Written in the charts
Today, a Saathiri is coming to my house. This is a fortune teller, of sorts. Now I know that tarot reading is in at the moment. A thing that people do. Fashun, of sorts. This is different, I’m told. It feels quite traditional and Tamil. Something I’m interested in, but very observational. Like I’m interested, but I’m not destined to what fate this man has to say.
Now I have a strange relationship with Saathiri’s. Amma told me on first visit to Sri Lanka, I must have been 9, when a Saathiri was telling me my future, I ran away saying “this one-toothed Saathiri doesn’t know me.” He said I won’t study or I’m not very clever. Pleased that younger me knew to run from bad vibes.
Then there’s the Kaandam, which is thought among Saathiri believers to be the most elite, the Harley Street of private healthcare, the Anna Wintour of Fashion. Many years ago, my Mum sat down in front of a man to be read her Kaandam. She had to give the fingerprint of her left thumb. Apparently the left part is important. He proceeded to tell her, her full name, my Dad’s full name and the fate of all three of their children. When he started reading her thumbprint/life, he had said I was undecided about what I wanted to do in life, but towards the end of the reading, he was telling my Mum I had decided to become a doctor. It was indeed that summer I had decided to become a Doctor. A cousin of mine had his Kandaam read in his twenties and was told they couldn’t access anything beyond 33. He sadly passed away at 33. So yes, I’m skeptical. But open.
So today, we’ve invited this man to our house. It’s £20 per reading of a chart. A chart is drawn up for each person based on their date, time, and location of birth. Mine was drawn up for mine in Jaffna, a few months after I become the first British born person in our family. So we’re not expecting this to be like Kaandam-level fortune telling, but we’re willing to pay £20 per chart. This is the fashion section of Hello magazine. He hasn’t accounted for the cost of inflation in London obviously. Or Sri Lanka. He’s Indian apparently. This seems relatively cheap compared to everything else.
Okay. He has come and gone - I lied. Saathiri Uncle is from Colombo, Sri Lanka. He could have easily conned us out of £40/chart I reckon. Everyday at work, I note down with accuracy the date and time I delivered a baby. I don’t think I’ve really paid any significance to those details I so regularly record - how the alignment of the stars, the moon, could determine that baby’s future. We even got predictions for my white boyfriend - Where was he born he asks? Luton and Dunstable Hospital. I’m giggling a bit, what do they stars say about Luton born babies then?!
So the laughter quickly fades.
He came and went and I feel more anxious and filled with dread about the future than I did before. Apparently there is possibility for my partner, to be married twice. After the age of 37 there may be an older woman who interferes in our married life and becomes the second love of his life. Charming.
So what can I do ward off that older woman’s seductive energy I hear you ask?
Well apparently we can put a wedding necklace (Hindu Tamils get married with a necklace to symbolise marriage, equivalent to a wedding band) around a banana tree, say a month before we get married and chop it in half. Because boys are stupid and we are tricking him into marrying a tree? So that’s the first marriage out his system, and then the second one will be me - tada. I become the older woman. I’m so wrapped up in the chaos of it all, it’s laughable but equally distressing.
He told me about my lucky and unlucky numbers, turns out I live in an unlucky number house.
“Oh but I live here I say.”
“That’s fine you can rent here, but don’t buy it.”
I cry inside as I continue to spend a disproportionate percentage of my income on this mortgage.
So I’m living in an unlucky house I have bought with, the love of my life may or may not leave me for an older woman at any point between the age of 37 and 56. If I don’t have a child before the age of 32, it might be very difficult for me to conceive. I am susceptible to mental health issues (aren’t we all?). I must pay attention to stress (shouldn’t we all?) My mum will live until 78, and her health will decline between 71 and 78. I will change jobs next year, but it may not be exactly what I’m looking for. After a couple of years, things will be alright for me. Alright that is, until the 19 year period when I’m awake at night wondering if my future husband has been taken by a cougar.
We drop astrology uncle off, and I return home to find my boyfriend. It’s time to beef.
“Look, so apparently you fall in love with some older women after the age of 37.”
He’s laughing.
“Wait, are we actually doing this?!”
This is like when I’m annoyed at him for things he’s done in my dreams. Or when he woke me up, and I was partying with Rihanna in my dreams.
“I feel like these things are a self-fulfilling prophecy. You hear these things and you will them into life” Wait what. Have I just told him to find an older woman for his second marriage. Have I guided him there?
Maybe it’s monogamy that’s the issue, not astrology.
With my head so full of all the hypotheticals , and stars in rising houses and planets ruling subperiods, I barely have time and energy for the real world in front of me. I had enough to worry about before I was informed of my ill-fate written in the stars.
Do you reckon if Romeo and Juliet knew what was coming, they could have changed their fate by chopping down a banana tree?
Our pal comes round in the evening, he brings us aubergine parmigiano and homemade bread. He collects a bottle of port that we were looking after in our cellar. The port was made in 1992. The same year my friend, his partner, was born. He’s giving it her as part of her 30th celebrations. How cute. How middle class.
We sit in our freshly cleaned living room, drinking tea. The fresh Moroccan ambre scents climb high in the room above the flame, as I tell him my astrology tales. He’s a man of science. I beg him to dispel these tales. He says I don’t need him to ridicule them.
“You already know how ridiculous it is.” But he asks a really important question.
“Where are you going to get a banana tree from in London?”
On Friday I was getting compliments on my blazer, a black velvet blazer with floral embroidery. I joked, with self depreciating humour, ‘It’s giving Professor Trelawney energy” and proclaimed how I’d rock silver hair. Here I was with my own Professional Astrologist in my living room.
Maybe I’m the older woman that’ll win his affection and interfere with our household.