In my extended family there was a birth, baby boy, in the Pacific Time zone of the US. The birth star of the baby was reckoned as Krithigai (Pleiades) as per the birth place. However, the birth star of the child was Rohini (Aldebaran), reckoned in native place of the grandparents. (As this was done by an astrologer, located where I would not know, you are forbidden from asking me any more details on this.) The argument in the family was apparently which star should be assigned to the baby.
And, there was another complication. Lord Krishna was supposed to have been born under Rohini and people born under that star carry ominous signs for their maternal uncles. And, this child has no maternal uncle. Had he had one, I would have been the first to have recommended Krithigai, to circumvent dangers to his uncle! I do not know which birth star the child carries. But, remember, any time astrology is bunked by rationalists, the other side rises up with triumphalist pseudo-questions like, “If the moon can influence the oceans, why can’t a star do that to a single life?” By the way, that question does nothing but certify the person’s scientific illiteracy!
I have a very close friend in the US, and both of us are born on the same day, as per the Gregorian calendar. We are turning 57 shortly and in a recent conversation (email exchange) we got to the point of how the Hindu solar-lunar calendar and the Gregorian synchronize themselves every 19 years. That is, in my life time, this birthday will be the fourth time I would have witnessed such a lock step movement, at the 0 day, 19 years, 38 years and now, at 57 years.
Then, one thing led to another and I told him that even not knowing his time of birth (I also do not know mine as the last copy of my natal astrological chart was with my father-in-law and after his death when we cleared out his papers, I did not put any effort in locating it), I can claim that on the calendrical day of my birth I will be older to him for about 9 ½ hours, as clock strikes IST midnight that much earlier than EDT midnight (he lives in Kentucky)!
We had a good laugh together (time delayed!) on this.
But, it got me thinking in other directions. And, that is how I got to the matter in the first paragraph. Quite interesting how the mind jumps between Delhi, Chennai, Portland, Oregon, and Lexington, Kentucky. Which calendar does it use in its wild peregrinations?
Raghuram Ekambaram
10 comments:
I was supposed to have gone to foreign by now and I should have been in a technical field, I am 40 and nothing like that has yet happened. However there is a forecast of getting literary fame and a second marriage, the flame goes on in the eternal hope :p and thank god my wife wont read the second part of it :d
I believe that every micro is linked to a macro.This is not just superstition but my life experience.I believe that we as nature's objects are linked with the environment.Astrology to me is a science of symbols and their associative meanings with the psyche.I believe that all sentient beings have a symbolic way of interacting with each other.Astrology was once the study of associative universes of the cosmic elements and the art and science of decoding the same.
Incidentally my star is Rohini.Three mama's of mine died an untimely/unnatural death .I had to struggle hard to get out of the guilt of my being ...
After a heavy downpour, a notice was posted at an astrological conference - Canceled due to unforeseen circumstances.
Amrit, that is exactly like finding whales have beached after an earthquake had struck!
Thanks.
Raghuram Ekambaram
Balu,
Please send me your wife's email! But, literary fame is a double edged sword, just ask Salman Rushdie!
Raghuram Ekambaram
Dear DS sir,
My father was also a Rohini and the God's were duly taken care of / appeased before his mother's brother was allowed to see him. His uncle lived a long life and died of natural causes. So, perhaps it is all in the appeasement, sounds much like vote-bank politics!
Sir, I for one believe in the conenctions between the micro and the macro, ultimately both dissolving into almost nothing. The place I may take the otehr fork in the road is in trying to figure out the next step(s) in finding out. So, let it be.
Raghuram Ekambaram
I do not know my star. None of my 9 siblings do. After reading D Sampath's comment I'm happy we don't. We are saved from a lot of possible guilt for 'murders.'
Your blog took me back to about 15 years when I cared to visit (the only time I ever did) a palmist. I was going through the hell of my life in Shillong. I wanted some kind of a reassurance that I would soon be promoted to the purgatory. Instead the palmist told me that my hell would continue for many more years (six, I think he said) because of the presence of Saturn somewhere in my life. He was right about the hell. It continued exactly for six years and after that period I left Shillong for good (pun intended). With hindsight, I can say that the hell was not a product of Saturn as much as my immature way of looking at life and its harsh realities. But did Saturn (external factors) play a role in keeping me immature, preventing me from seeing things from a different perspective? Well, could be. But I wouldn't take the blame up to Saturn anyway.
Matheikal, howsoever and for whatever reasons after six years you got promoted to purgatory! Did it matter the palmist predicted that?
As regards DS sir's view, I too believe that each of us is an inseparable part of the whole. But where I differ from him and all the others who set any amount of store by astrology and other such (in)disciplines is that I assert, without any proof, that we can never work out what those connections are. That is, future is unknowable, and anyone who says that she knows the future is plain wrong at best, and arrogant at worst.
One Vedic line goes something like, "Even the original creator himself may not know where it all came from." This to me, as a corollary, implies that no one knows where we are going. It is, in this sense also, I do not believe in prediction of the future in the sense astrology claims to do.
Coming to the other part, am I right that I am older to my frien due to the direction in which the earth rotates?
Raghuram Ekambaram
It was considered a correct answer when Yudhisthira had replied to Dharma that mind travels the fastest, :).
Future is unknowable, but still weak mortals tend not to tempt 'fate'....
Aditi, I knew that someone somewhere said that mind travels the fastest and I absolutely endorsed that. Now, you have come and told me it was Yudhisthira who was that wise man.
The mind also finds nooks and corners that are so ephemeral. It is my mind, after all, that told me how I could be older to my friend at least for 9 1/2 hrs :))))
Thanks a lot.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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