-eyed ranting maniac, he was confronted with calmness and beatitude. The laptops were shut and put away, the phone tucked away in the drawer and I was busily twisting yards of fabric twine.
‘It’s quite all right’, I said serenely, ‘I’ve got to the root of my problems. Its the planetary alignments. My Mercury is retrograde, and I must undertake no task for the next week.’
Who am I, a mere mortal, to argue with fate—specially when it hands you a vacation on a platter?
Sunny Goa
I headed up to my favourite destination—Goa. Sunny, breezy Goa with the sound of waves lapping on the beach. The perfect place to obey the law of the universe, and do nothing.
I reached for the local newspaper that had been been thoughtfully tucked in at our door. The stars appeared aligned for wedding season. Suits and tuxedos for the ‘happy groom‘ and the ‘dashing best man‘, gowns for the ‘starstruck bride‘, or a package deal of 10 items—with the bouquet thrown in for free. There were ads for luxury wedding cars (fully decorated), live bands(one-man to six-piece), photographers, beauticians! Even a crash course in ballroom dancing!
But first, the planetary alignments! Perhaps my lucky stars had decided to throw in a goodly bit of loose change my way, to add to to the general air of bonhomie and joie-de-vivre. Here’s what it said.
I rushed out to buy the largest watermelon I could find. But changed my mind halfway. A bottle of Port no 7 was, after all, more portable. Specially if the all- important (wedding) invitation didn’t materialise!