Astrology (I)

One of the advantages of traveling alone is that you are more open to meet other travelers who, sometimes, are really interesting people. This is what happened to me the last days in Delhi. Two days ago, while I was having breakfast in a cafe of the city, a woman approached to me and, smiling, asked me if we could share table. In this way we started a conversation and we knew each other. She was Olina Lorencova, a Czech woman, now living in Germany but for fifteen years lived in Spain. She’s working for the German television channel editing and producing documentaries of different topics, but her favorite ones are travels and more concrete the Asian subcontinent. She has traveled many times in India, the first one in 1969, in full hippy effervescence and making a length journey by car from Spain. The goal of this current journey is to create a new documentary for the television, but focusing on a specific topic: the Indian astrology.

The astrology is a very important thing for the Indians, thereby many people consult the stars for taking the most important decisions of their lives, such as finding the couple suitable, fixing the day of the wedding or making the right choices in the businesses. People say, even, the politicians and the president also consult the astrologers for deciding the direction of the country. There is a very concrete and interesting type in the immense world of the Indian astrology. It’s the Naadi Astrology and it’s based on the predictions that some wise and enlighten men of the Indian region of Tamil Nadu made, two thousands of years ago. These men, called Rishis, wrote on palm tree leaves about the future lives of thousands of people. And these same leaves are kept in seven libraries from all over the country. If someone wants to know his future he has to go to one of these libraries and they attempt to find the leaf palm tree in which his life (past and future) is written on. My new friend wanted to visit one of these places for finding her palm tree leave, and from this, to create a documentary about the subject. She told me that she was searching somebody who wanted to accompany and to help her with the filming. So I did not doubt on to offer to acting as assistant of direction and camera.

We found the place in a residential area in the outskirts of Delhi. They made us wait until the Gurú Ravichandran was prepared for receiving us. When finally he opened the door of his office and it made us to enter. Then we realized that he was not an elder with long beards and face painted, as we had imagined him, but he was a relatively young and correctly dressed man. He explained to us the procedure: through the digital imprint they search the leaf of corresponding palm tree, which is in the antique Tamil language written. The Guru is who translates and interprets this leaf, being able to find out different aspects of the life of the person, it means past and future, such as the name of the parents, of the brothers, dates of birth of the sons, had ones and to have ones, important illnesses, and even, the date and the place of the own death. Olina left her imprint and they make an appointment for the next day. I just make my work of camera and helping of realization. I prefer to continue believing that I am free to take the right decisions in my life and I also like having some nice surprises without knowing them in advance.