I hope you are, like me, frantically checking your planetary positions. The stars that foretell our future have vacated the skies, refusing to work from home or twinkle quietly on a pay-cut.
All horoscopes are the same at the moment—inauspicious. From business tycoons to biscuit dunkers, from disco dancers to those with two left feet, from intermittent fasting fans to those who make their own hooch, everyone is staring into their palms.
Those squiggly little lines—the heart line and the fate line and the life line—are shrivelled from too much soap and water.
Gloves lend an added piquancy to the art of palmistry; can palmists see through latex? And why do they clear their throats so many times—or is it a dry cough?
As a nation, we always preferred fortune tellers to journalists to get the real juice. Newspapers tell us what has already happened, astrologers tell us what is going to happen.
When even doctors are saying that no vaccine, cure, pill or powder can save us, we have only our soothsayers.
Numerologists suggest changing the spelling of Covid-19. How about CCVVDD Nineteen, they ask. Or C-XIX? Is that lucky for us or the virus, we don’t know. Parrots, especially toy ones, can be trained to look philosophical and glassy-eyed when asked, ‘What’s my future like?’ Don’t bother with reiki practitioners, who are busy sending all their healing to Amazon, the only company posting profits in these times.
Coffee-cup readers say better start growing your own coffee beans so you always have something hot to drink even if at some point in the future you may not have anything to munch with that coffee.
Also, unless you are a coffee-cup reader yourself, it may be difficult to get hold of one; they are all in the supermarket stocking up on tea.
Read your own future at the bottom of your steel tumblers or chipped china, but do remember to remove mask before sipping.
Scatter shells or cowries now and then while saying ‘abracadabra’; this may fetch up magic beans, which you can sell to Jack at a price. Disinfect any crystal ball before gazing into it with a rapt air, else the tip of your nose may be the first to test positive.
The ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on Ouija boards must be far apart. Social distancing starts by keeping all your fingers on the coin and hoping that the spirit thinks there are 10 people there.
Tarot tells you your future with pictures. The card readers say that tarot can only see the future up to six months.
f they let you book an appointment for the seventh month from the date, why, you are sure to make it until then.Psychics are not picking up the phone. They are all in a secret hide-out, having assembled there prior to the virus’s conception or mutating.
They saw it coming, clairvoyant that they are, and went underground before the planet was divided into red and orange zones. Telepaths are in direct communication with the virus and guiding it to leave them alone; their mental GPS is always on.
But nothing to beat the friendly neighbourhood uncle who will tell you your future for free. Tell him your birthday and wait for the computerised chart he will produce pronto. Once we hear Shukra and Shani and Rahu and Ketu over and over again, we can sleep like a baby.