Star-struck

“Que Sera Sera, whatever will be,will be... The future is not ours to see, que sera sera…” These happen to be the lyrics of one of my favourite songs despite the fact that far from letting the future be, I jump at every chance to take a peep into what the morrow holds.
I am a sucker for astrology. And palmistry. And numerology. And anything that promises a glimpse of the future. But pursuing, my interests has not been easy, what with my father taking on himself the task of exposing the tribe of fortune- tellers as charlatans, out to make a fast buck at the expense of gullible people like me.
Ours being a democratic family, my parents’ disapproval of my appointments with ‘jyotishijis’ and the expenditure on books on astrology and allied subjects didn’t bother me much. What did cramp my style was the financial crunch that the non-cooperation movement launched by them landed me in. But it didnot snuff out the fascination that the stars held for me.
True, there are many quacks in this business who have given it a bad reputation. All the same I believe that astrology is a complex science, the intricacies of which elude many. But there are a select few who really know their stuff. It is another thing that encounters, however brief, with this rare breed of learned ‘pundits’ can play havoc with one’s pocket.
As a result of my low-budget planning, I have been told some very contradictory things about my future by different authorities in this field. Putting all the pearls of wisdom together I now know that I will either be stinking rich or I will have to sweat for every rupee earned; I will either have the Midas’ touch or all my endeavours to rise in life will come to naught;! will settle either in or abroad, Iwill either bear sons or daughters or both. Broadly speaking, my future holds either this or that. Some revelations, these!
I might have been deflated with this anticlimatic state of affairs had it not sprung upon me the answer to a question that had been titillating me for quite some time.
My mind went back to an argument that I’d had with a friend a few months ago on the futility (from her point of view) of probing the future. Pitted as I was against this pal with the mind and tongue of a lawyer, I was fast losing ground before she dealt this last deadly blow that had me totally lost for words with its logic. She said, ‘Life is like a mystery novel. Why spoil the suspense by turning over to the last page and reading the end?’
Put like that, her words made perfect sense. I said ‘touche’ and bowed out gracefully but losing the argument did nothing to abate my leaning towards crystal gazing. Well, some of us just can’t resist the temptation of turning over to the last page and the prospect of getting a sneak preview of a much talked about movie excites us no end.
Voila. And now I have the answer to my friends’ winning logic. If life is indeed a mystery novel, then far from diluting the suspense element in the story, all that I have gleaned from the many astrologers, palmists, face readers, etc., about my future has only added to the suspense and ‘masala’ value of the story. Isn’t that the stuff best sellers are made of?