It was not an ordinary day at work and colleagues pointed out to each other that Bangalore Oberoi and the Taj West End are directly visible from our office. I looked out of the window and shuddered. Even when I was aware that I am a thousand odd kilometers removed from Bombay, I felt scared.

There was a feeling of disgust when Bangalore was bombed. However, it is a different feeling now. It is a feeling of distinct fear mixed with rage. It is a feeling of fear because I am not sure if there is a safe place left for me and my loved ones. Fear because I am not sure if my home, my office, the market place I visit, the malls I go to are safe anymore. Fear because I am not sure what kind of world is my son born in. It is a feeling of rage because the people in authority who are responsible for providing this security are imbeciles. They do not have any morals and I don’t know who to be more angry with - the terrorists who kill innocent people or these officials and politicians who through their inaction allow such incidents to happen.

There are many questions that I as an ordinary citizen of India have for these people. However, I am also very aware that the short public memory will allow these politicians to get away with anything. The NSG will continue to be treated as normal security guards to protect the people who don’t deserve it and the innocent citizens will continue to be ignored.

*****

Does the spirit of Bombay really exist?

Someone said that the people get the government they deserve. S/he may be right. 48-60 hours have passed. Nariman House has just been cleared. There are civilian casualties but the crowd does not care about the gravity of the situation. On NDTV 24×7, Barkha Dutt is gravely talking about the Jewish family who did not survive. Strangely, in the crowd, I can see a young man blowing kisses towards the camera. He is just happy that he is on television. He is now taking out his mobile and happily calling someone… “abe dekh, main TV par hoon…”. Something inside me is already dying.

I was very sorry to hear about the blasts in Bangalore in the afternoon of 25/07. Sitting around the television in the company cafeteria, a bunch of colleagues continuously changed channels to get more information on the location and effect of these blasts. It initially started with news about two blasts and gradually the tally increased to seven. The sense in among colleagues at work was not necessarily that of fear, but that of irritation and disgust and ironically an occasional joke. Today, police found and diffused a live bomb near Forum Mall.

I started writing about this incident and after a while, the mind went completely blank. I could not decide what exactly to write. I could not figure out who the intended audience should be. The common man in India and throughout the world would automatically condemn the blasts and any one in their right mind will not sympathize with the folks who carried them out. It is also extremely unlikely that the people who really did it are reading this message and will feel sorry about their actions just because I am saying something.

Still, I will try to do my part. I probably cannot make any difference to the ideology of these terrorists. I can, however, appeal to the Government of the day in India and ask them to shape up. Listen you folks sitting up there in the power echelons: the trust vote is done, ok? Stop using CBI and IB to cook your own goose. Let them do their job of making our lives safe. If you cannot do that, let me tell you - you are not required. Get Out! The victims of Delhi and Jaipur blasts have still not got justice. How could you have let this happen in Bangalore?

And just when I thought I had let a part of it outside my system, there is a breaking news about fourteen serial explosions in city of Ahmedabad. What the hell!

I am not being pretentious by keeping the title of my post same as the name of books by Dr. B.V. Raman on subject of astrology. I think it was necessary given the reaction to some of the posts on the yoga category. Anand observed in one of the comments to the post - Good Results by Rahu and Ketu that

… what Kshitij has done is to merely state combinations that are found in the classical astrological texts. A verbatim application to charts is dangerous …

This is a very important point. This observation is valid for not just these planets Rahu and Ketu, but other planets as well, be it Jupiter operating under one of the Pancha Mahapurusha yoga, Mercury under Budhaditya yoga etc. This post is not meant to be a disclaimer, but please do take some precautions when trying to follow principles of astrology as mentioned in astrological texts.

A post, a website or even an entire book is not sufficient to tell readers how to judge a horoscope. I would recommend everyone to get hold of the two volumes of Dr. Raman’s aforementioned book and “Astrology of the seers” by Dr. David Frawley. Both these books are readily available in any of the leading stores throughout India. The principles in these books should be applied to all Yogas and placement of planets in various houses.

Taking an example of the Rahu/Ketu post, what I did not intentionally do was to tabulate results of both these planets in various houses in different signs, e.g., what would happen if Ketu were to be in 11th or 12th house in Aries or Taurus etc. Even if I were to do that, the results could be modified if there were other planets in the chart affecting these houses or if the lord/house in question or ascendant and its lord were to be extremely weak or extremely strong. And that is exactly the reason why I cannot take some of these principles and yogas and blindly integrate with the birth chart generation applet on this site.

Finally, the earlier post was meant to be on good results by Rahu and Ketu :-). These lunar nodes are always 180 from each other and good results by one often come with side effects from the other.

It is said that those who do not remember the history are bound to repeat it. Still, most of us rather look forward to the future than look back and reflect. It is quite natural given our fascination with the future and the desire to know more and more about it.

There are various reasons why we do it. One of them is shortage of patience in our fast paced lives and the anxiety to find solutions to problems without really working hard for them. Another is the state of confusion we get into, where there is an expectation of guidance from that disaffected someone, who can look at the issues without really getting involved and point us to a way ahead. This usually happens when we are apprehensive about making decisions on our own. While it is not advisable, this can be perceived as a way of transferring our own responsibility to someone else. During these times of stress and distress, we turn towards a friend for advice and more often than not, turn towards as astrologer.

An astrologer therefore finds herself/himself in an extremely difficult situation. There is a burden of expectation that a miracle can be conjured to make things right and an expectation that she/he can come up with a quick fix gem/pooja/mantra that would ward off the problem to let us go ahead with our lives. While we can debate to what extent can an astrologer meet the expectation, one thing is clear - to be able to guide people, the astrologer always needs divine help that involves good memory, power of interpretation, reasoning, logic and a fair bit of intuition.

Astrologers are born with planetary combinations that bestow these qualities on them. Jupiter, the karaka of astrology, must be strong, free of afflictions and well placed in the chart. Moon and Mercury should be strong and a strong Mercury in second house to either Moon or Ascendant is considered auspicious. Fifth house should be strong to provide for intuition. Furthermore, ascendant should be free of negative influences such that thinking and judgement is not clouded. Astrology as a profession and a source of income happens when this combination involves the tenth house.

With this post, I complete two years of writing articles on this subject. Astrology has come a long way in these two years. Through half hour programmes on televisions, it has entered our living room and has become a topic of page three conversations. Through

I happened to catch a programme on National Geographic yesterday, July 04, 2007, called “Twins, Triplets and Quads” where it was mentioned that in case there is a shortage of blood in the body of fetus, miracle of biology siphons the blood away from dermis to more important organs of body - e.g. brain. The body keeps a record of this miracle and the index finger of left arm can be used to determine how healthy the heart would be in later stages of life.

I did a bit of search on Google and found out that a research paper was presented by some Indian doctors, titled Utility Of Finger Prints in Myocardial Infarction Patients. This work is not new, this paper appeared in a journal in 2000 and refers to another paper which was written in 1975. I guess I was the one not looking.

Quoting from the abstract -

Dermatoglyphics has been well established as a diagnostic aid in a number of diseases having hereditary basis … It is deducted that patients of myocardial infarction have higher incidence of whorls & lower incidence of loops in all the digits.

Unless I am being completely unreasonable, does it not qualify as palmistry?