February 21, 2023 • 61 mins
Skyline Drive has been selected as an Apple Podcasts Series Essential!
Mangesh travels to India to find a horoscope written about him centuries ago and waiting for him in a shop in rural Tamil Nadu... but it isn't long before everything starts going wrong!
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Warning.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The following episode includes discussion of magical leaves, prophecies, miracles,
big temples, bigger disappointments, black magic, fresh lime, soda, and
snake astronauts. Sensitive listeners, you've been warned.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
How about the heart of Goliad.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Okay, it's the middle of August. I've been in India for
two minutes and everything is falling apart. I want the
complaint number for the universe. I want a manager on
the line because this is not what my astrologer, doctor
Kumar told me. What happened.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
So you're in the right track. Something very profound is
going to happen to you now.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I mean doctor Kumar did predict I'd be going to
India for this show.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
There are lots of things for you to accomplish, including
foreign travels. So go to India because that is all
the young and wisdoms.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And he also said this.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Back in April, I experienced a miracle of astrology. I'd
walked into a random astrologer's office in Queen's and during
my session, the astrologer, doctor Kumar, had told me something
horrible would happen, and he was right. Exactly one month later,
my father passed away and it changed the trajectory of
(01:41):
both this show and my life. And for many people
that would be enough to make them believe in astrology,
but it wasn't. For me. Astrology had told me what
would happen, but I still had no idea what to
do about it. But there was one place that I
really thought could have to answer, these little shops hidden
(02:02):
across India that practiced nadi astrology. The idea is, your
fortune was written on scrolls centuries ago, and if you
can find your scroll, it'll reveal everything, your past, your future,
Who's the person you're supposed to be? Anyway, the moment
I decided to book the trip to see one of
these shops, I call my aunt's suman and ask her
(02:24):
to be my fixer. When I was in high school,
summon Or Sumanaka and my uncle Giant let me live
and intern with them in Bombay for a summer. They
were running this hotview advertising company called Heartbeat, which had
just made huge waves with this racy condom campaigning comedy.
(02:49):
Of course, I sat in on the decidedly less racy
creative meetings, which I loved pitching ideas and jingles for
things like washing the jeans and ceiling fans. That summer
gave high school me a huge boost of confidence. It
had this direct impact on my co founding a magazine
(03:10):
a few years later. But also hanging with Simonika was
just fun. She inspired silliness, like sometimes she'll just decide
it's more enjoyable to have a conversation like you're singing
opera to one another.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Today's shopping lists for me coffee jam, a bag of.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Tea, something sweet, and spaghetti.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
This will be how boring spree.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So I'm eager to hang out with her again. Except
somewhere between Bombay's baggage claim and customs, I get this.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Call right, No, I'm shivering away, so.
Speaker 7 (03:49):
I'm so I'm really so sorry that you're you're ill.
Speaker 8 (03:53):
It was really frustrating because I arranged.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Everything and Somanaka is waiting for the doctor to call back,
and it's very like she has denay fever. Well, I've
been using my mosquito repellent like it's cologne, and so
it's I'm playing it cool on the phone, but this
is me secretly terrified. Not so much about the diseases though,
(04:16):
Dengay and COVID are definitely not great. But more how
I'm going to manage these interviews.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
If they speak English, I'm fine going alone.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Huh oh, he only speaks Hindi. This is a problem
because merry Hindi Boho karab aka, My Hindi is shit.
So I panic, and then I have an idea. What
if hers son plays translator for me? And I realized
(04:46):
this is a ridiculous question. But for the naughty guy,
is there any way I could take Argin with me. Argin,
who's a few years younger than me, was always a
golden child. He was handsome, sensitive, artistic, and musical. But
I lost track of him in our twenties when he
moved to Dubai and started a career there. And then
(05:07):
there was this period where he fully disappeared, this dark
spot which our family doesn't really talk about.
Speaker 9 (05:15):
You'll have to ask him.
Speaker 7 (05:16):
Yeah, you just call him.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, that can be nice. The rain pommels the city
as I take a cab in, but I'm happy to
see them monsoon. It's both wet and sunny outside, and
everything smells green and earthy. As the rain continues to
(05:41):
fall in the lobby, the hotel doors are open, and
if you look just right between the swaying palms and
the mist, you can spot the Arabian Sea. I'm fiddling
with my recording equipment when I spot Argine walking in,
I'm brilliant. I can't tell you how happy I am
(06:03):
to see him. We're both prayer, both dads.
Speaker 10 (06:07):
Now.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
After a quick embrace, I tell him about the chaos
that's welcomed me, how he saved me, because I feel
like that's my entire trip, is like everything's falling apart slowly.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You know.
Speaker 9 (06:19):
The charm of India is that even if everything's breaking down,
everything's fine. You know, everyone has a very nice, relaxed
kind of attitude, like this happens. Yeah, well, you can't
take life so seriously.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
There's a phrase in India chelta, which loosely translates to
don't worry things happen. You hear it a lot because
India is unbridled. No matter how much you try to
will it, it runs on its own schedule. And that's
wonderfully easy to embrace. When you're on vacation, you're not
(06:53):
responsible for what happens. But it's a little more difficult
when You're on an impossible quest to determine what you
should and shouldn't believe for the rest of your life,
and you've given yourself two weeks to do that. But
that's why people come to India right, to go on
some sort of spiritual retreat and find themselves. God, I'm
(07:13):
such a cliche. The only thing I can hope for
now is that doctor Kumar is going to be right twice.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Monga'shatiquador. Welcome to Skyline Drive.
(08:12):
Chapter one, Straight from Shiva's mouth.
Speaker 11 (08:19):
Come from Maya, from Holland.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
This is Bombay. As a kid, Bombay is where I
used to start and end every trip to India. Midnight
arrivals and two a m feasts with relatives who've been
waiting years to see us. The world was bigger than
harder to wrap your arms around, and flights to India
took twenty two hours with multiple layovers and refueling stops.
(08:53):
New York than Paris, than Cairo, than Delhi and only
then Bombay. And it was expensive. We'd save up until
we could go back, and every trip was an event.
This is the library. It's under my aunt's apartment in chamber,
and it's where I used to borrow old comics and
mad magazines. This is the Jim Khanna where I learned
(09:18):
to play snooker. This is Xavier's, where my dad studied
and then didn't. It is more delinquent years. This is
the disco where I learned to dance, and Kyber where
my parents went on their first day. Bombay has always
felt like my city in New York. People correct me
(09:40):
when I say Bombay, but Indians never do. Still, I
toggle between the names depending on my mood. Driving through
the city, it feels like an old friend whose path
is veered from your own, like you don't quite see
eye to eye anymore, but you're also not around each
other for long enough to make a thing of it.
(10:05):
The thing is, I still feel my dad here, like
a fog that descended on the city ages ago and
refused to burn off.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
A great time.
Speaker 12 (10:18):
But I kind of just got into this relationship, so
I don't know how to navigate.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And she's like all cool and sergent, and I are
standing on a street corner in the Santa Cruz neighborhood
of Bombay and we're waiting to step into the naughty
shop that my aunt someone somehow located for us. From
the outside, the place looks tiny and nondescript, something you'd
overlook if you weren't hunting for it.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
How would you describe it since you're not familiar.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
There's a fleet of rickshaws going by us right and
the rain is stopped now, but there were tons of
puddles and.
Speaker 13 (10:54):
Lots of Gawship of the cow seem to do.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Even in central Bombay, cows owned the road.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
We're going to walk into this place to see the Naddy.
Do you know anything about Natty?
Speaker 9 (11:03):
This will be my first experience too, But there's a
lot of fortune telling that happens in India, and some
of it can be pretty authentic, though the Charlatans are
much more in number. Yeah, so I'm hoping this is
a great experience.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
The funny thing about these naughty shops is that as
soon as people tell you to go to one, they'll
also tell you how many fake ones there are. But
this place is well regarded, so I'm hopeful. We walk
through the doorway, leave our shoes in a dusty two
foot by two foot vestibule and then enter reception barefoot.
I don't know what I was expecting, like maybe a
(11:43):
wall full of scrolls, or maybe big brass sculptures of
little known deities and saints, or maybe just some wal art. Instead,
we're standing in a tiny, poorly lit box, a couple
of benches pressed up against the walls, and a desk
facing the door. We give our name to the man
pottering at the desk, and then we just wait. Of course,
(12:08):
of course, the Natti reader Lukashchi peeks out from behind
a wall to tell us he's doing his morning prayers.
He asks us if we like water or tea while
we wait? How incredible would it be if the first
astrologer I met in India located in an instruction manual
for the rest of my life. What if the leaves
hiding in his archive actually contain my life's purpose? I
(12:31):
am genuinely giddy. The prayers take longer than ten minutes,
but Subchelta, hey, it all works. We get ushered into
an even tinier room, though this one actually has personality.
It's bright lime green, with a couple of temple calendars
on the wall, and then Mukish walks in with an
(12:51):
armful of wooden bundles.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
So these are a whole bunch of scrolls.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Actually, Mukeish places the scrolls on his desk and let'sus
inspect them.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
This is oh wow, it's engraved. There's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I've been calling them scrolls, but that feels like the
wrong word. Have you ever seen those pantone booklets with
pages that fan out? These are almost like an ancient
version of that, but longer, made of very thin sheets.
Each scroll is maybe three to four inches wide and
about a foot and a half long, and they're stacked
and bound with maybe thirty or forty per booklet. As
(13:30):
we marvel at the tiny lines of text etched across them,
Mukeish explains the origins and what they said.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
These as just the leaves.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
He tells us, we're etched in the eighteenth century when
a family made copies of the original millennia old predictions.
The engravings were laborious and the script is tiny. But
these scrolls have lasted because the caretakers meticulously rub them
with oil once a year to preserve them. Here's our
gin translating.
Speaker 14 (13:58):
This is coming from Paminan, the oldest language in the world.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And it's coming from the Siddhar tradition.
Speaker 9 (14:05):
The Sas are some of the oldest keepers.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Of knowledge according to Indiana.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Mukish also tells us that these Nadi shastras or sacred
prophecies have a mythological prominence. Lord Shiva, in his infinite wisdom,
shared this knowledge with the goddess Parverti, his wife, and
then she passed it on to Lord Brahma, who passed
the knowledge from the gods to the sages and then
finally to the priests. And to me, it sounds like
(14:34):
a game of celestial telephone. But Mukish, she tells us
these scrolls are actually less prone to human error than
traditional astrology because the words inscribed here comes straight from God.
Speaker 15 (14:46):
So he is only the reader that the information is
directly available and cannot be soiled by human that as.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Such, Mukesh tells us he's been doing this for twenty
nine years. He shows his photos on his phone of
him with clients people he asks us not to share,
but they include some of India's biggest politicians and most
famous scientists. He stresses that he's a humble man. He
is just a reader providing answers for people. In need,
(15:18):
and I believe him. Then he gently reaches for my thumb,
rolls it across a pad of ink, and he presses
it onto a sheet of paper.
Speaker 14 (15:27):
Said that he gave us some methodology directly relating to
the thump pige for which there are under any divisions.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Basically, the whorls on my finger will give the librarians
a clue as to where my leaf might be. There
are thousands and thousands of these bundles of scrolls in
the back, and they're all carefully organized. Sometimes, he says,
the process can take fifteen minutes. Sometimes it takes months.
He also comments on my aunt's absence. He says, part
of the reason she fell ill was that she wasn't
(15:58):
meant to be here today. You can only show up
in this room if it's your destiny. Sometimes people have
car accidents trying to get here. Others apparently get dange.
But since I've made it into this room, he tells me,
this is fate.
Speaker 14 (16:13):
If it's also such that at the end of the day,
this is a Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
There will be problems.
Speaker 14 (16:20):
He said that you must remain in your mind and
your heart quiet, because.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Problems will come, problems will go.
Speaker 14 (16:29):
Yeah, so try and stay calm, but it is destiny.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I stare at the income my thumb, remembering this weird
fact for my days at mental floss that koalas have
fingerprints that could be mistaken for humans, and I laugh
to myself, wondering if my scroll could be mistaken for kualas.
If mukishg walks back in and tells me that I'll
enjoy napping in trees for eighteen hours a day, or
if in my older age, I'll really love feasting on eucalyptus,
(16:59):
then I'll know exactly what went wrong. It's the type
of dumb joke that i'd share with someone thatka, but
it's too dumb to make in this room. Over the
next three weeks that I'm in India, my cash full
look and he'll keep touching face, but he won't find
my scroll. Chapter two, The Thing that Matters.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yea melankluch now mal local k yea local ka ye
swager by Russi The Wall local La local kayak ya
melonli now mal local k ye local ka yea sweger
by us The wall local okay ye lola.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Local language is curious and how it informs and reflects
I deals. The way my family talks is gentle. The
dialect we speak is sing song ye. My old roommate
Lasako used to tell me it was like butter when
she heard me talking to my mom on the phone.
But if it's sweet and overly polite, it's also not direct.
(18:18):
My dad didn't often talk about the sad things or
the hard things. Often he'd skip over the specifics and
allude to difficulties in terms that were vague but capacious.
So if you were to discuss my cousin Argin, he
might say, it was so hard what he went through.
It's really good. He's back now, which is insufficient. My
(18:43):
cousin Argin is back now, And of course i'd heard
the whispers, but he told me his story.
Speaker 12 (18:50):
I'm also going to try and get you up in
a night show.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
It involves him building townships in the Ivory.
Speaker 13 (18:56):
Coast now let's say Ivory Ghost but yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Then coming back to Dubai to help sort a multimillion
dollar deal.
Speaker 13 (19:06):
I actually shifted to the Middle East. Everyone was like,
what's wrong with you?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
It involves a reneged transaction and him taking the fall
for someone else's carelessness.
Speaker 16 (19:16):
I called up and I said can I come back
now that I sent you all money to clear everything?
Speaker 13 (19:21):
He said, come on back, there's no problem. You send
the money, You've cleared everything. I came back and I
got arrested.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
It's him being thrown in some of the region's worst
and most violent prisons. I did so multifficulties, yeah, go
and pretending to be a Buddhist so he wouldn't be
killed for being a Hindu.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Many of them are taking them, but a lot of
them were night.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
It is a story of trauma.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
I kind of collapsed, thank you, spiritual, psychologically.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
And finding a guru who nurtured his resiliency.
Speaker 14 (19:59):
The guru actually we can identify within you whether you're
ready or you're still holding back.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
And it's the story of a miracle.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
Because when I came out, I had had malaria for
fifty days. Wow, without medication. There was no practical reason
in the world I should have done life.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
And another.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Sentence disappeared. They could let me go because they didn't
know what hoever they were doing. And the person that
didn't have any court of any jail sentence.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Some of our chats I taped some of them. I didn't,
but I know he could have died in prison from
beatings or malaria or anything. He could have been there forever,
except somehow a mystic told him his court records would disappear,
and they did, and the mystic assured him the jails
would release him on house arrest, and they did. And
(20:53):
then the Guru told him to go. So we hid,
and he waited, and he waited until in darkness he
was stuffed into the bed of a truck, crammed in
with other terrified bodies, and trafficked across borders until he
found his way home. And now it is him being
here in India with me, and still I've.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Come out of life once again that too many of
times have done that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
It's a way to tell a story without telling a story.
It is vague and capacious and insufficient. But he is
back now and it's the thing that matters. Chapter three.
(21:48):
Believe me, Despite Makeisha's reputation, I had struck out in Bombay,
but luckily I had come with a backup plan to
make a pilgrimage to Chennai. The truth is, I don't
(22:10):
know anything about Chennai. I've never been, and mostly people
in my family have warned me there's no reason to
go not because of anything cultural or political. It just
comes down to the weather. Everyone complains about the intense
heat and humidity, but Chennai, which is located in the
South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is special in terms
(22:32):
of Nadi. According to the story, when the rishi's or
holy men received the wisdom of the gods, they transcribed
it aunt to leaves, and those leaves were protected by
generations of South Indian kings and at some point these
manuscripts ended up in a library in Thunjur, also in
Tamil Nadu, And while some of the copies were loaned
out to other cities like Delhi or Mumbai, the majority
(22:55):
of the authentic Nadi centers stayed local, within driving distance
of Chennai. My friend and story editor Mark has agreed
to come with me, which is a really nice security blanket,
and I also invite Argent.
Speaker 7 (23:08):
Should I get you a ticket to come meet us there?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I would love that.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:12):
Perfect.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
For a minute, we thought Mark wasn't going to make
it to India. His visa got backlogged. There was a
moment where I wanted to tell him not to worry
Chelseda hey, but even I lost faith by this point. Then,
thanks to God or the Indian embassy or possibly doctor Kumar,
it was approved right before he was set to leave.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
It'll be fun, I think. I think the three of
us hanging out will be fun.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, so cool, Okay.
Speaker 11 (23:51):
Judgment record from tomost Conradic Nashville and both the rest dominant.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Anazi and another.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When we land where welcome by our drivers Satish, and
an entire town plastered in chess olympiad posters featuring a
cartoon horse and a DOOTHI because apparently Chennai is India's
chess capital. Besides the posters, which are honestly everywhere, I'm
a little surprised by how little of the language I
can follow. I don't speak a look of Tamil, the
(24:25):
local language here, and neither does Urgent. And the six
or seven languages we can cobble together between the two
of us don't help us in the slightest. So it's
funny how alien I feel in a country where I'm
normally so at home. Speaking of aliens, I should probably
tell you about the strangest person I meet on my
entire journey between Mumbai and Chennai. I had stopped off
(24:48):
in Bangalore, a town filled with relatives. On one of
those days, my aunt Shila, where Shiluaka introduces me to
a medicine man who supposedly channels the spirit of Saint
Augustina and shakes metal keys as he goes into a
trance to identify what's wrong with your body. Sant Augustia,
aside for being the Sintha or enlightened soul who's supposedly
(25:09):
brought the natty leaves to humans by taking dictation from
the gods, is also a patron saint of healing. I
try to go into this meeting with an open mind,
but the healer is a character probably in his sixties,
spry and cocky with a mischievous smile. If I was
trying to cast a South Asian leprechaun for an Indian
(25:30):
Lucky Charms commercial, he'd be on my short list. And
even though his accent is unbelievably thick, like so thick
that I'm working overtime to understand each and every word,
I am captivated by his experience with black magic.
Speaker 13 (25:46):
What they do.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
I mean after power? People know they use a power.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
As he tells it, a neighbor put a voodoo like
curse on him, and he kept losing weight and balding
and losing weight and balding, and no one could tell
him what was wrong with him, until when he was
sickly thin and had been robbed of all his glorious plumage,
he found a talisman buried in his backyard. It was
(26:16):
wrapped in rags and hair and blood, all the telltale
signs of black magic. And when he burned it and
reversed the curse, his neighbors had some of the worst
luck ever. They lost their money, their health, even their home.
He grins wide when he tells me about this instant karma.
I honestly don't know what to make of this guy.
On one hand, my aunt told me that after years
(26:39):
of not being able to conceive, it was this man
who gave her the herbs and tinctures to finally carry
a child. Her story is really powerful, and I've heard
so many others that he's helped or cured. But he
also tells me with absolute certainty that Tamil is the
greatest language bar none, because it's the oldest, which is true,
(27:00):
and the most powerful, which I don't quite understand but okay,
and the most sophisticated, which I start to chuckle at
because now there are a lot of descriptors being used,
and I'm sensing a real air of Tamil hubris here.
But then he brings his argument all together by saying,
and this is the strangest part. It only makes sense
(27:22):
that Tamil is the language that aliens communicate with.
Speaker 5 (27:28):
But all speak Tamil. You need to come link the
long type of day.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
When I look at him quizzically, trying to understand how
exactly we've moved from astrology to aliens, he just assures
me he's right. Then he smiles at me like I'm
an idiot, because obviously aliens speak Tamil.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Okay, if it's.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
That chapter four Snake Astronauts copy.
Speaker 13 (28:15):
This place name is Kanji. Yes, it has two thousand
City of Temple.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Yeah yeah, that's really.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
You're going to.
Speaker 13 (28:28):
Record your six o'clock voices?
Speaker 16 (28:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Good?
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Sorry. I think I had two of those coffee this morning.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
At six am, and it feels so much earlier. We
drive off the hotel lot straight into traffic, and I
can only tell where past the city limits when the
cartoon force posters disappear. Up until this point, it felt
like every advertisement was about chess. But now the billboards
are for toothpaste and soaps and clothes and wedding rings.
(29:05):
And Argent and I both notice how strange it is
that everyone in the ads is incredibly light skinned, and
what a mind fuck that must be. But then I
stopped paying close attention. The drive starts to feel like
every drive I've taken between cities in India, stretches of
rickety shops, stretches of vibrant villages with kids playing outside,
(29:29):
long dusty in betweens, dotted with fields and factories, banks
and petrol stations. There are these trees that line the
roads with red and white trunks painted that way to
prevent termites. And also the show poachers that the Forestry
Service is keeping watch. Mark and I are both healing
the chently. But Argent's two coffees have definitely kicked in.
(29:51):
He peppers us with questions about life in the States,
about recent Supreme Court cases. He talks about India and
all the miracles he's witnessed that have made him a
true believer, and then he says this, if.
Speaker 12 (30:06):
You dougy hindu Vedic texts, you'll understand that there's a
lot of interaction between snake culture and human culture, and
there's a lot of snake worship that happens in India.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Okay, so I'm going to pause right here to say
I don't know what's going on with all the snake talk,
but they keep coming up again and again, and it
feels like it should mean something. The way George in
our last episode saw a snake as a sign that
he could be good to himself, that he could shed
his trauma and transform the way my mom experienced snakes
(30:48):
as a curse, something she had to transcend with mysterious prayers.
And now Argin is talking about how he read early
Hindu texts about snakes as these superior carriers of a
greater wisdom. And he starts talking about one account you
read from a mystic who claims to have seen these
astral snakes.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
He said that his guru got him to meet one
of the.
Speaker 12 (31:18):
Incoming astronauts space snake astronauts.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
Huh, yeah, it feels unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
It's but just the idea of a snake astronaut.
Speaker 13 (31:37):
Yeah, well, I mean like a traveler.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
Absolutely, he doesn't.
Speaker 12 (31:41):
Wear he didn't have to wear a space suit, and
when you read the book, he says, it's it's not
possible for me to explain what exactly I saw, But
the snakes are very different than what you all imagine, and.
Speaker 13 (32:01):
And all I can describe to you is it is
blue and glowing.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
In my cursory understanding of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, these
serpent like beings rule over three planes filled with multiple planets,
and they're worshiped as the keepers of both incredible treasure
and concealed wisdom treasure texts, as one book puts it,
As we drive further away from Chennai, I feel like
(32:30):
they're this harbinger of what we're about to learn.
Speaker 13 (32:34):
The snakes don't rule over Hell, they rule over a
different set of planets, and.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
They're supposed to be very opulent creatures.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Is this in this book versus a different book? Mark,
who's been quiet this whole time, perks up at this
talk of snake astronauts. He has so many questions about
the origins and about how much Urgent could actually believe
in this, but he mostly just smirks and saves his
commentary for later.
Speaker 10 (33:02):
Yeah, that's that's the problem that I have with That's
the issue whether or not they wear space suits. First
of all, let me imagine this space suits.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Before long we realize where in Kanji Forum. The temple
town is famous for its beautiful shrines and architecture, along
with its saris, which are gorgeous bolts of rich silk
embroidered with thread dipped in gold. I sit up to
look at the surroundings, noticing these little altars side by
side with banana stands. All of a sudden, so these
(33:42):
turns in and we pull up to one of the
most gorgeous temples I have ever seen. It towers over
the city and I crane my neck to see where
its crown touches the sky. I later learned it's called
Akumbarra short temple. Records of its initials struck date back
to three hundred BCE, and it is stunning like a
(34:04):
sixty meter tall cigarette, except instead of a giant, blocky pyramid.
It has eleven stories of relief work with intricately carved
pillars and depictions of myths and avatars. If the greatest
churches and cathedrals are meant to fill you with awe,
to make you feel humbled in the presence of a
(34:26):
greater beauty. Then this temple does the trick. I can't
wait to see the inside, to meet the temple leaf readers.
But as soon as I try to hop out, seth
these motions me to stay inside. He steps out and
gestures and a man nearby, and the man just shakes
his head. It's clear we're in the wrong place. So
something jumps back in and then we drive.
Speaker 14 (34:51):
And drive.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Fifteen minutes later, we're parked in this dusty lot in
front of a cinderblock wall that feels like it's in
the middle of nowhere. If there wasn't this big yellow
sign outside declaring that this was a house of astrology,
I would have assumed it was a storage facility, or
maybe a clinic. Whatever it is, It's No eleven story
(35:13):
at Carved Temple. In the chapter five the Waiting Game,
(35:36):
we swap mosquitoes and reapply repellent. We make idle conversation,
We look at our phones and like kids in a car,
asking over and over, are we there yet? I walked
from the patio into the little reception area to see
if we can get started. Origin goes in a few
times too. After a few hours of waiting, they finally
(35:59):
take my thumbprint. Mugish Muggige, Yeah, I mean, I mean
born in America, will follow me.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
My father's name is Lummish.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
They put us in the queue and then we wait
some more. Every ten or fifteen minutes, someone's name is called,
and one of the men. Because it is weirdly almost
all men here, a mix of middle aged business owners
and young people who look anxious to get married, they
start disappearing inside. When it's finally our turn, we follow
(36:37):
the receptionist to the second level. Despite the thatched roof,
it's actually way more modern up here and welcoming. There're
these sliding doors with little enclosures where people are doing
one on ones and argin, Mark and I all squeeze
into a room. When our man finally walks in, he's
wearing vibithy, these three stripes across his four head, applied
(37:01):
with sacred ash, often associated with priests. He also has
a big pile of scrolls in his arm. Now this
is going to be hard to follow, but he asks
if I speak Tamil, and then in broken English, he
tells us he needs to find my palm leaf first.
He indicates how the scrolls are like a card catalog.
Your thumbprint helps you find your scroll. Your scroll helps
(37:22):
you find your full horoscope, which is also hidden somewhere
in the stacks in the back.
Speaker 17 (37:27):
I am really okay, I am reading even name father,
named mother, named fultater or not. To relieves the confound, our.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Reader starts reading the tamil off the scroll. He asks,
your father's dead and your mother's living. I respond yes,
after I com from and I want to be a father.
Speaker 7 (37:48):
To merit.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
They're looking for an exact match, the perfect card in
the card catalog, and each time the details of the
scroll don't line up with my life, he slaps into
the back of the bundle and moves on to the
next You were married and living with your wife. Yes,
your mother had two marriages. Ever, no smack. The leaf
(38:09):
goes into the back of the pile. Sometimes, when he
starts reading a leaf and sees it doesn't match, he
doesn't even ask. He just moves it to the back,
and this swording keeps going. He asks if I'm forty five,
and I just laugh. I am enjoying all of this,
feeling like there's real momentum, and I tell him no,
I'm forty two. We keep going, and some of it
(38:31):
gets confusing, like he asks if I have two sons,
I have two children. I mean I have a son
and one kid who's non binary. He slaps it to
the back of the pile. But I'm a little dizzy,
trying to stay on top of his accent and trying
(38:52):
to make sure I'm answering the questions correctly until he
says this, No, I have one sister nor brother and
married it.
Speaker 17 (39:02):
Yeah, yes, Marriagy by engagement yes, married living me through white, Yes,
another one one sister, yes, sister.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
Mary, unmarried it.
Speaker 17 (39:15):
You were married and living with the white bothered the
mother leaving, you were in private job working.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
And dingo, that is it. He has found it. After
fifteen hours of being on planes, two weeks of hunting
through stacks in Mumbai, another hour long flight, a two
hour drive, and three hours of waiting on a humid
patio that would give most steam rooms an inferiority complex.
We see this man for twenty minutes and he just
(39:43):
finds it. Urgent thinks I'm blessed. Mark looks more skeptical,
and the three of us we file downstairs.
Speaker 7 (39:53):
That's what happens to man.
Speaker 18 (39:56):
So the tough part is done, which is he had
to be immatched. We weren't able to get him matched
in Bombay. They didn't they couldn't find them. Yeah, and
now you've got the real Now the part will be
that you will be broadcasting to America your future.
Speaker 6 (40:18):
Ship.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Right Chapter six, Son of a Milkman. We wait outside
(40:45):
a little more and then we're called in and walked
through this long hallway to a room in the back
which faces onto a courtyard. The complex is bigger than
I'd realized, with places to do poojas and with rooms
to rent. As we sit down, mister Kumar, the same
man from reception, double checks that this is the right file.
(41:07):
He goes through some details about my thumb, that I'm
a Brahmin, that I was born on May first, and
then he reads my file.
Speaker 7 (41:20):
And family.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I'm listening keenly, but nothing he says here is interesting.
He says, my mother may get ill, but medicines will help.
He says, my sister's engagement has already taken place, and
in the near future she will get married the company.
(41:43):
But here's the thing. While we're sitting in this room,
I have one of those kaiser SoSE moments from the
usual suspects. In the whole scroll section, I've given away
all my details. Is your mom's name Chitre, No, it's Lalita.
Is your father living, No, he's passed. Is your sister married, Well,
she's engaged. And as I realized this, everything from here
(42:07):
on becomes tainted, Like the predictions are so mundane. You'll
have a good life, you'll get sick, you'll have medicine
and get better, your children will have a good education,
You'll make decent money, You'll have good relationships with others.
I mean, it's just a mishmash of vague things that
happen to everyone, and details I've already confirmed. In some ways,
(42:29):
the most surprising thing he says is this line. I
laugh because in some ways this is both the most
ridiculous thing and the most specific thing about me today.
I have never had a new car or a luxurious
one since high school. I've just driven a series of beaters,
(42:50):
and man, I would love a car that starts when
you wanted to. Anyway, The rest of the reading is
more of the same. Is basically he's up selling us here.
What I got was the starter pack. We've already paid
(43:10):
for that part, and we put down a healthy tip
on top on his insistence.
Speaker 7 (43:16):
Take like Google pay or anything. Okay, I'll figure that out.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And now, if I want to know more about any
specific part of my life, the section of the leaf
that deals with my career, or my health, or my
kids or one of like nine more things, we will
need to pay more. I step outside to chat with Mark.
Speaker 7 (43:51):
It's confused.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
The truth is I was more than confused. I was
feeling deflated after that experience in Mumbai. We had spent
so much time trying to figure out the perfect naughty
place to visit. I'd come all this way and dragged
Mark and Argin here because this is where I thought
I had the best chance of finding my fortune, and
(44:14):
then nothing.
Speaker 10 (44:18):
It feels like kind of a bus Yeah, it's like
I don't expect grand revelations every time.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
There's a line I didn't catch on tape, but it
stuck with me. Mark says, you already got your miracle
of astrology. You can't expect a second one. You can't
expect it every time. When I go back in the
reader opens the chapter about my last life, he says
(44:45):
I had been born the son of a milkman in
the milk business, you know, in a typical milk vendor.
Family was.
Speaker 13 (44:54):
No just part of it.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
Stirred up with you.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
He tells me that I slept around, and I think
he's saying that I gave my wife STDs. I also
treated my parents horribly and didn't support them. I cheated
my business partners. And I am nodding vigorously and enjoying
this because this part is kind of the realist to me,
(45:23):
Like every time someone tells me they've seen a psychic
or a reader and had some revelation in a dream,
they're always a king or queen in their past life.
And to me, it's like, there are not that many
kings in history. How can all of us have been kings?
So weirdly, this is finally a storyline I could buy
into being here smiling at the story. It reminds me
(45:48):
of this thing. The writer Shrethi Ravindrin, who grew up
in Chennai, once wrote how she loves to read and
reread her horoscope because to her, it's like a very
souoning work of fan fiction. And she told me about
how sometimes the horoscope feels accurate and sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 8 (46:08):
She will be a girl of a restless nature. She
will be a girl of a self destructive timidity her moods.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
But if she puts it during times of upheaval, it
reassures me to read these typewritten pages, to be reminded
that one long dead man took the measure of my
life and said it was not all bad.
Speaker 8 (46:27):
She will brood over the memories of the past. She
will brood on fancied slight, very unflattering, but also like
really specific, and I'm afraid to say, like super accurate.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
I do love this Milkman stuff, not because I believe it,
but because I love that someone has created a new
mythology for me, a new origin story for the problems
I'm facing, And now they've given me a new way
to remedy those problems too, albeit through a few too
many visits to temples for my liking. Still it is
(47:03):
pure fun, But when I think about it later, it
won't scratch the itch I actually have, Because, like Shriti,
I wanted to walk into the shop and let someone
take the measure of my life. I'd hope that they
would find my leaf and look into my eyes and
with complete certainty tell me that my life wouldn't be
(47:24):
all bad. And although I made the journey here, and
although those words were said in the end, I just
couldn't believe them. Chapter seven, spinning its to be thirty
(47:48):
in the morning. I cut tafteen and stuck in stot anyone.
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I'm curiously the demon's walking in my head.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I can't do shleep.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
I've gotta go back to sleep.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Right now.
Speaker 5 (48:04):
Let him make this as a statement.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
The drive home from the Naughty Shop is somehow so long,
and I feel the clock ticking. We have maybe five
days left on this trip, and I have not felt
the magic here. Nothing has brought me closer to believing.
Margin senses my tension Mark too. I tell Mark, maybe
we should raise the Varnasi in northern India, even though
(48:28):
my astrologer friend he warned me it was like a
Disneyland of astrology.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
If we wanted to do some main totals. When we
hit that, you could actually like.
Speaker 15 (48:38):
This and fly to like the knives.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
There's a university there and a lot of astrology PhDs
and also con men, so maybe there's some fun to
be had. Or we could do what the Nadi reader
told me to do for penance for my sins. As
a milkman, I could go to an offering at a
Hanuman temple, and I have a specific like one in mind.
Speaker 7 (49:01):
My aunt and family.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Lived in this place, and hopefully that's where my grandfather
finds high through The.
Speaker 7 (49:08):
House is called gin house.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
I don't know. I mean, I am just throwing ideas
at the wall. We stopped for lunch at this place.
Our drivers at these shloves where they serve giant heaping
plates of rice on banana leaves with curries and chutneys
ladled on top. We eat with our hands in the
traditional style, shoveling the piping hot food into our mouths.
I paaramine with the thumbs up an Indian coke of sorts,
(49:34):
And while the food fills our bellies, it doesn't calm
my nerves, and I grow increasingly irritated about my journey
to the naughty Shop. A few days later, when I
start reviewing my tape, I realize I've missed a crucial detail.
A woman i'd interviewed previously named Malti Das had walked
(49:55):
into a naughty shop a skeptic and walked out a believer,
not because of what she heard from the reader exactly,
but because of what she saw, I.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
Was looking very disinterested. So that man asked me, man,
can you read tamb It? I said, yes, very well,
I can read tamb It. Then he started showing the
falm leave to me up to a point. Then he said,
that's your father's name start with A. They said yes,
and then I could see the name written there of
(50:25):
my mother in law, Arakiaswami in devil. That was when
it hit me, really, you know, I thought, Okay, there
is something here.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
They're not bluffing.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Then I feel like an idiot. I hadn't thought to
photograph my leaf. I mean, I don't know if they
would have let me, but maybe there was a miracle
lurking in there. Not in the prophecy, which I thought
was so vague, but in the sorting system. Was there
something beautiful I had missed? When Mark and I talked
(50:55):
about it later at our hotel bar, Mark is a
different perspective on the play.
Speaker 7 (51:01):
It's basically like a magic trek that we couldn't.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
See the word video.
Speaker 7 (51:07):
Yeah, it was like hearing it was like hearing a
magic trek.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
As he puts it, it doesn't matter if it's real
because the shop is in the business of hope. And
I think about how he's right, Like, there's so many
people that come in such desperate situations, right, Like if
you hear you're like gonna have a comfortable life, You're
gonna get a new car, and you're gonna like, you.
Speaker 10 (51:26):
Know, like four years watch her out.
Speaker 7 (51:29):
Yeah, I mean like like that probably like sustains a.
Speaker 10 (51:33):
Lot of people, right, that would be such a big
deal to a certain kind of person.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Chapter eight, Double Dose. Months later, my memories of Chennai
are blur early morning, strong coffee, ceiling fans that are
no match for the heat. But mostly it's just car ride.
Hours in the car with Argin, talking about philosophy and
(52:07):
science and our childhoods, the moments we were too proud,
the moments that humbled us, and how we got here.
If Bombay felt like an old friend whose path had
diverged from my own, then Argin was like a close
friend I'd lost and then found again. And it's funny
that he's here with me because I'd forgotten that Argin
(52:30):
had been warned by his Guru that he should not,
at any cost dabble in astrology. Something I'm reminded of
when my wife Lizzie calls Lilie, wait, he'll for your Answergra.
Speaker 13 (52:45):
Well, he here is my brother at the end of
the day, and I wasn't going to abandon him.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
But there's a phrase I grew up using in India
cousin brother and cousin sister. In joint families. You grew
up thinking of your cousins as closer than just a cousin.
You tie rocky to them or these promised threads that
promise love and protection, and you treat your cousins like
their siblings because they are in a way. And the
(53:14):
fact that Argin is here with me now, despite the
oceans between us, despite the time that's past.
Speaker 9 (53:21):
But having said that, this is my first experience with
astrology as well, so I was actually warned not to
dabble in these kind of.
Speaker 13 (53:32):
Subjects.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Is subjecting you to things you've been.
Speaker 13 (53:38):
Avoid it just you know, venting you with yeah, tending
you with taboo subjects.
Speaker 5 (53:44):
Shame, shame, that's right.
Speaker 13 (53:45):
He's the bad influence in my life.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
Argin has told me what he's been through, but I
can't imagine it. It is too horrifying. And I admire
him so much, how he somehow pulled together his family
and picked up the shards of his life, and how
he keeps moving forward with such grace and humility. If
my days in Chennai were a blur of endless car rides,
(54:10):
the final pit stops were always a seat at the
hotel bar. Sometimes it was me and Mark, sometimes it
was Argin and me, and occasionally it was the three
of us sitting in a dimly lit patio, chewing away
mosquitoes as we sit on these fresh lime sodas. On
the tougher days, I'd cut the soda with gin and
(54:31):
bumb a cigarette off of Virgin. And on one of
those nights, Argin told us about his sud Sati, the
seven and a half years of bad luck brought on
by Saturn that everyone experiences at some point according to
Vade the Astrology, and his seven and a half years.
He tells us, we're considered especially bad.
Speaker 16 (54:53):
Oh well, I experienced a double sub sorty almost and
mine pretty much game to s So I've had really
shit luckily, really shit lucky.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
Until this moment, Argin has never once talked about how
difficult this period has been. He's talked about it matter
of factly he's talked about embracing the future, but this
is the first time he lets us in on just
how hard his life one but my.
Speaker 16 (55:20):
Name DA last year and I'm still trying to understand
the difference, the difference. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out
what went right, and I know there are certain things
that have changed, but I can't. I can't feel it
in a physical form.
Speaker 7 (55:39):
Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
I didn't really because this is India. Argent jokingly links
his misfortune back to what he must have done in
his past lives.
Speaker 13 (55:49):
I obviously that much more than this pass against.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
I mean, Argin does not believe in astrology. I never
asked him to get a reading, but trology has happened
to him. The shadow of that seven and a half
years of bad luck. It's been lurking in the back
of his mind. There's another moment that I can't stop
thinking about. From the bar, after I'd turned off my recorder,
(56:15):
Mark says that too often when a story isn't going right,
the impulse is to speed up to book as many
interviews as you can. It's that old sailor's adage. If
you can't tie a good knot tie a lot of them,
but Mark encourages the opposite. He says, I need to
slow down. He says, if I'm going to resolve anything
(56:37):
about my life about my dad, it is not going
to be with him or our June, and it's not
going to be through astrology. Astrology was never the point.
And he tells me to make a pilgrimage to where
I feel most connected to my family and to my past,
to just sit with that experience. And I think about that.
(57:02):
I really do, but I don't listen because I'm not
thinking clearly. I haven't been thinking clearly this whole time,
this whole show. Instead, I asked Sathige to race me
across the state. I drag ardin along, I collect interviews
that will not add up too much, and then just
(57:33):
when my time in India is nearly up, I realize
Mark is right, and I spend sixteen hours in a
car to find meaning where I should have been looking
all along. Thank you so much for not forgetting about
(58:11):
our little show. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeart Podcast. This show is hosted and written by
me Mongay Schatigur. And yes, I know this episode was
so long, but I'm about to make it longer with
these credits. Mary Full of Sandy is our supervising producer.
Speaker 7 (58:28):
How would we get the show out without Mary?
Speaker 3 (58:30):
The answer is we would not. Meetropanshahi is our delightful
producer and conducted the interview with Shirty. Mark Lotto is
my excellent story editor and was such a trooper for
suffering with me in India in a city I knew
nothing about, though I did feed him lots of paratas.
This episode was also produced by the insanely talented Anna Rubinova.
(58:51):
I don't know how we could have got through this
much tape without her. Anna, you were a boon to
the show. The super sweet Drove Chevarrau hit the streets
for this episode and collected extra tape for me. This
episode was mixed by my pal at Soundboard. Oh my
gosh the Warning. The warning was read by producer extraordinaire
Nadia Raymond, who won the first ever Audio Pulitzer along
(59:13):
with the team at This American Life. Nadia wants you
to listen to TL's next episode, but I want you
to know she's a badass. I've got to thank my
pal Botany for the theme song and the compositions. Also
Azadi Records. How can I thank Azadi enough? Also my
friends Himanshu Suri, Peter, Matthew Bauer and Motor Sails. And
I can't forget my Palavage aka Lush Life for lending
(59:35):
me his tunes as well. I am dropping a second
mixtape with more music from Skyline Drive Volume two. It'll
be in the show links, please go check it out.
Additional production and research support for my love Lizzie Jacobs,
Someone Rock around the Clock, Buckshie and my beautiful cousin
Arjin Buckshi Arjun.
Speaker 5 (59:55):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
This show is executive produced from iHeart, My Good Palace,
Nikki Etour and Katrina Norvel and a shout out to
Nikki's baby girl Pearl and also Enzo Enzo, I have
not forgotten about you, buddy. Also got to thank my
incredible partners from Kaleidoscope, Oswad Listen, Kate Osborne, Costos Linos,
Vahini Shouri. You inspire me every day Special thanks to Ali,
(01:00:21):
Nathan Connell, Will and Bob at iHeart for getting behind
the show, Barkley Sorrow Vinshanta, my Kiddos, Henry and Ruby
my family everywhere, and as always, a big big thank
you to my Amma and my dad, Lalita and Umesh particular,
who I thank my lucky stars for. We have one
(01:00:41):
more episode to go, so thank you so much for listening.
He can't tell you how much it means to me
to start
Warning.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The following episode includes discussion of magical leaves, prophecies, miracles,
big temples, bigger disappointments, black magic, fresh lime, soda, and
snake astronauts. Sensitive listeners, you've been warned.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
How about the heart of Goliad.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Okay, it's the middle of August. I've been in India for
two minutes and everything is falling apart. I want the
complaint number for the universe. I want a manager on
the line because this is not what my astrologer, doctor
Kumar told me. What happened.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
So you're in the right track. Something very profound is
going to happen to you now.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I mean doctor Kumar did predict I'd be going to
India for this show.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
There are lots of things for you to accomplish, including
foreign travels. So go to India because that is all
the young and wisdoms.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And he also said this.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Back in April, I experienced a miracle of astrology. I'd
walked into a random astrologer's office in Queen's and during
my session, the astrologer, doctor Kumar, had told me something
horrible would happen, and he was right. Exactly one month later,
my father passed away and it changed the trajectory of
(01:41):
both this show and my life. And for many people
that would be enough to make them believe in astrology,
but it wasn't. For me. Astrology had told me what
would happen, but I still had no idea what to
do about it. But there was one place that I
really thought could have to answer, these little shops hidden
(02:02):
across India that practiced nadi astrology. The idea is, your
fortune was written on scrolls centuries ago, and if you
can find your scroll, it'll reveal everything, your past, your future,
Who's the person you're supposed to be? Anyway, the moment
I decided to book the trip to see one of
these shops, I call my aunt's suman and ask her
(02:24):
to be my fixer. When I was in high school,
summon Or Sumanaka and my uncle Giant let me live
and intern with them in Bombay for a summer. They
were running this hotview advertising company called Heartbeat, which had
just made huge waves with this racy condom campaigning comedy.
(02:49):
Of course, I sat in on the decidedly less racy
creative meetings, which I loved pitching ideas and jingles for
things like washing the jeans and ceiling fans. That summer
gave high school me a huge boost of confidence. It
had this direct impact on my co founding a magazine
(03:10):
a few years later. But also hanging with Simonika was
just fun. She inspired silliness, like sometimes she'll just decide
it's more enjoyable to have a conversation like you're singing
opera to one another.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Today's shopping lists for me coffee jam, a bag of.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Tea, something sweet, and spaghetti.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
This will be how boring spree.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So I'm eager to hang out with her again. Except
somewhere between Bombay's baggage claim and customs, I get this.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Call right, No, I'm shivering away, so.
Speaker 7 (03:49):
I'm so I'm really so sorry that you're you're ill.
Speaker 8 (03:53):
It was really frustrating because I arranged.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Everything and Somanaka is waiting for the doctor to call back,
and it's very like she has denay fever. Well, I've
been using my mosquito repellent like it's cologne, and so
it's I'm playing it cool on the phone, but this
is me secretly terrified. Not so much about the diseases though,
(04:16):
Dengay and COVID are definitely not great. But more how
I'm going to manage these interviews.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
If they speak English, I'm fine going alone.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Huh oh, he only speaks Hindi. This is a problem
because merry Hindi Boho karab aka, My Hindi is shit.
So I panic, and then I have an idea. What
if hers son plays translator for me? And I realized
(04:46):
this is a ridiculous question. But for the naughty guy,
is there any way I could take Argin with me. Argin,
who's a few years younger than me, was always a
golden child. He was handsome, sensitive, artistic, and musical. But
I lost track of him in our twenties when he
moved to Dubai and started a career there. And then
(05:07):
there was this period where he fully disappeared, this dark
spot which our family doesn't really talk about.
Speaker 9 (05:15):
You'll have to ask him.
Speaker 7 (05:16):
Yeah, you just call him.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, that can be nice. The rain pommels the city
as I take a cab in, but I'm happy to
see them monsoon. It's both wet and sunny outside, and
everything smells green and earthy. As the rain continues to
(05:41):
fall in the lobby, the hotel doors are open, and
if you look just right between the swaying palms and
the mist, you can spot the Arabian Sea. I'm fiddling
with my recording equipment when I spot Argine walking in,
I'm brilliant. I can't tell you how happy I am
(06:03):
to see him. We're both prayer, both dads.
Speaker 10 (06:07):
Now.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
After a quick embrace, I tell him about the chaos
that's welcomed me, how he saved me, because I feel
like that's my entire trip, is like everything's falling apart slowly.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You know.
Speaker 9 (06:19):
The charm of India is that even if everything's breaking down,
everything's fine. You know, everyone has a very nice, relaxed
kind of attitude, like this happens. Yeah, well, you can't
take life so seriously.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
There's a phrase in India chelta, which loosely translates to
don't worry things happen. You hear it a lot because
India is unbridled. No matter how much you try to
will it, it runs on its own schedule. And that's
wonderfully easy to embrace. When you're on vacation, you're not
(06:53):
responsible for what happens. But it's a little more difficult
when You're on an impossible quest to determine what you
should and shouldn't believe for the rest of your life,
and you've given yourself two weeks to do that. But
that's why people come to India right, to go on
some sort of spiritual retreat and find themselves. God, I'm
(07:13):
such a cliche. The only thing I can hope for
now is that doctor Kumar is going to be right twice.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Monga'shatiquador. Welcome to Skyline Drive.
(08:12):
Chapter one, Straight from Shiva's mouth.
Speaker 11 (08:19):
Come from Maya, from Holland.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
This is Bombay. As a kid, Bombay is where I
used to start and end every trip to India. Midnight
arrivals and two a m feasts with relatives who've been
waiting years to see us. The world was bigger than
harder to wrap your arms around, and flights to India
took twenty two hours with multiple layovers and refueling stops.
(08:53):
New York than Paris, than Cairo, than Delhi and only
then Bombay. And it was expensive. We'd save up until
we could go back, and every trip was an event.
This is the library. It's under my aunt's apartment in chamber,
and it's where I used to borrow old comics and
mad magazines. This is the Jim Khanna where I learned
(09:18):
to play snooker. This is Xavier's, where my dad studied
and then didn't. It is more delinquent years. This is
the disco where I learned to dance, and Kyber where
my parents went on their first day. Bombay has always
felt like my city in New York. People correct me
(09:40):
when I say Bombay, but Indians never do. Still, I
toggle between the names depending on my mood. Driving through
the city, it feels like an old friend whose path
is veered from your own, like you don't quite see
eye to eye anymore, but you're also not around each
other for long enough to make a thing of it.
(10:05):
The thing is, I still feel my dad here, like
a fog that descended on the city ages ago and
refused to burn off.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
A great time.
Speaker 12 (10:18):
But I kind of just got into this relationship, so
I don't know how to navigate.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And she's like all cool and sergent, and I are
standing on a street corner in the Santa Cruz neighborhood
of Bombay and we're waiting to step into the naughty
shop that my aunt someone somehow located for us. From
the outside, the place looks tiny and nondescript, something you'd
overlook if you weren't hunting for it.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
How would you describe it since you're not familiar.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
There's a fleet of rickshaws going by us right and
the rain is stopped now, but there were tons of
puddles and.
Speaker 13 (10:54):
Lots of Gawship of the cow seem to do.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Even in central Bombay, cows owned the road.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
We're going to walk into this place to see the Naddy.
Do you know anything about Natty?
Speaker 9 (11:03):
This will be my first experience too, But there's a
lot of fortune telling that happens in India, and some
of it can be pretty authentic, though the Charlatans are
much more in number. Yeah, so I'm hoping this is
a great experience.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
The funny thing about these naughty shops is that as
soon as people tell you to go to one, they'll
also tell you how many fake ones there are. But
this place is well regarded, so I'm hopeful. We walk
through the doorway, leave our shoes in a dusty two
foot by two foot vestibule and then enter reception barefoot.
I don't know what I was expecting, like maybe a
(11:43):
wall full of scrolls, or maybe big brass sculptures of
little known deities and saints, or maybe just some wal art. Instead,
we're standing in a tiny, poorly lit box, a couple
of benches pressed up against the walls, and a desk
facing the door. We give our name to the man
pottering at the desk, and then we just wait. Of course,
(12:08):
of course, the Natti reader Lukashchi peeks out from behind
a wall to tell us he's doing his morning prayers.
He asks us if we like water or tea while
we wait? How incredible would it be if the first
astrologer I met in India located in an instruction manual
for the rest of my life. What if the leaves
hiding in his archive actually contain my life's purpose? I
(12:31):
am genuinely giddy. The prayers take longer than ten minutes,
but Subchelta, hey, it all works. We get ushered into
an even tinier room, though this one actually has personality.
It's bright lime green, with a couple of temple calendars
on the wall, and then Mukish walks in with an
(12:51):
armful of wooden bundles.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
So these are a whole bunch of scrolls.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Actually, Mukeish places the scrolls on his desk and let'sus
inspect them.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
This is oh wow, it's engraved. There's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I've been calling them scrolls, but that feels like the
wrong word. Have you ever seen those pantone booklets with
pages that fan out? These are almost like an ancient
version of that, but longer, made of very thin sheets.
Each scroll is maybe three to four inches wide and
about a foot and a half long, and they're stacked
and bound with maybe thirty or forty per booklet. As
(13:30):
we marvel at the tiny lines of text etched across them,
Mukeish explains the origins and what they said.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
These as just the leaves.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
He tells us, we're etched in the eighteenth century when
a family made copies of the original millennia old predictions.
The engravings were laborious and the script is tiny. But
these scrolls have lasted because the caretakers meticulously rub them
with oil once a year to preserve them. Here's our
gin translating.
Speaker 14 (13:58):
This is coming from Paminan, the oldest language in the world.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And it's coming from the Siddhar tradition.
Speaker 9 (14:05):
The Sas are some of the oldest keepers.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Of knowledge according to Indiana.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Mukish also tells us that these Nadi shastras or sacred
prophecies have a mythological prominence. Lord Shiva, in his infinite wisdom,
shared this knowledge with the goddess Parverti, his wife, and
then she passed it on to Lord Brahma, who passed
the knowledge from the gods to the sages and then
finally to the priests. And to me, it sounds like
(14:34):
a game of celestial telephone. But Mukish, she tells us
these scrolls are actually less prone to human error than
traditional astrology because the words inscribed here comes straight from God.
Speaker 15 (14:46):
So he is only the reader that the information is
directly available and cannot be soiled by human that as.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Such, Mukesh tells us he's been doing this for twenty
nine years. He shows his photos on his phone of
him with clients people he asks us not to share,
but they include some of India's biggest politicians and most
famous scientists. He stresses that he's a humble man. He
is just a reader providing answers for people. In need,
(15:18):
and I believe him. Then he gently reaches for my thumb,
rolls it across a pad of ink, and he presses
it onto a sheet of paper.
Speaker 14 (15:27):
Said that he gave us some methodology directly relating to
the thump pige for which there are under any divisions.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Basically, the whorls on my finger will give the librarians
a clue as to where my leaf might be. There
are thousands and thousands of these bundles of scrolls in
the back, and they're all carefully organized. Sometimes, he says,
the process can take fifteen minutes. Sometimes it takes months.
He also comments on my aunt's absence. He says, part
of the reason she fell ill was that she wasn't
(15:58):
meant to be here today. You can only show up
in this room if it's your destiny. Sometimes people have
car accidents trying to get here. Others apparently get dange.
But since I've made it into this room, he tells me,
this is fate.
Speaker 14 (16:13):
If it's also such that at the end of the day,
this is a Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
There will be problems.
Speaker 14 (16:20):
He said that you must remain in your mind and
your heart quiet, because.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Problems will come, problems will go.
Speaker 14 (16:29):
Yeah, so try and stay calm, but it is destiny.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I stare at the income my thumb, remembering this weird
fact for my days at mental floss that koalas have
fingerprints that could be mistaken for humans, and I laugh
to myself, wondering if my scroll could be mistaken for kualas.
If mukishg walks back in and tells me that I'll
enjoy napping in trees for eighteen hours a day, or
if in my older age, I'll really love feasting on eucalyptus,
(16:59):
then I'll know exactly what went wrong. It's the type
of dumb joke that i'd share with someone thatka, but
it's too dumb to make in this room. Over the
next three weeks that I'm in India, my cash full
look and he'll keep touching face, but he won't find
my scroll. Chapter two, The Thing that Matters.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yea melankluch now mal local k yea local ka ye
swager by Russi The Wall local La local kayak ya
melonli now mal local k ye local ka yea sweger
by us The wall local okay ye lola.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Local language is curious and how it informs and reflects
I deals. The way my family talks is gentle. The
dialect we speak is sing song ye. My old roommate
Lasako used to tell me it was like butter when
she heard me talking to my mom on the phone.
But if it's sweet and overly polite, it's also not direct.
(18:18):
My dad didn't often talk about the sad things or
the hard things. Often he'd skip over the specifics and
allude to difficulties in terms that were vague but capacious.
So if you were to discuss my cousin Argin, he
might say, it was so hard what he went through.
It's really good. He's back now, which is insufficient. My
(18:43):
cousin Argin is back now, And of course i'd heard
the whispers, but he told me his story.
Speaker 12 (18:50):
I'm also going to try and get you up in
a night show.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
It involves him building townships in the Ivory.
Speaker 13 (18:56):
Coast now let's say Ivory Ghost but yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Then coming back to Dubai to help sort a multimillion
dollar deal.
Speaker 13 (19:06):
I actually shifted to the Middle East. Everyone was like,
what's wrong with you?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
It involves a reneged transaction and him taking the fall
for someone else's carelessness.
Speaker 16 (19:16):
I called up and I said can I come back
now that I sent you all money to clear everything?
Speaker 13 (19:21):
He said, come on back, there's no problem. You send
the money, You've cleared everything. I came back and I
got arrested.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
It's him being thrown in some of the region's worst
and most violent prisons. I did so multifficulties, yeah, go
and pretending to be a Buddhist so he wouldn't be
killed for being a Hindu.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Many of them are taking them, but a lot of
them were night.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
It is a story of trauma.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
I kind of collapsed, thank you, spiritual, psychologically.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
And finding a guru who nurtured his resiliency.
Speaker 14 (19:59):
The guru actually we can identify within you whether you're
ready or you're still holding back.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
And it's the story of a miracle.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
Because when I came out, I had had malaria for
fifty days. Wow, without medication. There was no practical reason
in the world I should have done life.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
And another.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Sentence disappeared. They could let me go because they didn't
know what hoever they were doing. And the person that
didn't have any court of any jail sentence.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Some of our chats I taped some of them. I didn't,
but I know he could have died in prison from
beatings or malaria or anything. He could have been there forever,
except somehow a mystic told him his court records would disappear,
and they did, and the mystic assured him the jails
would release him on house arrest, and they did. And
(20:53):
then the Guru told him to go. So we hid,
and he waited, and he waited until in darkness he
was stuffed into the bed of a truck, crammed in
with other terrified bodies, and trafficked across borders until he
found his way home. And now it is him being
here in India with me, and still I've.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Come out of life once again that too many of
times have done that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
It's a way to tell a story without telling a story.
It is vague and capacious and insufficient. But he is
back now and it's the thing that matters. Chapter three.
(21:48):
Believe me, Despite Makeisha's reputation, I had struck out in Bombay,
but luckily I had come with a backup plan to
make a pilgrimage to Chennai. The truth is, I don't
(22:10):
know anything about Chennai. I've never been, and mostly people
in my family have warned me there's no reason to
go not because of anything cultural or political. It just
comes down to the weather. Everyone complains about the intense
heat and humidity, but Chennai, which is located in the
South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is special in terms
(22:32):
of Nadi. According to the story, when the rishi's or
holy men received the wisdom of the gods, they transcribed
it aunt to leaves, and those leaves were protected by
generations of South Indian kings and at some point these
manuscripts ended up in a library in Thunjur, also in
Tamil Nadu, And while some of the copies were loaned
out to other cities like Delhi or Mumbai, the majority
(22:55):
of the authentic Nadi centers stayed local, within driving distance
of Chennai. My friend and story editor Mark has agreed
to come with me, which is a really nice security blanket,
and I also invite Argent.
Speaker 7 (23:08):
Should I get you a ticket to come meet us there?
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I would love that.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:12):
Perfect.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
For a minute, we thought Mark wasn't going to make
it to India. His visa got backlogged. There was a
moment where I wanted to tell him not to worry
Chelseda hey, but even I lost faith by this point. Then,
thanks to God or the Indian embassy or possibly doctor Kumar,
it was approved right before he was set to leave.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
It'll be fun, I think. I think the three of
us hanging out will be fun.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, so cool, Okay.
Speaker 11 (23:51):
Judgment record from tomost Conradic Nashville and both the rest dominant.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Anazi and another.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When we land where welcome by our drivers Satish, and
an entire town plastered in chess olympiad posters featuring a
cartoon horse and a DOOTHI because apparently Chennai is India's
chess capital. Besides the posters, which are honestly everywhere, I'm
a little surprised by how little of the language I
can follow. I don't speak a look of Tamil, the
(24:25):
local language here, and neither does Urgent. And the six
or seven languages we can cobble together between the two
of us don't help us in the slightest. So it's
funny how alien I feel in a country where I'm
normally so at home. Speaking of aliens, I should probably
tell you about the strangest person I meet on my
entire journey between Mumbai and Chennai. I had stopped off
(24:48):
in Bangalore, a town filled with relatives. On one of
those days, my aunt Shila, where Shiluaka introduces me to
a medicine man who supposedly channels the spirit of Saint
Augustina and shakes metal keys as he goes into a
trance to identify what's wrong with your body. Sant Augustia,
aside for being the Sintha or enlightened soul who's supposedly
(25:09):
brought the natty leaves to humans by taking dictation from
the gods, is also a patron saint of healing. I
try to go into this meeting with an open mind,
but the healer is a character probably in his sixties,
spry and cocky with a mischievous smile. If I was
trying to cast a South Asian leprechaun for an Indian
(25:30):
Lucky Charms commercial, he'd be on my short list. And
even though his accent is unbelievably thick, like so thick
that I'm working overtime to understand each and every word,
I am captivated by his experience with black magic.
Speaker 13 (25:46):
What they do.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
I mean after power? People know they use a power.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
As he tells it, a neighbor put a voodoo like
curse on him, and he kept losing weight and balding
and losing weight and balding, and no one could tell
him what was wrong with him, until when he was
sickly thin and had been robbed of all his glorious plumage,
he found a talisman buried in his backyard. It was
(26:16):
wrapped in rags and hair and blood, all the telltale
signs of black magic. And when he burned it and
reversed the curse, his neighbors had some of the worst
luck ever. They lost their money, their health, even their home.
He grins wide when he tells me about this instant karma.
I honestly don't know what to make of this guy.
On one hand, my aunt told me that after years
(26:39):
of not being able to conceive, it was this man
who gave her the herbs and tinctures to finally carry
a child. Her story is really powerful, and I've heard
so many others that he's helped or cured. But he
also tells me with absolute certainty that Tamil is the
greatest language bar none, because it's the oldest, which is true,
(27:00):
and the most powerful, which I don't quite understand but okay,
and the most sophisticated, which I start to chuckle at
because now there are a lot of descriptors being used,
and I'm sensing a real air of Tamil hubris here.
But then he brings his argument all together by saying,
and this is the strangest part. It only makes sense
(27:22):
that Tamil is the language that aliens communicate with.
Speaker 5 (27:28):
But all speak Tamil. You need to come link the
long type of day.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
When I look at him quizzically, trying to understand how
exactly we've moved from astrology to aliens, he just assures
me he's right. Then he smiles at me like I'm
an idiot, because obviously aliens speak Tamil.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Okay, if it's.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
That chapter four Snake Astronauts copy.
Speaker 13 (28:15):
This place name is Kanji. Yes, it has two thousand
City of Temple.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Yeah yeah, that's really.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
You're going to.
Speaker 13 (28:28):
Record your six o'clock voices?
Speaker 16 (28:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Good?
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Sorry. I think I had two of those coffee this morning.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
At six am, and it feels so much earlier. We
drive off the hotel lot straight into traffic, and I
can only tell where past the city limits when the
cartoon force posters disappear. Up until this point, it felt
like every advertisement was about chess. But now the billboards
are for toothpaste and soaps and clothes and wedding rings.
(29:05):
And Argent and I both notice how strange it is
that everyone in the ads is incredibly light skinned, and
what a mind fuck that must be. But then I
stopped paying close attention. The drive starts to feel like
every drive I've taken between cities in India, stretches of
rickety shops, stretches of vibrant villages with kids playing outside,
(29:29):
long dusty in betweens, dotted with fields and factories, banks
and petrol stations. There are these trees that line the
roads with red and white trunks painted that way to
prevent termites. And also the show poachers that the Forestry
Service is keeping watch. Mark and I are both healing
the chently. But Argent's two coffees have definitely kicked in.
(29:51):
He peppers us with questions about life in the States,
about recent Supreme Court cases. He talks about India and
all the miracles he's witnessed that have made him a
true believer, and then he says this, if.
Speaker 12 (30:06):
You dougy hindu Vedic texts, you'll understand that there's a
lot of interaction between snake culture and human culture, and
there's a lot of snake worship that happens in India.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Okay, so I'm going to pause right here to say
I don't know what's going on with all the snake talk,
but they keep coming up again and again, and it
feels like it should mean something. The way George in
our last episode saw a snake as a sign that
he could be good to himself, that he could shed
his trauma and transform the way my mom experienced snakes
(30:48):
as a curse, something she had to transcend with mysterious prayers.
And now Argin is talking about how he read early
Hindu texts about snakes as these superior carriers of a
greater wisdom. And he starts talking about one account you
read from a mystic who claims to have seen these
astral snakes.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
He said that his guru got him to meet one
of the.
Speaker 12 (31:18):
Incoming astronauts space snake astronauts.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
Huh, yeah, it feels unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
It's but just the idea of a snake astronaut.
Speaker 13 (31:37):
Yeah, well, I mean like a traveler.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
Absolutely, he doesn't.
Speaker 12 (31:41):
Wear he didn't have to wear a space suit, and
when you read the book, he says, it's it's not
possible for me to explain what exactly I saw, But
the snakes are very different than what you all imagine, and.
Speaker 13 (32:01):
And all I can describe to you is it is
blue and glowing.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
In my cursory understanding of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, these
serpent like beings rule over three planes filled with multiple planets,
and they're worshiped as the keepers of both incredible treasure
and concealed wisdom treasure texts, as one book puts it,
As we drive further away from Chennai, I feel like
(32:30):
they're this harbinger of what we're about to learn.
Speaker 13 (32:34):
The snakes don't rule over Hell, they rule over a
different set of planets, and.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
They're supposed to be very opulent creatures.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Is this in this book versus a different book? Mark,
who's been quiet this whole time, perks up at this
talk of snake astronauts. He has so many questions about
the origins and about how much Urgent could actually believe
in this, but he mostly just smirks and saves his
commentary for later.
Speaker 10 (33:02):
Yeah, that's that's the problem that I have with That's
the issue whether or not they wear space suits. First
of all, let me imagine this space suits.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Before long we realize where in Kanji Forum. The temple
town is famous for its beautiful shrines and architecture, along
with its saris, which are gorgeous bolts of rich silk
embroidered with thread dipped in gold. I sit up to
look at the surroundings, noticing these little altars side by
side with banana stands. All of a sudden, so these
(33:42):
turns in and we pull up to one of the
most gorgeous temples I have ever seen. It towers over
the city and I crane my neck to see where
its crown touches the sky. I later learned it's called
Akumbarra short temple. Records of its initials struck date back
to three hundred BCE, and it is stunning like a
(34:04):
sixty meter tall cigarette, except instead of a giant, blocky pyramid.
It has eleven stories of relief work with intricately carved
pillars and depictions of myths and avatars. If the greatest
churches and cathedrals are meant to fill you with awe,
to make you feel humbled in the presence of a
(34:26):
greater beauty. Then this temple does the trick. I can't
wait to see the inside, to meet the temple leaf readers.
But as soon as I try to hop out, seth
these motions me to stay inside. He steps out and
gestures and a man nearby, and the man just shakes
his head. It's clear we're in the wrong place. So
something jumps back in and then we drive.
Speaker 14 (34:51):
And drive.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Fifteen minutes later, we're parked in this dusty lot in
front of a cinderblock wall that feels like it's in
the middle of nowhere. If there wasn't this big yellow
sign outside declaring that this was a house of astrology,
I would have assumed it was a storage facility, or
maybe a clinic. Whatever it is, It's No eleven story
(35:13):
at Carved Temple. In the chapter five the Waiting Game,
(35:36):
we swap mosquitoes and reapply repellent. We make idle conversation,
We look at our phones and like kids in a car,
asking over and over, are we there yet? I walked
from the patio into the little reception area to see
if we can get started. Origin goes in a few
times too. After a few hours of waiting, they finally
(35:59):
take my thumbprint. Mugish Muggige, Yeah, I mean, I mean
born in America, will follow me.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
My father's name is Lummish.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
They put us in the queue and then we wait
some more. Every ten or fifteen minutes, someone's name is called,
and one of the men. Because it is weirdly almost
all men here, a mix of middle aged business owners
and young people who look anxious to get married, they
start disappearing inside. When it's finally our turn, we follow
(36:37):
the receptionist to the second level. Despite the thatched roof,
it's actually way more modern up here and welcoming. There're
these sliding doors with little enclosures where people are doing
one on ones and argin, Mark and I all squeeze
into a room. When our man finally walks in, he's
wearing vibithy, these three stripes across his four head, applied
(37:01):
with sacred ash, often associated with priests. He also has
a big pile of scrolls in his arm. Now this
is going to be hard to follow, but he asks
if I speak Tamil, and then in broken English, he
tells us he needs to find my palm leaf first.
He indicates how the scrolls are like a card catalog.
Your thumbprint helps you find your scroll. Your scroll helps
(37:22):
you find your full horoscope, which is also hidden somewhere
in the stacks in the back.
Speaker 17 (37:27):
I am really okay, I am reading even name father,
named mother, named fultater or not. To relieves the confound, our.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Reader starts reading the tamil off the scroll. He asks,
your father's dead and your mother's living. I respond yes,
after I com from and I want to be a father.
Speaker 7 (37:48):
To merit.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
They're looking for an exact match, the perfect card in
the card catalog, and each time the details of the
scroll don't line up with my life, he slaps into
the back of the bundle and moves on to the
next You were married and living with your wife. Yes,
your mother had two marriages. Ever, no smack. The leaf
(38:09):
goes into the back of the pile. Sometimes, when he
starts reading a leaf and sees it doesn't match, he
doesn't even ask. He just moves it to the back,
and this swording keeps going. He asks if I'm forty five,
and I just laugh. I am enjoying all of this,
feeling like there's real momentum, and I tell him no,
I'm forty two. We keep going, and some of it
(38:31):
gets confusing, like he asks if I have two sons,
I have two children. I mean I have a son
and one kid who's non binary. He slaps it to
the back of the pile. But I'm a little dizzy,
trying to stay on top of his accent and trying
(38:52):
to make sure I'm answering the questions correctly until he
says this, No, I have one sister nor brother and
married it.
Speaker 17 (39:02):
Yeah, yes, Marriagy by engagement yes, married living me through white, Yes,
another one one sister, yes, sister.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
Mary, unmarried it.
Speaker 17 (39:15):
You were married and living with the white bothered the
mother leaving, you were in private job working.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
And dingo, that is it. He has found it. After
fifteen hours of being on planes, two weeks of hunting
through stacks in Mumbai, another hour long flight, a two
hour drive, and three hours of waiting on a humid
patio that would give most steam rooms an inferiority complex.
We see this man for twenty minutes and he just
(39:43):
finds it. Urgent thinks I'm blessed. Mark looks more skeptical,
and the three of us we file downstairs.
Speaker 7 (39:53):
That's what happens to man.
Speaker 18 (39:56):
So the tough part is done, which is he had
to be immatched. We weren't able to get him matched
in Bombay. They didn't they couldn't find them. Yeah, and
now you've got the real Now the part will be
that you will be broadcasting to America your future.
Speaker 6 (40:18):
Ship.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Right Chapter six, Son of a Milkman. We wait outside
(40:45):
a little more and then we're called in and walked
through this long hallway to a room in the back
which faces onto a courtyard. The complex is bigger than
I'd realized, with places to do poojas and with rooms
to rent. As we sit down, mister Kumar, the same
man from reception, double checks that this is the right file.
(41:07):
He goes through some details about my thumb, that I'm
a Brahmin, that I was born on May first, and
then he reads my file.
Speaker 7 (41:20):
And family.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I'm listening keenly, but nothing he says here is interesting.
He says, my mother may get ill, but medicines will help.
He says, my sister's engagement has already taken place, and
in the near future she will get married the company.
(41:43):
But here's the thing. While we're sitting in this room,
I have one of those kaiser SoSE moments from the
usual suspects. In the whole scroll section, I've given away
all my details. Is your mom's name Chitre, No, it's Lalita.
Is your father living, No, he's passed. Is your sister married, Well,
she's engaged. And as I realized this, everything from here
(42:07):
on becomes tainted, Like the predictions are so mundane. You'll
have a good life, you'll get sick, you'll have medicine
and get better, your children will have a good education,
You'll make decent money, You'll have good relationships with others.
I mean, it's just a mishmash of vague things that
happen to everyone, and details I've already confirmed. In some ways,
(42:29):
the most surprising thing he says is this line. I
laugh because in some ways this is both the most
ridiculous thing and the most specific thing about me today.
I have never had a new car or a luxurious
one since high school. I've just driven a series of beaters,
(42:50):
and man, I would love a car that starts when
you wanted to. Anyway, The rest of the reading is
more of the same. Is basically he's up selling us here.
What I got was the starter pack. We've already paid
(43:10):
for that part, and we put down a healthy tip
on top on his insistence.
Speaker 7 (43:16):
Take like Google pay or anything. Okay, I'll figure that out.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And now, if I want to know more about any
specific part of my life, the section of the leaf
that deals with my career, or my health, or my
kids or one of like nine more things, we will
need to pay more. I step outside to chat with Mark.
Speaker 7 (43:51):
It's confused.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
The truth is I was more than confused. I was
feeling deflated after that experience in Mumbai. We had spent
so much time trying to figure out the perfect naughty
place to visit. I'd come all this way and dragged
Mark and Argin here because this is where I thought
I had the best chance of finding my fortune, and
(44:14):
then nothing.
Speaker 10 (44:18):
It feels like kind of a bus Yeah, it's like
I don't expect grand revelations every time.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
There's a line I didn't catch on tape, but it
stuck with me. Mark says, you already got your miracle
of astrology. You can't expect a second one. You can't
expect it every time. When I go back in the
reader opens the chapter about my last life, he says
(44:45):
I had been born the son of a milkman in
the milk business, you know, in a typical milk vendor.
Family was.
Speaker 13 (44:54):
No just part of it.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
Stirred up with you.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
He tells me that I slept around, and I think
he's saying that I gave my wife STDs. I also
treated my parents horribly and didn't support them. I cheated
my business partners. And I am nodding vigorously and enjoying
this because this part is kind of the realist to me,
(45:23):
Like every time someone tells me they've seen a psychic
or a reader and had some revelation in a dream,
they're always a king or queen in their past life.
And to me, it's like, there are not that many
kings in history. How can all of us have been kings?
So weirdly, this is finally a storyline I could buy
into being here smiling at the story. It reminds me
(45:48):
of this thing. The writer Shrethi Ravindrin, who grew up
in Chennai, once wrote how she loves to read and
reread her horoscope because to her, it's like a very
souoning work of fan fiction. And she told me about
how sometimes the horoscope feels accurate and sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 8 (46:08):
She will be a girl of a restless nature. She
will be a girl of a self destructive timidity her moods.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
But if she puts it during times of upheaval, it
reassures me to read these typewritten pages, to be reminded
that one long dead man took the measure of my
life and said it was not all bad.
Speaker 8 (46:27):
She will brood over the memories of the past. She
will brood on fancied slight, very unflattering, but also like
really specific, and I'm afraid to say, like super accurate.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
I do love this Milkman stuff, not because I believe it,
but because I love that someone has created a new
mythology for me, a new origin story for the problems
I'm facing, And now they've given me a new way
to remedy those problems too, albeit through a few too
many visits to temples for my liking. Still it is
(47:03):
pure fun, But when I think about it later, it
won't scratch the itch I actually have, Because, like Shriti,
I wanted to walk into the shop and let someone
take the measure of my life. I'd hope that they
would find my leaf and look into my eyes and
with complete certainty tell me that my life wouldn't be
(47:24):
all bad. And although I made the journey here, and
although those words were said in the end, I just
couldn't believe them. Chapter seven, spinning its to be thirty
(47:48):
in the morning. I cut tafteen and stuck in stot anyone.
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I'm curiously the demon's walking in my head.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I can't do shleep.
Speaker 5 (48:00):
I've gotta go back to sleep.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Right now.
Speaker 5 (48:04):
Let him make this as a statement.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
The drive home from the Naughty Shop is somehow so long,
and I feel the clock ticking. We have maybe five
days left on this trip, and I have not felt
the magic here. Nothing has brought me closer to believing.
Margin senses my tension Mark too. I tell Mark, maybe
we should raise the Varnasi in northern India, even though
(48:28):
my astrologer friend he warned me it was like a
Disneyland of astrology.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
If we wanted to do some main totals. When we
hit that, you could actually like.
Speaker 15 (48:38):
This and fly to like the knives.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
There's a university there and a lot of astrology PhDs
and also con men, so maybe there's some fun to
be had. Or we could do what the Nadi reader
told me to do for penance for my sins. As
a milkman, I could go to an offering at a
Hanuman temple, and I have a specific like one in mind.
Speaker 7 (49:01):
My aunt and family.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Lived in this place, and hopefully that's where my grandfather
finds high through The.
Speaker 7 (49:08):
House is called gin house.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
I don't know. I mean, I am just throwing ideas
at the wall. We stopped for lunch at this place.
Our drivers at these shloves where they serve giant heaping
plates of rice on banana leaves with curries and chutneys
ladled on top. We eat with our hands in the
traditional style, shoveling the piping hot food into our mouths.
I paaramine with the thumbs up an Indian coke of sorts,
(49:34):
And while the food fills our bellies, it doesn't calm
my nerves, and I grow increasingly irritated about my journey
to the naughty Shop. A few days later, when I
start reviewing my tape, I realize I've missed a crucial detail.
A woman i'd interviewed previously named Malti Das had walked
(49:55):
into a naughty shop a skeptic and walked out a believer,
not because of what she heard from the reader exactly,
but because of what she saw, I.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
Was looking very disinterested. So that man asked me, man,
can you read tamb It? I said, yes, very well,
I can read tamb It. Then he started showing the
falm leave to me up to a point. Then he said,
that's your father's name start with A. They said yes,
and then I could see the name written there of
(50:25):
my mother in law, Arakiaswami in devil. That was when
it hit me, really, you know, I thought, Okay, there
is something here.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
They're not bluffing.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Then I feel like an idiot. I hadn't thought to
photograph my leaf. I mean, I don't know if they
would have let me, but maybe there was a miracle
lurking in there. Not in the prophecy, which I thought
was so vague, but in the sorting system. Was there
something beautiful I had missed? When Mark and I talked
(50:55):
about it later at our hotel bar, Mark is a
different perspective on the play.
Speaker 7 (51:01):
It's basically like a magic trek that we couldn't.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
See the word video.
Speaker 7 (51:07):
Yeah, it was like hearing it was like hearing a
magic trek.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
As he puts it, it doesn't matter if it's real
because the shop is in the business of hope. And
I think about how he's right, Like, there's so many
people that come in such desperate situations, right, Like if
you hear you're like gonna have a comfortable life, You're
gonna get a new car, and you're gonna like, you.
Speaker 10 (51:26):
Know, like four years watch her out.
Speaker 7 (51:29):
Yeah, I mean like like that probably like sustains a.
Speaker 10 (51:33):
Lot of people, right, that would be such a big
deal to a certain kind of person.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Chapter eight, Double Dose. Months later, my memories of Chennai
are blur early morning, strong coffee, ceiling fans that are
no match for the heat. But mostly it's just car ride.
Hours in the car with Argin, talking about philosophy and
(52:07):
science and our childhoods, the moments we were too proud,
the moments that humbled us, and how we got here.
If Bombay felt like an old friend whose path had
diverged from my own, then Argin was like a close
friend I'd lost and then found again. And it's funny
that he's here with me because I'd forgotten that Argin
(52:30):
had been warned by his Guru that he should not,
at any cost dabble in astrology. Something I'm reminded of
when my wife Lizzie calls Lilie, wait, he'll for your Answergra.
Speaker 13 (52:45):
Well, he here is my brother at the end of
the day, and I wasn't going to abandon him.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
But there's a phrase I grew up using in India
cousin brother and cousin sister. In joint families. You grew
up thinking of your cousins as closer than just a cousin.
You tie rocky to them or these promised threads that
promise love and protection, and you treat your cousins like
their siblings because they are in a way. And the
(53:14):
fact that Argin is here with me now, despite the
oceans between us, despite the time that's past.
Speaker 9 (53:21):
But having said that, this is my first experience with
astrology as well, so I was actually warned not to
dabble in these kind of.
Speaker 13 (53:32):
Subjects.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Is subjecting you to things you've been.
Speaker 13 (53:38):
Avoid it just you know, venting you with yeah, tending
you with taboo subjects.
Speaker 5 (53:44):
Shame, shame, that's right.
Speaker 13 (53:45):
He's the bad influence in my life.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
Argin has told me what he's been through, but I
can't imagine it. It is too horrifying. And I admire
him so much, how he somehow pulled together his family
and picked up the shards of his life, and how
he keeps moving forward with such grace and humility. If
my days in Chennai were a blur of endless car rides,
(54:10):
the final pit stops were always a seat at the
hotel bar. Sometimes it was me and Mark, sometimes it
was Argin and me, and occasionally it was the three
of us sitting in a dimly lit patio, chewing away
mosquitoes as we sit on these fresh lime sodas. On
the tougher days, I'd cut the soda with gin and
(54:31):
bumb a cigarette off of Virgin. And on one of
those nights, Argin told us about his sud Sati, the
seven and a half years of bad luck brought on
by Saturn that everyone experiences at some point according to
Vade the Astrology, and his seven and a half years.
He tells us, we're considered especially bad.
Speaker 16 (54:53):
Oh well, I experienced a double sub sorty almost and
mine pretty much game to s So I've had really
shit luckily, really shit lucky.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
Until this moment, Argin has never once talked about how
difficult this period has been. He's talked about it matter
of factly he's talked about embracing the future, but this
is the first time he lets us in on just
how hard his life one but my.
Speaker 16 (55:20):
Name DA last year and I'm still trying to understand
the difference, the difference. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out
what went right, and I know there are certain things
that have changed, but I can't. I can't feel it
in a physical form.
Speaker 7 (55:39):
Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
I didn't really because this is India. Argent jokingly links
his misfortune back to what he must have done in
his past lives.
Speaker 13 (55:49):
I obviously that much more than this pass against.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
I mean, Argin does not believe in astrology. I never
asked him to get a reading, but trology has happened
to him. The shadow of that seven and a half
years of bad luck. It's been lurking in the back
of his mind. There's another moment that I can't stop
thinking about. From the bar, after I'd turned off my recorder,
(56:15):
Mark says that too often when a story isn't going right,
the impulse is to speed up to book as many
interviews as you can. It's that old sailor's adage. If
you can't tie a good knot tie a lot of them,
but Mark encourages the opposite. He says, I need to
slow down. He says, if I'm going to resolve anything
(56:37):
about my life about my dad, it is not going
to be with him or our June, and it's not
going to be through astrology. Astrology was never the point.
And he tells me to make a pilgrimage to where
I feel most connected to my family and to my past,
to just sit with that experience. And I think about that.
(57:02):
I really do, but I don't listen because I'm not
thinking clearly. I haven't been thinking clearly this whole time,
this whole show. Instead, I asked Sathige to race me
across the state. I drag ardin along, I collect interviews
that will not add up too much, and then just
(57:33):
when my time in India is nearly up, I realize
Mark is right, and I spend sixteen hours in a
car to find meaning where I should have been looking
all along. Thank you so much for not forgetting about
(58:11):
our little show. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeart Podcast. This show is hosted and written by
me Mongay Schatigur. And yes, I know this episode was
so long, but I'm about to make it longer with
these credits. Mary Full of Sandy is our supervising producer.
Speaker 7 (58:28):
How would we get the show out without Mary?
Speaker 3 (58:30):
The answer is we would not. Meetropanshahi is our delightful
producer and conducted the interview with Shirty. Mark Lotto is
my excellent story editor and was such a trooper for
suffering with me in India in a city I knew
nothing about, though I did feed him lots of paratas.
This episode was also produced by the insanely talented Anna Rubinova.
(58:51):
I don't know how we could have got through this
much tape without her. Anna, you were a boon to
the show. The super sweet Drove Chevarrau hit the streets
for this episode and collected extra tape for me. This
episode was mixed by my pal at Soundboard. Oh my
gosh the Warning. The warning was read by producer extraordinaire
Nadia Raymond, who won the first ever Audio Pulitzer along
(59:13):
with the team at This American Life. Nadia wants you
to listen to TL's next episode, but I want you
to know she's a badass. I've got to thank my
pal Botany for the theme song and the compositions. Also
Azadi Records. How can I thank Azadi enough? Also my
friends Himanshu Suri, Peter, Matthew Bauer and Motor Sails. And
I can't forget my Palavage aka Lush Life for lending
(59:35):
me his tunes as well. I am dropping a second
mixtape with more music from Skyline Drive Volume two. It'll
be in the show links, please go check it out.
Additional production and research support for my love Lizzie Jacobs,
Someone Rock around the Clock, Buckshie and my beautiful cousin
Arjin Buckshi Arjun.
Speaker 5 (59:55):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
This show is executive produced from iHeart, My Good Palace,
Nikki Etour and Katrina Norvel and a shout out to
Nikki's baby girl Pearl and also Enzo Enzo, I have
not forgotten about you, buddy. Also got to thank my
incredible partners from Kaleidoscope, Oswad Listen, Kate Osborne, Costos Linos,
Vahini Shouri. You inspire me every day Special thanks to Ali,
(01:00:21):
Nathan Connell, Will and Bob at iHeart for getting behind
the show, Barkley Sorrow Vinshanta, my Kiddos, Henry and Ruby
my family everywhere, and as always, a big big thank
you to my Amma and my dad, Lalita and Umesh particular,
who I thank my lucky stars for. We have one
(01:00:41):
more episode to go, so thank you so much for listening.
He can't tell you how much it means to me
to start
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