“Can I ask you something?” says the oddly gypsy looking lady who just handed me a flier at the Civic Center.
“Err…sure, I guess..”
“Have you ever had a tarot card reading?”
“Can’t say I have…"
“I see something big in your future…
Like a pick up truck, a loku, kalu baduwa? Something ominously unpleasant?
“It’s too do with love.”
I restrain myself from beating her over the head with my 70-200mm lens, not because I was scared of getting arrested but I think I’m slightly in love with the lens and value it above a leg. God knows it been more fulfilling than any girls I’ve known (bar maybe one).
“Err..ok,” and I wander off.
Obviously fortune tellers and their ilk get their wires crossed. I say this because while I was in Sri Lanka in January, the worried grandmother dragged me to a disheveled looking house somewhere down Thimbirigasya road to have my (near) future told. I think she was just wanted to make sure that unemployed and alcoholic were not to be my forte for the next few years. Or at least to get a heads up if it was.
She was mighty pleased to hear that the worst thing in my otherwise successful life was going to be my marriage. This was funny (and to be honest slightly worrying) because my horoscope done at birth said the same thing. Of course I did balk a bit considering relatively speaking with my current quality of life (or rather lack of) it sounded like I was going to be marrying a female Attila the Hun, probably with a beard to match.
So here was this gypsy, looking at my sweaty face, saying the opposite thing. Obviously they got their information from different sources.
Either that or the future wifey is going to be 400 pounds with a beard (and a nasty disposition).
I think I’m going to watch the booze in Vegas in the next couple of weekends.
I come from a very superstitious family so fortune tellers fucking love us! We are some of their best clients! (I hope my parents don’t read this)
I was 16 and about to sit for my O Levels the last time my mother bothered asking me to come with her and have my fortune read. The guy read my palm and said (in Tamil), ‘I see you becoming a great healer, a doctor of great repute’. I laughed because I was pretty sure that I was going to fail all my science papers scheduled a month from that date.
Funnily enough, he then added that there was a chance that I might choose a career in economics instead. I dismissed it at that point in time, but during my A Levels, I found myself falling in love with the subject. Coincidence or some sort of sub-conscious need to fulfill the prophesy?! I eventually passed economics, but it didn’t interest me any longer.
However, I digress.
On the same day, my grandmother also had her palm read. The guy happily exclaimed that my grandmother might reach the grand old age of 100.
Telling this to a woman who wanted to die ASAP and “be with God” is not advisable. She had a heart attack and was admitted in hospital the next day. Seven years later, last year, she died at the age of 86.
Comment by Theena — June 18, 2007 @ 6:30 am
I think you already know how I feel about this sort of thing so I won’t elaborate:)
Comment by Darwin — June 18, 2007 @ 7:39 am
Sometimes these things can actually be true you know.. But I wish not to believe in them. Even my mum’s kind of into it and is eagerly waiting to see when I would get married and all… I told her she can check if she wants and I’m not bothered..
Funny part is, my palm reads something totally different to my horoscope.. and the next best part is that my horoscope is correct but what the palm reader predicted has actually come true so far.. Maybe something’s not right coz I was born abroad and my horoscope had to be re-done in some different way…BUT I’ll never ever rely on them!!!! Don’t want to fall into that line..
Comment by Lady divine — June 18, 2007 @ 8:46 am
my mum got my horoscope read when i was about 17 and according to that woman i was going to divorce at 35 and marry again..i started laughing when i heard that and got dirty looks sent my way, courtesy of mum and the fortune teller..since then, my mum never took me along on her jaunts to see what our futures hold..all i have to say is, i sure hope both husbands are super rich and look like the guy from prison break…;)
Comment by the wanderer — June 18, 2007 @ 9:26 am
Your fortune teller was very clever. She said it’s to do with love and it’s big - which could be read in any number of ways. That your love would be as grandiose as Romeo and Juliet’s or (as you chose to interpret) that the lady’d be 400lb. It’s a problem lesser mortals have had with fortune tellers throughout history. In ancient times the wealthy King Croesus asked a fortune teller whether he’d win if he faught against the mighty Persians. The answer was that if he crossed the river a great army would fall. He thought that meant the enemy so he went to war… but it was his own army that fell.
Comment by Songshards — June 19, 2007 @ 1:23 am
Theena – sounds like that chap was covering a lot of bases, a healer whose interested in economics:)!
Darwin – hehe…
LD – hmm…my view it cant be discounted (Darwin close your ears) but of course one can’t lives one’s life expecting what they say to work out…who knows…nice to have some hope that being rich is ordained in the stars for me though:)
Wanderer – you like you’re chaps covered in tattoos eh? Hmmm….
Songshards – like I said to Theena, they sure like covering a lot of bases. I think it’s the cynical side in me that chose the chubby bird option:)!
Surely King Croesus should have confirmed which army was going to fall?! Not the sharpest pencil in the pack eh? And thank you for reading!
Comment by childof25 — June 22, 2007 @ 12:50 am