Nebulous Future.

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An Astrologer is called the interpreter and an Astronomer is said to be the predictor. I have tried learning both.  Astrology has taken up more of my time as it allows you to co-relate the cosmic patterns with the human fate on earth. The mystery of what the future holds has always been an awe inspiring phenomena. If we go down history lane all civilizations have believed and relied on this subject. It is not a perfect scientific or mathematical subject as in this two plus two is not always four! The astrological predictions depends on so many parameters that it is easy to make mistakes. The mistakes need not be mathematical it could be how you interpret it.

When the subject first interested me, an acquaintance who was the deputy chief engineer came to my house for consultation. Though he had the seniority and was knowledgeable I knew that he had lost earlier interviews for the post of Chief as he stammered. With my little expertise I predicted that he would soon be promote and he got it soon after! The confidence this episode gave him resulted in a kind of miracle- he was cured of his stammering! I earned my first fan and this also made me more interested in the subject and I continued to sharpen my acumen. Later my sister who was fighting a court case wrote to me and I wrote back saying that she would get two promotions within a year. It happened! But she refused to acknowledge my prediction! One of my DE said that he does not believe in astrology nevertheless he showed me his birth chart. I told him that he was born in 1942 Oct 10 since I knew at that date there were five planets at a place. He was impressed but did not pursue in knowing more...

 With my small success all my family members started believing in my predictions. We were posted at Gauhati when there was a lot of political turmoil going on so my wife wanted to move away from it. I got a chance when I was called for an interview by the UPSC  in December 1982 but nothing was coming forth. My wife, very restlessly asked me for an answer and I calculated and found a date 25 Mar 83but still nothing came! On 1 April I received the information of my selection, out of curiosity I asked my boss whether the appointment letter was dated 25 Mar, and it was! And he thought I knew about this from some other source!

 Years later, when my younger daughter was to have her first baby, her father in law  wanted to know when the baby would be born- Her reply to that was- the doctors are saying after a week but that I was saying the next morning. At mid night my older daughter, who was a doctor and son in law took her to AIIMS but I slept peacefully and told them to inform me next morning at my office. From that day on my samudi became my fan.

Over the next thirty years I compiled a volume with all the horoscopes of my innumerable brothers, sisters and their children along with my in laws extended family.  Most prediction of jobs, marriages, children did come true, (there were a few wrong ones too) my interest in the subject deepened and I enhanced it by reading different schools of astrology and tried to integrate many of them into my predictions.

After 25 years I came back to my birth state; my siblings had started growing old and thus there was a preoccupation with death and this made me predict many deaths, may be then God decided that I should not be doing this and this invaluable book was stolen in 2010 along with my clothes in a suitcase at Delhi airport. I decided to stop predictions but I continue to study the subject. I believe if more than 75% predictions are correct it is okay. My fans believe in all my predictions more than me! This subject led me into a very interesting and fascinating period in my life- interacting with various kinds of people.

When you are young your father takes decision and then you decide by yourself but need guidance, which in the olden days used to come from a guru, who is well versed in astrology. I never found a guru therefore I advise myself through this subject. This gives me confidence in life and gives me the psychological advantage especially when I attend interviews as I know whether I will be successful or not!

Sky is not the Limit

Man has always been fascinated with flying. All the great epics whether it’s the Ramayana or the Odysseus mention episodes with flying vehicles. Maybe they existed or it was the imagination of the writer to be able to do what no man has been able to do is a tricky subject! Every little child looks up at the sky and desires to fly like the bird. Now of course we take flying for granted and the romance associated with it has dwindled.

 When I was growing up it captured my imagination and during my college days I wanted to become a pilot. The staid principal was of the opinion that either you become an engineer or a pilot but following both inclinations was an impossible task! This only whetted my appetite for it, for Man is a contrary creature! College timings were not conducive to this indulgence of mine as studies took up the whole day and the airport was 15 Km away.

I suppose when you desire something with your whole heart the Universe (The secret!) helps you to fulfill it. Years later I was posted at Bhubaneswar which had a flying club for three years. I needed one year to complete my training and license. Oh! those days still fill me with excitement! I single mindedly pursued this with a devotion I had never had for anything. I went early in the morning without any breakfast for my lessons and went to office at 9 am. My Chief instructor was Capt. Chatterji. As he liked my aptitude and punctuality he allowed me to go on solo flight in less than 10 hrs of flying. To get a private pilot license you need 20 hours solo and a total of 60 hours of flying; added to this I did one extra night flying.

To join the club I had to pass an oral test and a medical test. I was issued a student pilots license, which allows you to fly under the supervision of an instructor. After PPL you are allowed to carry a passenger, but were not allowed to take up commercial jobs. This was meant for owners of aircrafts in the olden days.

The training day started at 6 am when the wind is still and the sky is clear. Initially the chief and at other times the instructor flew with you and when you are ready you are allowed circuit and landing which takes about 6 min. The tower gives you visual signals- green to take off and again green to land, when no commercial flights are on. Initially it looks easy and you take off and land mechanically. The real event is the first solo, which the chief allows without warning! He gets off on the middle of the runway and asks you to take off! Suddenly you find the other seat is vacant and you are the master with no other help forthcoming.  

After I completed three perfect landings the Chief gave me a break of seven days. This is to check whether you have learned properly. On eighth day he gave me a kind of check not holding the controls, and allowed me in the sky for an hour so that I could complete the Puri –Konark- Bhubaneswar triangle and get into landing pattern and land. This way I had to build up my mandatory 20 hours solo.

Simultaneously I had to sit for an exam conducted by DGCA.  It was the first time I sat for an objective test- for me it was new though now days most schools follow it. The pass percentage was 75%.The subjects were Meteorology, Aircraft specific, and Flying in general. The feeling of satisfaction when I cleared it in my first attempt is unparalleled!

A log book duly certified by the aerodrome and the club is maintained throughout the training period. The log book with a flight test record along with the pass certificate for the exam is sent to DGCA for the issue of the license.

 Pushpak was the first plane I trained in and flew. It had a Rolls Royce engine made of steel frame with a cloth cover.  It had two seats side by side with two controls and a throttle which was in the centre. The next plane I flew was the Tiger Moth. I had to pass another exam specific to this aircraft. This was the craft on which all the English and Indian pilots were trained. It is like a motor bike with two seats in tandem; it has no roof or brakes! The control stick was really a stick unlike other half circle steering wheel type.  For braking, the tail rubs on ground and comes to a halt. You have to wear goggles and helmet to fly, as it is open to sky.

With this aircraft we once went for a cross country flight. We flew over the bed of Mahanadi to Narsingpur for about 60 miles and back. It was very cold at an altitude of 3000 ft and so we went lower. The wide blue river and the green forest on its banks looked magnificent. I remember that to communicate with the co pilot you used a speaking tube! On the way back I found that the fuel level was low. There is an emergency tank, where you have to pump using a manual pump; unfortunately this is a reverse pump i.e. pumps while pulling, so nothing happened, and we had to do an emergency landing on the grass in the airport.

My first passengers after successfully getting the license were my wife, two daughters and a friend of theirs whom I took separately on different days. While flying over Nandankanan I was showing my wife the animal enclosures rope way etc, but she was worried about our daughters who were waiting at the airport. Her thought was if we both die in an accident, what would happen to them!

I was a flying executive member along with Raja of Ranpur and Biju Patnaik who was the chairman for two terms, and at the club we used to hear stories of Ranpur’s exploits. This was an exciting and wonderful world, very different from my day to day work. It introduced me to a set of sophisticated people who enjoyed life in a different way.

In the early eighties I got posted at Gauhati. In my Official capacity I had to go to the airport to receive and send off visiting officers from our Head quarters.  I took this opportunity to indulge in flying! The Chief instructor was also the owner of an aircraft which was gifted to him by the Maharaja of Darbhanga. He had a wife from Mauritius. The Instructor was a young Muslim. Along with him I took off for a cross country flight to an airport 90 miles west, landed, got it certified by the aerodrome officer and came back to Gauhati. This fulfilled my requirement of cross country flight and my license was open now.

Before landing we saw number of monkeys on the airstrip, which was abandoned after World War- II. I asked the instructor to stand guard and went to the office for endorsement. The airport officer offered me biscuits, which I declined, since he had only two left! The nearest market was several miles away and there used to be two commercial flights a week. The journey was perfect with the mighty Brahmaputra with its lush green banks below.

After this I was transferred to the capital of the country and I joined the Safdurjung Delhi Flying Club. The club, I noticed had a board with the name of Biju Patnaik having passed in 1936 both as a pilot and an engineer. (I remembered my old college principal!)

Renewal of license every year was a ritual with the Chief and his Assistant. The respect that I used to get at Bhubaneswar or Gauhati was missing here. The embassy chaps with all their money were preferred to my government appointment!

The circuit and landing was a routine exercise. The flyover on the landing path and the Rashtrapati Bhawan were the only restriction. Here I used to meet various categories of pilots and flew the Cessna which is the third category. If you qualify for four aircrafts and 750 hrs of flying you get an open license meaning it is not specific to the aircraft. Unfortunately I could not do this. But Sanjay Gandhi did this and died with our chief instructor at the same airport!

With my license I used to request the pilot of commercial flights to sit on the co- pilot seat both in India, Iran and England. The license lapsed when I went to Iran for couple of years, where they do not recognize our license and thus ended my flying carrier of over 20 years.

Flying your own plane is an experience by itself; doing something like the birds is exhilarating! The achievement of my dream of flying taught me that nothing is impossible if you put your heart and soul into it. For even the sky is not the limit.

Travel and Tribulations

The roads snaked in front of the car; the head lights picked up the curves in front of us and the wind blew cold against my face as I peered into the night. The darkness was all encompassing and the only thing I could see were the great big trees as the light swept past them. I waited with a hope that a leopard would cross the road and my night would be made!

As a child I was the favorite of my father so he used to take me on tour of inspection of hospitals and dispensaries as the CMO of the state. He had an Austin car 8 hp sedan and he adored it more than my mother! He never trusted it with any driver and drove it himself and he maintained it and repaired it himself too! Those days there were hardly four to five cars in the entire town, so he was rightly proud of it. I remember visiting Champua, Anandpur and Ghatgaon and later Narsingpur, Jeypore. Invariably we used to stay in dak bungalows and have our meals in the Asst Surgeons house. We used to travel mostly at night and whenever we passed through the thick forests I used to espy leopards, jackals, deer and once I even saw a tiger about which I bored everyone with for at least a month!

Keonjhar was a district headquarters but it was not very large so once in a while when we used to travel to the big city of Cuttack it was an event by itself. A lot of planning and preparation would go into it- This journey was normally with my mother and couple of brothers.  I suppose our clothes were packed by someone in the house. We used to have breakfast very early in the morning (normally “chuda dahi’ – Rice flakes with sugar and curd) and then sat down in our favourite place in the car (some fight and arguments about the occupation of the best seat would take place). But soon we would reach the bank of Karsuan river- this was deep but narrow. There was no bridge those days so the car was loaded on to a barge. This procedure was repeated while crossing the Brahmani River, which is a much wider river. The travel then would consist of passing over canal roads and the main highway to reach Birupa. Again the car was loaded on a barge to cross both Birupa and Mahanadi Rivers to reach Cuttack.  A very long and tedious journey for the adults but an exciting and interesting journey for us children!

There was no electricity at Cuttack, whereas we had a town generator at Keonjhar with dc current. Later Birupa, Brahmani and Mahanadi had fair-weather roads built below the anicut; this is when we used to take kichidi (delicious dish made of rice and lentil) after taking a second bath below the anicut at Cuttack. This was like a picnic for us and the flavor still remains in my mind!

Traveling during the rainy seasons was another new experience. The roads would be impassable and the rivers too so we used to travel by train from Jajpur Road for about 45 miles or so. I preferred the passenger train which was very slow and would stop at all the stations, where you can go out on the platform and get papad, peda, dahibada and many other interesting things and stretch your legs too! I used to argue that if time was no constraint then it is cheaper and better to travel in the passenger train!  In those days each rail was 42 ft and the joints emitted a noise when the train passed over them. I used to calculate the speed of the train by the no of clicks per minute.  Here too sitting by the window I would see the telephone posts with furlongs written on them whizzing past at regular intervals- all these occupied my mind very well and I never troubled my parents about being bored! As the engines were coal fired and there was no air conditioning the wind would blow the soot into the train and at the end of the journey our face used to be black as coals!

When Bapa was posted as the Civil Surgeon at Koraput I used to come by bus to the station and go to Vizianagaram by train. This was a very long and interesting journey. We would then take the bus and go up via the Salur ghat. This is much higher than our own Judia ghat and the thrill was much more.

College travel was a different kettle of fish! We were now independent we had to book our own tickets; handle the money to be spent during the journey and still contrive to enjoy it! Travelling to Trivandrum we used student concession ticket- this cost us 17.50 rupees. We then had to take a taxi from the Central station to Egmore station which took away five more rupees! The train from Madras to Trivandrum was meter gauge, the berths were very small and my long legs would protrude out and everyone passing by in the aisle would stumble over them!

It would normally be raining when the train would pass Senkota ghat with the backdrop of the forest of Western Ghats with dense foliage. This was a part of the long journey I used to enjoy the most. Since I was born in August I love the rain. We had to take our meals in meal stations and the nicest thing was that the train would not leave until everyone finished their meals! This journey was a yearly ritual with no prior reservation. You asked for a ticket; the clerk would enter the particulars in a register; he would punch a small cardboard ticket and hand over to you, a matter of five minutes. Now after computerization it takes 10 to 15 min to issue a ticket at the counter!

Travel is a metaphor of journey through life. I have enjoyed all my journeys both real and metaphorical but it is a little slow paced now- unfortunately my mind refuses to accept the necessity to slow down…….

Records, Albums and Collections

Fascination with records and figures has always been a part of my life. It was a fashion to collect stamps and coins when we were young but I had to do something different! I explored many different avenues to record-keep!

I still have the records of my height and weight with graphs from the age of 10. I was 5ft and one maund (around 37 kg) at the beginning and my height stopped at 6ft 2in. Sometime during my middle age I reached the weight of around 90 kg and then dropped back to 75 kg! Now my height has reduced to just above 6ft.This is due to the fact that the gaps in the spine and knee have reduced and also due to the curvature in the spine which is common in old age.

The other day, while rummaging through my old papers, I found an old greeting card given to my sister by her friends. It was scribbled with my signatures with date by its side. The first one was done when I was in 4th class. I have kept all of them till the signature stopped changing. It is fascinating to see the changes over time!

 Having always been captivated with flying I have kept all air travels records with details of the aircraft, the place of origin and the destination and even seat numbers! Each of the boarding cards has also been preserved. Only for the time I was in England I have conserved all bus, train and hovercraft tickets along with the receipts of different hotels.

I have always been a nomad all my life, having changed jobs and places with regular frequency so this has led me to keep a record of all postings and transfers with the date which also includes the transit time! Obviously I also have all the appointment letters and certificates.

Photography was also a much loved hobby of mine. First I used to collect them and keep them in albums with caption underneath each of them, these were carefully written using stencils! Then when I bought my own camera I continued this collection religiously. I had collected a prodigious collection but many were damaged during my innumerable transfers! Some of them are being enlarged and colored by my daughters. The oldest photograph that I had was taken when I was 4 days old. Many were taken by my sis in law and she is dead (So I have no idea where she kept them). Some of the photos were stolen by my brothers.

Collection of coins and stamps occupied my attention for a short while but as everyone was doing it I lost interest! I then developed a unique collection idea- of grass flowers in old diaries. The high school students at Nagothane and a Primary school teacher in England picked this up from me. I had about 100 specimens at a time. I had taught them that this collection does not cost anything except your time.

The old photo albums with the carefully fixed photograph with small corners pasted so precisely to hold them and the small captions underneath have been taken over by the digital media. You can no longer sit outside in the winter sun flipping through these memories at your leisure; you can no longer wallow in the moments of happiness and sadness that were captured ages ago! Now in this computer age they are captured in cameras and mobiles and transferred to PCs but the old charm is not there. I tried to compile photos of different stone outcrops, sand formations, but it was not very successful.

In this new world of saving time, saving paper and saving emotions are we losing out on the finer aspects of living?

Astronomy and Astrology

T he desire to explore the unknown is what brings progress. I was posted in Rourkela for the second time in my career in the steel plant itself. This time I was older had a full fledged family and a beautiful bungalow with a large veranda open to the sky. The innumerable stars and constellations have always fascinated; the ancient civilizations have left indelible marks about their preoccupation with them. The stone Henge of England, the Mayan temples, the pyramids of Egypt etc were built on precise calculation of the movement of planets. The Dagon tribe of West Africa have worshiped Sirius A and its twin the invisible star Sirius B, for the past 5000 years. .... Only in 20^th century did the modern civilization discover that this is true! All these information made me study astronomy in depth and space in general. Within a year I could identify about 100 stars with their name constellations and of course planets. More than 50% of the names were Arabic, since they were mariners and without knowledge of night sky they would be lost in the sea.

Astronomy and astrology are interlinked so I decided to master the latter as it is something I could practice after retirement. Astrology has two main parts one is Ganit i.e. calculation part and the other is the prediction part. Now of course the computers have taken up the former but the latter part which needs interpretation is still dependent on humans but which the fifth generation computers may take over.

 I began when computers were not available so everything had to be done by hand- from ephemeris based on British Admiralty charts. The apparent movements of stars are not constant sometimes they are retrogate i.e. moving backwards, the sun’s speed around earth is not constant. The axis of the earth is shifting and equinox point is also shifting by 50 sec a year. The pole star is not exact north. Now we also know that sun is moving along with the planets in relation to the galaxy and the galaxies are exploding in different directions. All these mind boggling knowledge acquired today was probably not known to the early astronomers, but they had profound wisdom and with the limited know-how could predict future events.

Indian and Arabic astronomy is more than 3000 years and they may have borrowed knowledge from each other and Rishis like Bhrigu and Jaimini have written volumes in Sanskrit shlokas, which are being followed even today. One system ”Khana Bachan” in India is thought to be of Arabic origin brought by an Arabic wife. Due to change of religion and constant wars in the Middle East, North Africa and southern Europe many documents if any are lost forever. We know very little of Chinese or Vietnamese astrology.

I was interested in Palmistry from my school days. I learnt everything through three books - Cheiro, Benhams and St. German. Cheiro was a great palmist but the book of Benhams has more facts. The number of books dealing with astronomy is colossal and the original Sanskrit books need deep insight into the language. It is something like Nostradamus, who dictated in old French, and scores of French scholars are still interpreting and converting it into modern French! In palmistry you can predict broadly but astronomy can go to minute part of the time frame and is more accurate.

I began by learning how to cast a horoscope which is pure mathematics. It used to take a few hours but now it can be done in minutes by the computer! There are various schools and angles of Astrology- each more interesting than the other! Annual horoscope is an added chapter in my knowledge for the past decade.

Two systems Binsottary and Ashtottarry are followed in eastern India; one considers the duration of life to be of 120 years and other 108 years. Thus both have different dasa and antardasas; in one, the planet ketu is missing! Then the period of dasas like sun has 7 years; moon has 10 years etc are also different. The charts are cast in three different fashions which I am familiar with. According to Hindu astrology the day starts at sunrise but the English date changes at midnight. So there are a lot of discrepancies in predictions! Most of the village astrologers know only one system and predict without any doubt in their mind. My family astrologer had predicted my death on 10 Oct 2000, and I am still alive!

But with more knowledge you have more doubts. My knowledge is all from books and magazines, since I cannot have a proper guru due to positioning of ketu in the 9^th  house in my horoscope!

Astrology is vast subject it is not important whether you believe in it or not what is fascination is that it was developed by a set of people who did not have the modern gadgets or the modern information and yet produced fantastic results!