Every morning, I faithfully check out the paper to see what Peter Vidal says my day is going to be like. And over the years, I have enjoyed reading again and again what Linda Goodman, that expert of experts, says about people born under my Sun Sign.

During my formative years, I tried reading Cheiro’s treatises on palmistry, more for the adulation that it would get for me in close encounters of the feminine kind than out of any genuine interest. I wasn’t up to the task, but I do know where my Life Line and Sun Line are. And I am not sure what it is good for, but I have something called a Mystic Cross between my Head Line and Heart Line. It makes for interesting conversation at parties.

Sometimes I take out the little tattered book where my parents had an astrologer write up my jataka (horoscope) a little after I was born and try to figure out the quaint scribbling therein. It makes little sense to me, but my cousin (who claims to know quite a bit about such things) says that I am destined to live out my life more or less the way I live it now.

Ah well. No earth shattering deeds predicted for me. That is all right, I am comfortable with the way things are.

Long back, a couple of friends persuaded me to join them on a visit to a famed mind reader, a swami who was supposed to know everything about a person just by looking at him. I remember the man, unkempt and unwashed, who stared at me accusingly for a few minutes and then proceeded to tell me everything about my house, my past and my vices, much of it correct. He didn’t bother to make many predictions about my future, probably because he realized that I was never going to amount to much and didn’t want to reduce his consultation fee by saying that out loud.

I have heard of a family of great astrologers, who have in their possession the complete works of Sage Agasthya, containing the horoscopes of all who have lived, live and will live in this world. I would like to meet one of them. It would be great fun, knowing what I was in my past life (human?) and what I will be in my next (still human?).

But curious as I am about astrology, I draw the line when it interferes with my daily life. I don’t stay at home just because my day’s forecast tells me to beware of tall dark strangers. I don’t let black cats cross my path merely because it encourages me to do something different for a change. You see, I don’t really believe in all that hocus-pocus. Just because I keep a lucky coin in my purse, it doesn’t mean I wont spend it in a real emergency – like when the Reserve Bank abolishes paper currency.

So you get what I am saying – Astrology is fun and fascinating, but you shouldn’t let it dictate your life. That is what I keep telling Vinod Kumar.

He is one of my most favorite clients. I met him early in my career, just when I had set up an office of my own. His neighbour was making attempts to build a wall encroaching into his property and he needed professional help. God knows why he chose me out of the myriads of legal eagles around, but anyway his brief was a blessing in disguise for a junior lawyer who was struggling to keep his head above water. And the best part of it was I knew what exactly to do (which is not usually the case even today!).

I prepared his suit with the care and attention that a mother cat lavishes on its newborn kitten. I explained to him in detail what it entailed, what points he had in his favour and what could go horribly wrong. He listened to me with great deference (Ah, how heady that makes an advocate feel!), signed the papers without demur and presented me with the first real fee I ever got. But when I told him that I would file it that day itself, he demurred. When I persisted, reminding him of the need for speed, that the wall would be built before we got to Court, he told me frankly that the day was not auspicious, his astrologer had told him that he should embark on legal proceedings only two days hence.

All my protests were of no avail. He remained adamant that I should postpone filing, regardless of the consequences. Against my better judgment, I had to agree. It was his case, after all.

The wall wasn’t built, the aggressive neighbour’s contractor fell sick or something. The Judge, one renowned for his calculated coldness to counsel’s entreaties, passed an interim order against the construction without even a query when I moved the suit on the date declared ideal by the astrologer. The neighbour capitulated. The matter was compromised. Vinod Kumar emerged victorious.

This has been more or less the course of Vinod Kumar’s legal history. No doubt encouraged by his first resounding success, he rapidly developed into a lawyer’s dream – constantly alert as to his legal rights, reasonably adroit with his purse strings. Just one thing, though. He refuses to do anything connected with the law  - appear in court, file any paper or even drop into my office – without his astrologer’s sanction.

None of my arguments against this fuzzy logic holds water as far as he is concerned. His view is that I am only the tool for implementation for God’s vast design. If I win his case, the stars had foretold victory long ago. My legal acumen and effort have nothing to do with it.

Naturally, his attitude is humbling to my ego. But there is a flip side. If I lose his case (it does happen once in a while), it is not my fault. It is because his astrologer got the positions of the stars and planets wrong. So it evens out. He continues his patronage.

Last Sunday I was enjoying a quiet hour in the office, goofing off and surfing the Net.  I was almost irritated when an elderly, bearded man in ochre robes entered my chamber, a cloth bag slung across his shoulder and a thick black file under his arm. He turned out to be a palmist and not a prospective client, which made me even more eager to send him on his way and continue my nefarious activities. I turned a deaf ear to his telling me that I have a Leonine face that merited a reading of my palm. I refused to look at the various certificates from important personages he displayed, attesting to his intimate association with the supernatural. But then Vinod Kumar walked in.

In a way, it was embarrassing. There I was, the stalwart of rationalism, parlaying with a palmist and the very client that I preach about it to walks in. But I was relieved. Vinod Kumar would soon chase this charlatan away.

Vinod Kumar began his cross examination of the would-be paw peruser with an opening salvo of rapid fire questions in a lingo which was pure Greek to me. The sage replied in the same jargon. Retort and repartee flew back and forth. No courtroom could have witnessed anything better.

And Vinod Kumar pronounced himself satisfied with the soothsayer’s credentials.

I found myself extending my hand over the table under Vinod Kumar’s supervision. I heard many things pleasing to my ear, about what great heights I would achieve and how I would wrest all this single-handedly, with no support from any quarter. Vinod Kumar sat there nodding his head, his smile conveying that he knew this all along.

The best prediction was that I would come into a fortune in the next six months. He said he would look me up in half a year’s time and that if his prophesy proved true, I was to buy him a cup of tea. The conviction grew in me that this great man was much more knowledgeable than my cousin, by all means.

After the visitor left, Vinod Kumar expressed his congratulations on the good things that were in store for me.  I scoffed it off. I still don’t believe in all this foolishness.

However, I bought a lottery ticket yesterday.