HORRORscope !!!

Disclaimer - All examples found here are taken from what I have seen and heard around me. The names aren’t revealed only because I wish to live a little more !

A Mumbai based businessman, listening to an astrologer, with the support from his wife rapes both daughters for 9 long years !

Renowned hotel chain owner gets life time sentence for murder, again listening to an astrologer !

Child sacrfices, advised by astrologers and many more such stories.


and how many more do we need to finally wake up?

We all love predictions, don’t we? And we also drop down our jaws in awe when some random person reveals our past. There are people watch those astrology shows on TV, and read sun sign predictions that appear in papers and magazines. Some of them including me watch or read just to have a laugh or two, while there are some who take those predictions to their heart, liver, brain, kidneys or whatever and act accordingly. It’s a myth that only the illiterate go to the extreme level of superstition, infact I have seen more of the educated lot sabotaging their lives in the name of astrology and horoscope, or like they call it, the Horrorscope !

I once had an interesting conversation with one of my friends who strongly believed in horoscopes and astrology.

Me : There are instances where the pregnancy of a woman has been delayed so that the child is born according to a specific time. Is it true?
Friend : Ya, it is. It is for the betterment of the child.
Me : What if either the mother or the child dies during the process of delaying? I mean, there are chances, right? Isn’t it illegal?
Friend : Its Fate. If they have to die that way, what can we do?
Me : WTH ? How can you be so ignorant? You are letting them die by delaying the pregnancy and you are blaming it on fate? And in the first place, why cant you accept a child as it is?

What followed after that was a heated argument! I didn’t want to agree to her views and she stuck onto her beliefs !

We all know that horoscopes are written keeping time, date, place, etc. in mind. One small change in the time, even in the seconds, would make a lot of difference in the person’s future according to the astrologers. Now imagine a situation where a nurse forgets to check the exact time of delivery. Or imagine if the clock or watch was slow or fast even by a minute or so. Does it mean that the fate of the child is in the hands of a silly nurse or a stupid clock? Or wait; imagine a child born in the US on the 20th of March at 4pm, which means its 21st in India. Now will the horoscope of the child be written according to the US or Indian timings and date? They say even the place of birth is as important as the time and date of the birth, so if it is written using the Indian timings, how will you incorporate the place of birth (US) in the horoscope? Doesn’t make any sense, does it?

Ok, now lets go one step back from birth. Most of the married and the going to get married lot here would have gone through a stage where in the horoscopes are made to match to check compatibility. I have seen a lot of couples living happily after ignoring all these hocus-pocus and customs. On the contrary, I have also come across failed marriages and divorces wherein the horoscopes have played a vital role in getting them together. More importantly, this kind of match making happens only in the Hindu community. I haven’t heard of any Muslim or Christians who possess those fate-deciding papers with them. Don’t they get married and live happily? A year ago, during bride hunting, there was this girl whom everybody liked. Everything went great until our horoscopes were brought to match. Apparently the astrologer commented that there’s nothing wrong in the guy-girl getting married, but the girl wouldn’t be in a position to conceive children. Both parents on hearing this backed off. I wonder where in those papers has the astrologer read about our impotency level. LOL.

I know personally a mother who kept matching horoscopes for her daughter so that her to be son-in-law will get them a boy child !!! The search went on for 2 years until the daughter got married and she was indeed blessed with a boy child. The horoscope- maniac mother fell ill with a dreaded disease soon after her daughter’s delivery; now how did the astrologers miss out on that one!!! hmmm...

We also see people letting the astrologers shape their own career. Some of them change their whole name, some of them add a few alphabets to their name making it hard to read and write, and a few of them have even gone to the extent of changing their parents name! There’s this childhood friend of mine whose whole life turned topsy-turvy only because his father had sought some career advise from an astrologer. They were leading a pretty normal life, and my friend and his sibling were studying in one of the best Indian schools. His father was made to wear some fancy rings, change names, conduct several rituals and was made to visit a lot of temples. The astrologer squeezed the ignorant man of everything, one thing led to another and finally the poor man ended up behind the bars.

I agree there are fake astrologers who manipulate the weak minded to make money and that would be the obvious answers to all my questions posed. The other answer would be to take the positive sides of horoscope and ignore the negative ones. But is it necessary for the educated lot in our country to go behind astrologers for their career advise, or matrimony or even childbirth? Shouldn’t it be you who decide what you want in life? Why do you let a third person manipulate your life with his POV? Your entire life revolves around some astrologers predictions and there are chances that these predictions could go wrong; after all, they are just predictions. If astrologers can predict your marriage, career or even sexual life; if he decides your fate, if he makes you re-write your fate with rituals, if he is letting you draw a picture of your life with his hands, then why do we need God at all?

It all boils down to the fact that one shouldn’t believe in astrology or astrologers blindly. The belief shouldn’t influence ones life in a way that he/she end up being a maniac or at the wrong side of the law.

Your future should lie in the best of hands; let that be your own !!!