What the stars don't tell

SOCIETY

What do young people (and many older ones too) read in newspapers "" if anything at all? Those of us in the business of writing certainly hope that there are enough "hooks" within the pages of any publication to make people spend more than a few seconds on things other than "briefs" or trivia, the sports pages or just plain gossip.

Interacting with class 12 students of a school in Delhi some time ago, however, gave me little comfort: Few could remember the day's headlines; most only focused on bizarre TV reports "" UFOs and ghost sightings, ironically arguing all the while against such dodgy reportage! But we will not carp on such issues here.

Instead, trawling the Internet recently threw up a random figure of almost ජ per cent readership" (in America, but surely in India too) for horoscope columns routinely carrried in periodicals.

While many of us say that we read these "just for fun", many do so because of an evolutionary "necessity to individuate", says Philip Levine (not the poet but a well-known astrologer and clinical psychologist in America) in a brilliantly-argued piece on astrology and its relevance.

What that means is that all of us are driven to make sense of our lives, to feel in control, and it is this basic, deeply-instilled drive that is the basis for both astrology as well as modern science which, if you think about it, also predicts outcomes by unravelling universal laws.

Of course, modern science has moved far away from a deterministic model of the universe and at the highest level is closer to the world of imagination than the best of science fiction. Levine argues the same for astrology.

According to him "specific predictions are like a prison. They do not acknowledge the freedom of creative resolution for the individual. They do not even allow for the mystery of life." For him, prediction serves the purpose of encouraging human imagination about "who we are and...who we may yet turn out to be".

My interest in astrology this week, though, is not psychology or social study related, but comes from more personal compulsions. An expert based in Agra "" one of our biggest travel companies is now taking him to Scandinavia, all expenses paid, to promote tourism ""has just done a detailed birth chart for me and come up with some startlingly accurate observations.

The planets point to me being a journalist (albeit an investigative one), being proficient in a foreign language (English, I presume) but also point to a huge temper and "unfeminine" forthrightness that may impact "personal relations", as the astrologer delicately put it.

What has been suggested is a "personality realignment". The same has been suggested for my brother too but for opposite ends "" as a man and as a recently-turned businessman, he needs to be more aggressive!

Unlike what Levine suggests, astrology here is obviously keeping status quo. The astrologer-patriarch, however sincere, is propagating a particular mindset and setting not one's imagination free but trapping one within a particular worldview.

But this is true not just for India. If Hillary Clinton has lost out on the big prize, one of the popular astrology websites says it's for the best: "...there will be more room for her Moon, and we will see a softer, more whole...Hillary Clinton emerge."

(anoothi.vishal@bsmail.in)