Haricharan - The Astrologer

Haricharan - The Astrologer

It was a summer afternoon in mid-June, and a hot wave continuously for a week blew over Calcutta, creating the dweller's life exhausted, and that compelled them to expect an immediate rain and to follow the condition of the sky to observe whether a cloud appeared. 

The descending sun touched the horizon creating the river water that looked like animated golden flakes scattering over a large part of its panorama. 

A busy steamboat passed through the river water blowing a long whistle. 

Over time, Kolkata has changed in many ways, except the bank of the Ganga River appeared with a different outlook, especially the surrounding places of Nimtola and Kumartuli, as the progress around the vicinity is slow  

compared to the other parts. 

It was as if the vicinity tied to the holiness of the river and traditional Hinduism prevented progress, and nobody was there to touch that sentiment daringly, which resulted in no or little development. 

People from Bihar and other parts of India started living here for a long time with their religious testaments keeping busy themselves from dawn to dusk. 

They are not the permanent dwellers of this place though nothing is permanent on the earth. 

However, these migrated people are commonly poor villagers, mostly farmers or artisans who settled here for a few generations because of their good-going professions; for instance, Haricharan chose a future-predicting profession as he sensed this is a sensitive part of human life. 

Who doesn't want to know the future? 

Haricharan, to crown himself as an astrologer, resplendent his forehead with sacred ash and vermillion matched with a thinly knitted saffron dress and a turban of the same colour as saffron is the colour of sacrifice. 

The most striking feature of his appearance was his calm, reliant eyes with which he could sense other's minds easily. 

Humans have some common longings, which an astrologer can predict whether they can fulfil by prescribed readymade remedies. 

Haricharan earned profit by offering the remedies like duplicate stones that looked like the originals and some particular roots as he knew his customers' affordability who couldn't go to a high-profiled astrologer. 

Everybody in that vicinity had a separate profession according to their skill and passion.  

All are free to earn money without investments or with a minimum investment except for the sudden raid by police. To keep the mouth shut, offering a monthly system was the only way of negotiation.  

They had a common purpose of earning by startling people by pretending their tricks to prove the cosmic power they achieved through long-time practice intensified by sufferings from hunger. 

But busy people had no time to bother about others' honesty. 

If their luck favoured, the victim came himself to them. 

A few steps ahead of the astrologer, a man was found upright down posture like a perpendicular. 

It was an acrobatic skill of this man which was necessary for him to draw attention to earn money, but how? 

The silent perpendicular did not need any effort because sometimes silence speaks a lot. 

Before him, a stretched cloth was enough to collect his reward. 

Coins and notes automatically came down on it like flying saucers from the ongoing people. 

On leaving this perpendicular a few distances ahead, a man surrounded by the listeners was reading a holy book kept open a manuscript before him. 

His speciality was his articulation which was his trick to draw people to him. 

To achieve the skill of clear pronunciation, possibly, he would have worked out hard for several years. 

He was narrating every spell of the Gita in a mixed dialect in such a way that could touch the heart of every listener. 

Most of the listeners were poor and old-aged. 

A few were listening with closed eyes, while some had a fascinated look keeping their eyes open as if they were looking at a movie screen. 

Everybody has the instinct to survive at any cost through struggle, more or less. 

These professionals also had different vociferousness for their survival. 

The village people had no option to choose a way to live because of their illiteracy and generation-wise poverty. 

But hunger always follows food to live without knowing anything wrong or right. 

The astrologer Haricharan was one of them who settled here to earn something and send money to his family who lived in a distant village though his luck was not the same every day. 

I know a little about the trustworthiness of an astrologer's prediction and remedy because I cannot understand whether it is a part of physics or philosophy. 

Haricharan knew that astrology as a profession would be more compatible with him because it matched his nature. 

Haricharan, as a human being, was truly honest, but a profession is a different way of art because it has its ethics. 

A circular train passes through this area five to six times a day. 

It was a Thursday afternoon in May when a train arrived at the station in front. 

The day was hot and humid. 

A few passengers who got off the train looked exhausted and moved away hurriedly towards the jetty to get on the steamboat, waiting for the passengers. 

Most of the passengers were on their way back home from the office.  

Their destination was on the opposite side of the river. Most of the passengers were from the Howrah district or far away. 

Haricharan lost his father in childhood. With his father's death, everything in his life changed. 

His father was a farmer. At a tender age, he had to take his father's place. Instead of going to school, he went to the field for farming. The lifting burden of his family became mandatory in his life. It was unwritten but obvious. He never thought of it as a burden. He had done everything with love and care. Since then, he has been struggling. Despite the struggle, his life was going smoothly. Suddenly one day, he heard about his father's debt to a local moneylender and the burden of a large amount compelled him to take a drastic decision. He sold all his land and the ancestral house, where childhood memories were scattered from corner to corner. What could be done by him? The burden of debt is like a hanging blade on the head. Since then, he left his family in the village, migrated to Calcutta and settled permanently in a temporary hut on the river bank. 

Nobody knows how and in which situation one has to interact with a stranger on the path of life. 

The first meeting between me and Haricharan was much like that. 

That was a summer evening when one of my friend's grandma died. A few days before, I passed out of college. Since I had a lot of carefree time, I had to be a part of the funeral procession with my friends, and when the door of the electric furnace shut off for cremation, I had nothing special to do for at least forty-five minutes.  

We decided to explore the surroundings because that was the first time we had a chance to visit such a place like that. 

It was an unfamiliar sight to me. 

Before that, I had no idea about this particular part of Calcutta. 

Unlike the other part of Calcutta, it had a different ambience. 

The people moving around were very busy maintaining their code for the struggle to survive. 

At first, my sight caught the astrologer, Haricharan. 

Though I had no belief in predictions, having been motivated by curiosity, I asked him to say about my future. 

Using palmistry, he observed each line from my palm with professional judiciousness keeping me waiting with excitement. His utmost concentration drew my attention to my palm, which he gripped carefully, and a sudden thought arose in my mind about how a palm could say future. I felt a palm is not just a palm but something like a graphical representation of fate that shows a relation between two quantities - time and change of fortune.    

 I kept an impatient look on his face.  

Almost ten minutes later, he raised his face with a mystical look as if he woke up from long tranquilness and uttered his prophetic verdict,

" Babu, you are an honest son of honest parents. The rest of your life will be smooth except for the 27th year. You have to be very careful at this time. Otherwise, your life may be in crisis."

" The remedy!"

" I don't have that."

" But I have seen you prescribe to others."

" Babu, I have, but I don't want to give you because you are an honest man. They are all fake."

" Does that mean you earn money by cheating?"

On hearing that, he said daringly with a grin," This is not cheating, but business tricks. 

A businessman wants to create the gap between honesty and dishonesty through tricks because their fortune lies in that gap. More the gap wider he will earn. That's the way to achievement."

I realised a reality hidden somewhere behind his words. 

Meanwhile, nine years passed. I am now thirty-two. My fourteen years old daughter Trina is more mature than she should be at her age. Haricharan's prediction was perfect. When I was twenty-seven, I lost my father. In the same year, six months later of my father's death, Shusama, my wife, suddenly left me. One evening, after my wife's death, suddenly, Haricharan's face appeared on my memory screen. When I stood before him in the same place, I saw him sitting in his usual gesture, predicting someone's future. No sooner had he noticed me than he got excited. For the moment, he kept staring at me with tears full of eyes- the eyes which had many questions to ask. Soon he managed to free himself, and before he said, I told him," Haricharan, I have come to you to say that your prediction was correct that you predicted me nine years ago. You are not an ordinary astrologer."

With remorseful eyes, he said," Babu, I am not an astrologer. I do not know about astrology. What my inner says, I utter that. If anything results perfectly, it is just a coincidence. I have been cheating people for a long time. I am a cheater and gambler. Don't believe my word."

Time has changed everything. A long time ago, on that day, I doubted his knowledge of astrology, and he was trying to prove his skill of prediction, but today, he is trying to prove himself that he is a cheater while I want to say about his correct prediction.

I asked him tenderly," Don't you want to know about your granddaughter?"

He said nothing but sighed. I held my cell phone before him to show Trina's photo on the screen. With an innocent smile, he quickly cleaned his spectacles and kept a look at the picture.

It was a different look, so pure and affectionate that I had never seen on anybody's face. 

I am not Trina's biological father. My wife had complications in childbirth. After two times miscarriages, the doctor declared Shusama couldn't be a mother. It was so shocking to her that she, day by day, was getting solitary. Confused, I decided to go to Haricharan to know whether there was any chance for my wife. Haricharan was busy, and a baby of two to two and a half years old was beside him. I purposely asked him about the baby to draw his attention, and it worked. 

" Babu, she is my granddaughter." His eyes got wet," My son and his wife died in a bus accident." He burst into tears. " Nobody was in the village to look after her. So, I took her here, but unable to look after her properly. I don't know how to tackle a baby like her. I am exhausted."  

Suddenly something clicked in my mind. I came here to know something else, but I changed it. 

I came closer and said in a low voice," I have a remedy for that if you are agreed. 

This time, Haricharan looked at me with a sharp vision directly in my eyes as if he wanted to read my mind. I hardly heard his voice," I don't understand what you are saying, babu."

" I want to adopt her because I have no child, and there is little chance of that." 

His face lit up with joy after hearing this, and he asked," Do you want to look after her?"

" Yes"

He picked up the baby and said with pleasure," You are so lucky that a man like him wants to look after you."

A week later, I adopted her legally. She filled up a vacuum space in our life. The Warmheartedness of my wife to the baby was beyond assumption. Her presence filled up the air inside our house with extraordinary happiness. I thanked Haricaran in my heart. 

To a baby, it is more important who looks after her than who is her biological parents. 

Staring at the screen, he tried to recognise his granddaughter and said with a bewildered smile," She is not recognised as she is grown up." He held a smile on his face and said," How is your wife, babu?"

I said nothing, a deep breath came out only from inside. 

He lowered his head and said," Then who looks after her now?"

I smilingly answered," She is grown enough to look after herself. Sometimes she behaves like my mother."

" I have no language to gratitude you, but she should not know anything about me. I request you, babu."

A few years have passed, meanwhile. I couldn't manage the time to visit Haricharan. Trina is now a medical student in her final year, a prudent, pretty-looking young lady. She is busy with her different jobs. She is my mother, daughter and friend. I also like to depend on her. Though I am sixty-four, I am still active. I have a daily schedule from morning to night. As walking is good exercise, I walk for an hour every day. One fine morning, a curiosity brought me to the river bank. It is a curiosity that has no reason to exist yet exists in my subconscious. Unfortunately, he was not in his usual place, so I should wait for some time, and after half an hour, I decided to move back home. On the way back, I found somebody familiar with Haricharan. From a distance, he recognised me and asked,

" How are you, babu?"

" I am fine, but I didn't find him there. Do you know anything about him?"

"Babu, he is in the hospital. He got a fever for a week without remittance, and his condition was unbearable. I decided to admit him to a hospital. I am coming from there right now."

" How is he now?" 

He got a little surprised, noticing my eagerness.

Perhaps, my superfluous concern about Haricharan compelled him to be surprised.

" His condition is stable now, but he is unconscious."

" In which hospital he has been admitted?"

" Medical College."

" Thank God. My daughter is a student at the same college. She may help for his betterment."

Coming back home, I discussed the matter with Trina. 

" He is much known to me. He should have a better care in the hospital. Can you do something for him?"

" Certainly, I will try my level best." Taking a pause, she asked me with surprise,

" Who is that man, dad?" 

" He is an astrologer whom I know for a long time."

I couldn't say much to her about Haricharan as I remembered my commitment. 

Trina came closer to me and said," Don't worry, tell me the bed number."

" Forty-six, general ward."

" Okay dad. I will find out him." 

That evening, hardly had my cell phone rang, I picked up the phone. 

" Dad, I found him. He is detoriating. Would you like to see him before .....?"

" Yes, I will be there shortly."

When I reached before him, some moments were left to leave. I called him, but he didn't respond. I picked up a bottle quickly and uttered Trina to pour some water into his mouth. He took a deep breath with a few drops of water in his mouth.

He broke off all ties with his granddaughter and left forever.

Little did poor Hariharan know how close his only inheritance stood to him, but I kept my vow to Haricharan.