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Chalta Hai · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Warning.
0:11
Speaker 2: The following episode includes discussion of magical leaves, prophecies, miracles,
0:16
Speaker 2: big temples, bigger disappointments, black magic, fresh lime, soda, and
0:20
Speaker 2: snake astronauts. Sensitive listeners, you've been warned.
0:31
Speaker 1: How about the heart of Goliad.
0:33
Speaker 3: Okay, it's the middle of August. I've been in India for
0:37
Speaker 3: two minutes and everything is falling apart. I want the
0:41
Speaker 3: complaint number for the universe. I want a manager on
0:44
Speaker 3: the line because this is not what my astrologer, doctor
0:48
Speaker 3: Kumar told me. What happened.
0:49
Speaker 4: So you're in the right track. Something very profound is
0:53
Speaker 4: going to happen to you now.
0:54
Speaker 3: I mean doctor Kumar did predict I'd be going to
0:57
Speaker 3: India for this show.
0:58
Speaker 4: There are lots of things for you to accomplish, including
1:02
Speaker 4: foreign travels. So go to India because that is all
1:05
Speaker 4: the young and wisdoms.
1:09
Speaker 3: And he also said this.
1:11
Speaker 5: You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
1:20
Speaker 3: Back in April, I experienced a miracle of astrology. I'd
1:24
Speaker 3: walked into a random astrologer's office in Queen's and during
1:28
Speaker 3: my session, the astrologer, doctor Kumar, had told me something
1:31
Speaker 3: horrible would happen, and he was right. Exactly one month later,
1:37
Speaker 3: my father passed away and it changed the trajectory of
1:41
Speaker 3: both this show and my life. And for many people
1:46
Speaker 3: that would be enough to make them believe in astrology,
1:49
Speaker 3: but it wasn't. For me. Astrology had told me what
1:52
Speaker 3: would happen, but I still had no idea what to
1:55
Speaker 3: do about it. But there was one place that I
1:58
Speaker 3: really thought could have to answer, these little shops hidden
2:02
Speaker 3: across India that practiced nadi astrology. The idea is, your
2:06
Speaker 3: fortune was written on scrolls centuries ago, and if you
2:10
Speaker 3: can find your scroll, it'll reveal everything, your past, your future,
2:15
Speaker 3: Who's the person you're supposed to be? Anyway, the moment
2:19
Speaker 3: I decided to book the trip to see one of
2:21
Speaker 3: these shops, I call my aunt's suman and ask her
2:24
Speaker 3: to be my fixer. When I was in high school,
2:27
Speaker 3: summon Or Sumanaka and my uncle Giant let me live
2:31
Speaker 3: and intern with them in Bombay for a summer. They
2:34
Speaker 3: were running this hotview advertising company called Heartbeat, which had
2:38
Speaker 3: just made huge waves with this racy condom campaigning comedy.
2:49
Speaker 3: Of course, I sat in on the decidedly less racy
2:53
Speaker 3: creative meetings, which I loved pitching ideas and jingles for
2:59
Speaker 3: things like washing the jeans and ceiling fans. That summer
3:03
Speaker 3: gave high school me a huge boost of confidence. It
3:07
Speaker 3: had this direct impact on my co founding a magazine
3:10
Speaker 3: a few years later. But also hanging with Simonika was
3:15
Speaker 3: just fun. She inspired silliness, like sometimes she'll just decide
3:21
Speaker 3: it's more enjoyable to have a conversation like you're singing
3:23
Speaker 3: opera to one another.
3:24
Speaker 6: Today's shopping lists for me coffee jam, a bag of.
3:28
Speaker 5: Tea, something sweet, and spaghetti.
3:31
Speaker 4: This will be how boring spree.
3:36
Speaker 3: So I'm eager to hang out with her again. Except
3:40
Speaker 3: somewhere between Bombay's baggage claim and customs, I get this.
3:45
Speaker 2: Call right, No, I'm shivering away, so.
3:49
Speaker 7: I'm so I'm really so sorry that you're you're ill.
3:53
Speaker 8: It was really frustrating because I arranged.
3:55
Speaker 3: Everything and Somanaka is waiting for the doctor to call back,
3:58
Speaker 3: and it's very like she has denay fever. Well, I've
4:02
Speaker 3: been using my mosquito repellent like it's cologne, and so
4:07
Speaker 3: it's I'm playing it cool on the phone, but this
4:11
Speaker 3: is me secretly terrified. Not so much about the diseases though,
4:16
Speaker 3: Dengay and COVID are definitely not great. But more how
4:21
Speaker 3: I'm going to manage these interviews.
4:23
Speaker 7: If they speak English, I'm fine going alone.
4:25
Speaker 3: Huh oh, he only speaks Hindi. This is a problem
4:31
Speaker 3: because merry Hindi Boho karab aka, My Hindi is shit.
4:37
Speaker 3: So I panic, and then I have an idea. What
4:42
Speaker 3: if hers son plays translator for me? And I realized
4:46
Speaker 3: this is a ridiculous question. But for the naughty guy,
4:49
Speaker 3: is there any way I could take Argin with me. Argin,
4:52
Speaker 3: who's a few years younger than me, was always a
4:55
Speaker 3: golden child. He was handsome, sensitive, artistic, and musical. But
5:01
Speaker 3: I lost track of him in our twenties when he
5:03
Speaker 3: moved to Dubai and started a career there. And then
5:07
Speaker 3: there was this period where he fully disappeared, this dark
5:11
Speaker 3: spot which our family doesn't really talk about.
5:15
Speaker 9: You'll have to ask him.
5:16
Speaker 7: Yeah, you just call him.
5:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, that can be nice. The rain pommels the city
5:29
Speaker 3: as I take a cab in, but I'm happy to
5:32
Speaker 3: see them monsoon. It's both wet and sunny outside, and
5:37
Speaker 3: everything smells green and earthy. As the rain continues to
5:41
Speaker 3: fall in the lobby, the hotel doors are open, and
5:45
Speaker 3: if you look just right between the swaying palms and
5:49
Speaker 3: the mist, you can spot the Arabian Sea. I'm fiddling
5:54
Speaker 3: with my recording equipment when I spot Argine walking in,
6:00
Speaker 3: I'm brilliant. I can't tell you how happy I am
6:03
Speaker 3: to see him. We're both prayer, both dads.
6:07
Speaker 10: Now.
6:07
Speaker 3: After a quick embrace, I tell him about the chaos
6:10
Speaker 3: that's welcomed me, how he saved me, because I feel
6:14
Speaker 3: like that's my entire trip, is like everything's falling apart slowly.
6:18
Speaker 1: You know.
6:19
Speaker 9: The charm of India is that even if everything's breaking down,
6:24
Speaker 9: everything's fine. You know, everyone has a very nice, relaxed
6:28
Speaker 9: kind of attitude, like this happens. Yeah, well, you can't
6:31
Speaker 9: take life so seriously.
6:33
Speaker 3: There's a phrase in India chelta, which loosely translates to
6:38
Speaker 3: don't worry things happen. You hear it a lot because
6:42
Speaker 3: India is unbridled. No matter how much you try to
6:46
Speaker 3: will it, it runs on its own schedule. And that's
6:50
Speaker 3: wonderfully easy to embrace. When you're on vacation, you're not
6:53
Speaker 3: responsible for what happens. But it's a little more difficult
6:57
Speaker 3: when You're on an impossible quest to determine what you
7:00
Speaker 3: should and shouldn't believe for the rest of your life,
7:02
Speaker 3: and you've given yourself two weeks to do that. But
7:06
Speaker 3: that's why people come to India right, to go on
7:09
Speaker 3: some sort of spiritual retreat and find themselves. God, I'm
7:13
Speaker 3: such a cliche. The only thing I can hope for
7:16
Speaker 3: now is that doctor Kumar is going to be right twice.
7:21
Speaker 5: You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
7:25
Speaker 3: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Monga'shatiquador. Welcome to Skyline Drive.
8:12
Speaker 3: Chapter one, Straight from Shiva's mouth.
8:19
Speaker 11: Come from Maya, from Holland.
8:32
Speaker 3: This is Bombay. As a kid, Bombay is where I
8:36
Speaker 3: used to start and end every trip to India. Midnight
8:40
Speaker 3: arrivals and two a m feasts with relatives who've been
8:43
Speaker 3: waiting years to see us. The world was bigger than
8:47
Speaker 3: harder to wrap your arms around, and flights to India
8:49
Speaker 3: took twenty two hours with multiple layovers and refueling stops.
8:53
Speaker 3: New York than Paris, than Cairo, than Delhi and only
8:58
Speaker 3: then Bombay. And it was expensive. We'd save up until
9:02
Speaker 3: we could go back, and every trip was an event.
9:06
Speaker 3: This is the library. It's under my aunt's apartment in chamber,
9:10
Speaker 3: and it's where I used to borrow old comics and
9:13
Speaker 3: mad magazines. This is the Jim Khanna where I learned
9:18
Speaker 3: to play snooker. This is Xavier's, where my dad studied
9:23
Speaker 3: and then didn't. It is more delinquent years. This is
9:28
Speaker 3: the disco where I learned to dance, and Kyber where
9:32
Speaker 3: my parents went on their first day. Bombay has always
9:37
Speaker 3: felt like my city in New York. People correct me
9:40
Speaker 3: when I say Bombay, but Indians never do. Still, I
9:45
Speaker 3: toggle between the names depending on my mood. Driving through
9:49
Speaker 3: the city, it feels like an old friend whose path
9:51
Speaker 3: is veered from your own, like you don't quite see
9:55
Speaker 3: eye to eye anymore, but you're also not around each
9:58
Speaker 3: other for long enough to make a thing of it.
10:05
Speaker 3: The thing is, I still feel my dad here, like
10:09
Speaker 3: a fog that descended on the city ages ago and
10:12
Speaker 3: refused to burn off.
10:17
Speaker 5: A great time.
10:18
Speaker 12: But I kind of just got into this relationship, so
10:22
Speaker 12: I don't know how to navigate.
10:24
Speaker 3: And she's like all cool and sergent, and I are
10:27
Speaker 3: standing on a street corner in the Santa Cruz neighborhood
10:29
Speaker 3: of Bombay and we're waiting to step into the naughty
10:32
Speaker 3: shop that my aunt someone somehow located for us. From
10:36
Speaker 3: the outside, the place looks tiny and nondescript, something you'd
10:40
Speaker 3: overlook if you weren't hunting for it.
10:43
Speaker 5: How would you describe it since you're not familiar.
10:45
Speaker 3: There's a fleet of rickshaws going by us right and
10:50
Speaker 3: the rain is stopped now, but there were tons of
10:53
Speaker 3: puddles and.
10:54
Speaker 13: Lots of Gawship of the cow seem to do.
10:56
Speaker 3: Even in central Bombay, cows owned the road.
11:00
Speaker 7: We're going to walk into this place to see the Naddy.
11:02
Speaker 7: Do you know anything about Natty?
11:03
Speaker 9: This will be my first experience too, But there's a
11:06
Speaker 9: lot of fortune telling that happens in India, and some
11:10
Speaker 9: of it can be pretty authentic, though the Charlatans are
11:13
Speaker 9: much more in number. Yeah, so I'm hoping this is
11:17
Speaker 9: a great experience.
11:20
Speaker 3: The funny thing about these naughty shops is that as
11:23
Speaker 3: soon as people tell you to go to one, they'll
11:26
Speaker 3: also tell you how many fake ones there are. But
11:29
Speaker 3: this place is well regarded, so I'm hopeful. We walk
11:33
Speaker 3: through the doorway, leave our shoes in a dusty two
11:36
Speaker 3: foot by two foot vestibule and then enter reception barefoot.
11:40
Speaker 3: I don't know what I was expecting, like maybe a
11:43
Speaker 3: wall full of scrolls, or maybe big brass sculptures of
11:46
Speaker 3: little known deities and saints, or maybe just some wal art. Instead,
11:52
Speaker 3: we're standing in a tiny, poorly lit box, a couple
11:55
Speaker 3: of benches pressed up against the walls, and a desk
11:58
Speaker 3: facing the door. We give our name to the man
12:01
Speaker 3: pottering at the desk, and then we just wait. Of course,
12:08
Speaker 3: of course, the Natti reader Lukashchi peeks out from behind
12:12
Speaker 3: a wall to tell us he's doing his morning prayers.
12:15
Speaker 3: He asks us if we like water or tea while
12:17
Speaker 3: we wait? How incredible would it be if the first
12:21
Speaker 3: astrologer I met in India located in an instruction manual
12:24
Speaker 3: for the rest of my life. What if the leaves
12:27
Speaker 3: hiding in his archive actually contain my life's purpose? I
12:31
Speaker 3: am genuinely giddy. The prayers take longer than ten minutes,
12:35
Speaker 3: but Subchelta, hey, it all works. We get ushered into
12:41
Speaker 3: an even tinier room, though this one actually has personality.
12:45
Speaker 3: It's bright lime green, with a couple of temple calendars
12:48
Speaker 3: on the wall, and then Mukish walks in with an
12:51
Speaker 3: armful of wooden bundles.
12:55
Speaker 5: So these are a whole bunch of scrolls.
12:57
Speaker 3: Actually, Mukeish places the scrolls on his desk and let'sus
13:02
Speaker 3: inspect them.
13:03
Speaker 5: This is oh wow, it's engraved. There's beautiful.
13:07
Speaker 3: I've been calling them scrolls, but that feels like the
13:10
Speaker 3: wrong word. Have you ever seen those pantone booklets with
13:13
Speaker 3: pages that fan out? These are almost like an ancient
13:16
Speaker 3: version of that, but longer, made of very thin sheets.
13:20
Speaker 3: Each scroll is maybe three to four inches wide and
13:24
Speaker 3: about a foot and a half long, and they're stacked
13:26
Speaker 3: and bound with maybe thirty or forty per booklet. As
13:30
Speaker 3: we marvel at the tiny lines of text etched across them,
13:34
Speaker 3: Mukeish explains the origins and what they said.
13:36
Speaker 5: These as just the leaves.
13:39
Speaker 3: He tells us, we're etched in the eighteenth century when
13:42
Speaker 3: a family made copies of the original millennia old predictions.
13:46
Speaker 3: The engravings were laborious and the script is tiny. But
13:50
Speaker 3: these scrolls have lasted because the caretakers meticulously rub them
13:53
Speaker 3: with oil once a year to preserve them. Here's our
13:57
Speaker 3: gin translating.
13:58
Speaker 14: This is coming from Paminan, the oldest language in the world.
14:02
Speaker 5: And it's coming from the Siddhar tradition.
14:05
Speaker 9: The Sas are some of the oldest keepers.
14:08
Speaker 5: Of knowledge according to Indiana.
14:12
Speaker 3: Mukish also tells us that these Nadi shastras or sacred
14:16
Speaker 3: prophecies have a mythological prominence. Lord Shiva, in his infinite wisdom,
14:22
Speaker 3: shared this knowledge with the goddess Parverti, his wife, and
14:26
Speaker 3: then she passed it on to Lord Brahma, who passed
14:29
Speaker 3: the knowledge from the gods to the sages and then
14:31
Speaker 3: finally to the priests. And to me, it sounds like
14:34
Speaker 3: a game of celestial telephone. But Mukish, she tells us
14:39
Speaker 3: these scrolls are actually less prone to human error than
14:41
Speaker 3: traditional astrology because the words inscribed here comes straight from God.
14:46
Speaker 15: So he is only the reader that the information is
14:52
Speaker 15: directly available and cannot be soiled by human that as.
14:57
Speaker 3: Such, Mukesh tells us he's been doing this for twenty
15:00
Speaker 3: nine years. He shows his photos on his phone of
15:03
Speaker 3: him with clients people he asks us not to share,
15:06
Speaker 3: but they include some of India's biggest politicians and most
15:10
Speaker 3: famous scientists. He stresses that he's a humble man. He
15:14
Speaker 3: is just a reader providing answers for people. In need,
15:18
Speaker 3: and I believe him. Then he gently reaches for my thumb,
15:22
Speaker 3: rolls it across a pad of ink, and he presses
15:25
Speaker 3: it onto a sheet of paper.
15:27
Speaker 14: Said that he gave us some methodology directly relating to
15:32
Speaker 14: the thump pige for which there are under any divisions.
15:35
Speaker 3: Basically, the whorls on my finger will give the librarians
15:38
Speaker 3: a clue as to where my leaf might be. There
15:41
Speaker 3: are thousands and thousands of these bundles of scrolls in
15:44
Speaker 3: the back, and they're all carefully organized. Sometimes, he says,
15:48
Speaker 3: the process can take fifteen minutes. Sometimes it takes months.
15:52
Speaker 3: He also comments on my aunt's absence. He says, part
15:55
Speaker 3: of the reason she fell ill was that she wasn't
15:58
Speaker 3: meant to be here today. You can only show up
16:01
Speaker 3: in this room if it's your destiny. Sometimes people have
16:04
Speaker 3: car accidents trying to get here. Others apparently get dange.
16:09
Speaker 3: But since I've made it into this room, he tells me,
16:12
Speaker 3: this is fate.
16:13
Speaker 14: If it's also such that at the end of the day,
16:16
Speaker 14: this is a Yeah.
16:18
Speaker 5: There will be problems.
16:20
Speaker 14: He said that you must remain in your mind and
16:23
Speaker 14: your heart quiet, because.
16:26
Speaker 5: Problems will come, problems will go.
16:29
Speaker 14: Yeah, so try and stay calm, but it is destiny.
16:36
Speaker 3: I stare at the income my thumb, remembering this weird
16:39
Speaker 3: fact for my days at mental floss that koalas have
16:42
Speaker 3: fingerprints that could be mistaken for humans, and I laugh
16:45
Speaker 3: to myself, wondering if my scroll could be mistaken for kualas.
16:49
Speaker 3: If mukishg walks back in and tells me that I'll
16:52
Speaker 3: enjoy napping in trees for eighteen hours a day, or
16:55
Speaker 3: if in my older age, I'll really love feasting on eucalyptus,
16:59
Speaker 3: then I'll know exactly what went wrong. It's the type
17:02
Speaker 3: of dumb joke that i'd share with someone thatka, but
17:05
Speaker 3: it's too dumb to make in this room. Over the
17:09
Speaker 3: next three weeks that I'm in India, my cash full
17:12
Speaker 3: look and he'll keep touching face, but he won't find
17:17
Speaker 3: my scroll. Chapter two, The Thing that Matters.
17:38
Speaker 1: Yea melankluch now mal local k yea local ka ye
17:42
Speaker 1: swager by Russi The Wall local La local kayak ya
17:47
Speaker 1: melonli now mal local k ye local ka yea sweger
17:52
Speaker 1: by us The wall local okay ye lola.
17:55
Speaker 3: Local language is curious and how it informs and reflects
17:59
Speaker 3: I deals. The way my family talks is gentle. The
18:03
Speaker 3: dialect we speak is sing song ye. My old roommate
18:07
Speaker 3: Lasako used to tell me it was like butter when
18:10
Speaker 3: she heard me talking to my mom on the phone.
18:13
Speaker 3: But if it's sweet and overly polite, it's also not direct.
18:18
Speaker 3: My dad didn't often talk about the sad things or
18:21
Speaker 3: the hard things. Often he'd skip over the specifics and
18:26
Speaker 3: allude to difficulties in terms that were vague but capacious.
18:31
Speaker 3: So if you were to discuss my cousin Argin, he
18:34
Speaker 3: might say, it was so hard what he went through.
18:38
Speaker 3: It's really good. He's back now, which is insufficient. My
18:43
Speaker 3: cousin Argin is back now, And of course i'd heard
18:47
Speaker 3: the whispers, but he told me his story.
18:50
Speaker 12: I'm also going to try and get you up in
18:52
Speaker 12: a night show.
18:53
Speaker 3: It involves him building townships in the Ivory.
18:56
Speaker 13: Coast now let's say Ivory Ghost but yeah, and.
19:02
Speaker 3: Then coming back to Dubai to help sort a multimillion
19:05
Speaker 3: dollar deal.
19:06
Speaker 13: I actually shifted to the Middle East. Everyone was like,
19:09
Speaker 13: what's wrong with you?
19:11
Speaker 3: It involves a reneged transaction and him taking the fall
19:14
Speaker 3: for someone else's carelessness.
19:16
Speaker 16: I called up and I said can I come back
19:18
Speaker 16: now that I sent you all money to clear everything?
19:21
Speaker 13: He said, come on back, there's no problem. You send
19:25
Speaker 13: the money, You've cleared everything. I came back and I
19:27
Speaker 13: got arrested.
19:29
Speaker 3: It's him being thrown in some of the region's worst
19:31
Speaker 3: and most violent prisons. I did so multifficulties, yeah, go
19:38
Speaker 3: and pretending to be a Buddhist so he wouldn't be
19:41
Speaker 3: killed for being a Hindu.
19:42
Speaker 5: Many of them are taking them, but a lot of
19:46
Speaker 5: them were night.
19:47
Speaker 3: It is a story of trauma.
19:49
Speaker 5: I kind of collapsed, thank you, spiritual, psychologically.
19:55
Speaker 3: And finding a guru who nurtured his resiliency.
19:59
Speaker 14: The guru actually we can identify within you whether you're
20:02
Speaker 14: ready or you're still holding back.
20:04
Speaker 3: And it's the story of a miracle.
20:06
Speaker 5: Because when I came out, I had had malaria for
20:08
Speaker 5: fifty days. Wow, without medication. There was no practical reason
20:16
Speaker 5: in the world I should have done life.
20:18
Speaker 3: And another.
20:21
Speaker 5: Sentence disappeared. They could let me go because they didn't
20:25
Speaker 5: know what hoever they were doing. And the person that
20:28
Speaker 5: didn't have any court of any jail sentence.
20:30
Speaker 3: Some of our chats I taped some of them. I didn't,
20:33
Speaker 3: but I know he could have died in prison from
20:36
Speaker 3: beatings or malaria or anything. He could have been there forever,
20:41
Speaker 3: except somehow a mystic told him his court records would disappear,
20:45
Speaker 3: and they did, and the mystic assured him the jails
20:48
Speaker 3: would release him on house arrest, and they did. And
20:53
Speaker 3: then the Guru told him to go. So we hid,
20:57
Speaker 3: and he waited, and he waited until in darkness he
21:00
Speaker 3: was stuffed into the bed of a truck, crammed in
21:02
Speaker 3: with other terrified bodies, and trafficked across borders until he
21:07
Speaker 3: found his way home. And now it is him being
21:12
Speaker 3: here in India with me, and still I've.
21:15
Speaker 5: Come out of life once again that too many of
21:19
Speaker 5: times have done that.
21:21
Speaker 3: It's a way to tell a story without telling a story.
21:24
Speaker 3: It is vague and capacious and insufficient. But he is
21:30
Speaker 3: back now and it's the thing that matters. Chapter three.
21:48
Speaker 3: Believe me, Despite Makeisha's reputation, I had struck out in Bombay,
22:04
Speaker 3: but luckily I had come with a backup plan to
22:06
Speaker 3: make a pilgrimage to Chennai. The truth is, I don't
22:10
Speaker 3: know anything about Chennai. I've never been, and mostly people
22:14
Speaker 3: in my family have warned me there's no reason to
22:16
Speaker 3: go not because of anything cultural or political. It just
22:20
Speaker 3: comes down to the weather. Everyone complains about the intense
22:24
Speaker 3: heat and humidity, but Chennai, which is located in the
22:29
Speaker 3: South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is special in terms
22:32
Speaker 3: of Nadi. According to the story, when the rishi's or
22:35
Speaker 3: holy men received the wisdom of the gods, they transcribed
22:38
Speaker 3: it aunt to leaves, and those leaves were protected by
22:41
Speaker 3: generations of South Indian kings and at some point these
22:44
Speaker 3: manuscripts ended up in a library in Thunjur, also in
22:48
Speaker 3: Tamil Nadu, And while some of the copies were loaned
22:51
Speaker 3: out to other cities like Delhi or Mumbai, the majority
22:55
Speaker 3: of the authentic Nadi centers stayed local, within driving distance
22:58
Speaker 3: of Chennai. My friend and story editor Mark has agreed
23:02
Speaker 3: to come with me, which is a really nice security blanket,
23:06
Speaker 3: and I also invite Argent.
23:08
Speaker 7: Should I get you a ticket to come meet us there?
23:11
Speaker 3: I would love that.
23:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:12
Speaker 7: Perfect.
23:14
Speaker 3: For a minute, we thought Mark wasn't going to make
23:16
Speaker 3: it to India. His visa got backlogged. There was a
23:19
Speaker 3: moment where I wanted to tell him not to worry
23:22
Speaker 3: Chelseda hey, but even I lost faith by this point. Then,
23:27
Speaker 3: thanks to God or the Indian embassy or possibly doctor Kumar,
23:32
Speaker 3: it was approved right before he was set to leave.
23:35
Speaker 7: It'll be fun, I think. I think the three of
23:37
Speaker 7: us hanging out will be fun.
23:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, so cool, Okay.
23:51
Speaker 11: Judgment record from tomost Conradic Nashville and both the rest dominant.
24:00
Speaker 6: Anazi and another.
24:05
Speaker 3: When we land where welcome by our drivers Satish, and
24:08
Speaker 3: an entire town plastered in chess olympiad posters featuring a
24:12
Speaker 3: cartoon horse and a DOOTHI because apparently Chennai is India's
24:16
Speaker 3: chess capital. Besides the posters, which are honestly everywhere, I'm
24:20
Speaker 3: a little surprised by how little of the language I
24:22
Speaker 3: can follow. I don't speak a look of Tamil, the
24:25
Speaker 3: local language here, and neither does Urgent. And the six
24:29
Speaker 3: or seven languages we can cobble together between the two
24:32
Speaker 3: of us don't help us in the slightest. So it's
24:35
Speaker 3: funny how alien I feel in a country where I'm
24:38
Speaker 3: normally so at home. Speaking of aliens, I should probably
24:41
Speaker 3: tell you about the strangest person I meet on my
24:44
Speaker 3: entire journey between Mumbai and Chennai. I had stopped off
24:48
Speaker 3: in Bangalore, a town filled with relatives. On one of
24:52
Speaker 3: those days, my aunt Shila, where Shiluaka introduces me to
24:56
Speaker 3: a medicine man who supposedly channels the spirit of Saint
24:59
Speaker 3: Augustina and shakes metal keys as he goes into a
25:02
Speaker 3: trance to identify what's wrong with your body. Sant Augustia,
25:05
Speaker 3: aside for being the Sintha or enlightened soul who's supposedly
25:09
Speaker 3: brought the natty leaves to humans by taking dictation from
25:12
Speaker 3: the gods, is also a patron saint of healing. I
25:16
Speaker 3: try to go into this meeting with an open mind,
25:18
Speaker 3: but the healer is a character probably in his sixties,
25:23
Speaker 3: spry and cocky with a mischievous smile. If I was
25:27
Speaker 3: trying to cast a South Asian leprechaun for an Indian
25:30
Speaker 3: Lucky Charms commercial, he'd be on my short list. And
25:34
Speaker 3: even though his accent is unbelievably thick, like so thick
25:38
Speaker 3: that I'm working overtime to understand each and every word,
25:42
Speaker 3: I am captivated by his experience with black magic.
25:46
Speaker 13: What they do.
25:48
Speaker 5: I mean after power? People know they use a power.
25:55
Speaker 3: As he tells it, a neighbor put a voodoo like
25:58
Speaker 3: curse on him, and he kept losing weight and balding
26:02
Speaker 3: and losing weight and balding, and no one could tell
26:05
Speaker 3: him what was wrong with him, until when he was
26:08
Speaker 3: sickly thin and had been robbed of all his glorious plumage,
26:12
Speaker 3: he found a talisman buried in his backyard. It was
26:16
Speaker 3: wrapped in rags and hair and blood, all the telltale
26:19
Speaker 3: signs of black magic. And when he burned it and
26:23
Speaker 3: reversed the curse, his neighbors had some of the worst
26:26
Speaker 3: luck ever. They lost their money, their health, even their home.
26:31
Speaker 3: He grins wide when he tells me about this instant karma.
26:34
Speaker 3: I honestly don't know what to make of this guy.
26:36
Speaker 3: On one hand, my aunt told me that after years
26:39
Speaker 3: of not being able to conceive, it was this man
26:42
Speaker 3: who gave her the herbs and tinctures to finally carry
26:44
Speaker 3: a child. Her story is really powerful, and I've heard
26:48
Speaker 3: so many others that he's helped or cured. But he
26:51
Speaker 3: also tells me with absolute certainty that Tamil is the
26:55
Speaker 3: greatest language bar none, because it's the oldest, which is true,
27:00
Speaker 3: and the most powerful, which I don't quite understand but okay,
27:05
Speaker 3: and the most sophisticated, which I start to chuckle at
27:09
Speaker 3: because now there are a lot of descriptors being used,
27:12
Speaker 3: and I'm sensing a real air of Tamil hubris here.
27:16
Speaker 3: But then he brings his argument all together by saying,
27:19
Speaker 3: and this is the strangest part. It only makes sense
27:22
Speaker 3: that Tamil is the language that aliens communicate with.
27:28
Speaker 5: But all speak Tamil. You need to come link the
27:34
Speaker 5: long type of day.
27:37
Speaker 3: When I look at him quizzically, trying to understand how
27:40
Speaker 3: exactly we've moved from astrology to aliens, he just assures
27:43
Speaker 3: me he's right. Then he smiles at me like I'm
27:46
Speaker 3: an idiot, because obviously aliens speak Tamil.
27:53
Speaker 7: Okay, if it's.
27:59
Speaker 3: That chapter four Snake Astronauts copy.
28:15
Speaker 13: This place name is Kanji. Yes, it has two thousand
28:21
Speaker 13: City of Temple.
28:22
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, that's really.
28:27
Speaker 3: You're going to.
28:28
Speaker 13: Record your six o'clock voices?
28:34
Speaker 16: Yeah?
28:34
Speaker 3: Good?
28:37
Speaker 5: Sorry. I think I had two of those coffee this morning.
28:44
Speaker 3: At six am, and it feels so much earlier. We
28:47
Speaker 3: drive off the hotel lot straight into traffic, and I
28:51
Speaker 3: can only tell where past the city limits when the
28:53
Speaker 3: cartoon force posters disappear. Up until this point, it felt
28:57
Speaker 3: like every advertisement was about chess. But now the billboards
29:01
Speaker 3: are for toothpaste and soaps and clothes and wedding rings.
29:05
Speaker 3: And Argent and I both notice how strange it is
29:08
Speaker 3: that everyone in the ads is incredibly light skinned, and
29:12
Speaker 3: what a mind fuck that must be. But then I
29:15
Speaker 3: stopped paying close attention. The drive starts to feel like
29:19
Speaker 3: every drive I've taken between cities in India, stretches of
29:23
Speaker 3: rickety shops, stretches of vibrant villages with kids playing outside,
29:29
Speaker 3: long dusty in betweens, dotted with fields and factories, banks
29:33
Speaker 3: and petrol stations. There are these trees that line the
29:37
Speaker 3: roads with red and white trunks painted that way to
29:39
Speaker 3: prevent termites. And also the show poachers that the Forestry
29:43
Speaker 3: Service is keeping watch. Mark and I are both healing
29:47
Speaker 3: the chently. But Argent's two coffees have definitely kicked in.
29:51
Speaker 3: He peppers us with questions about life in the States,
29:54
Speaker 3: about recent Supreme Court cases. He talks about India and
29:58
Speaker 3: all the miracles he's witnessed that have made him a
30:00
Speaker 3: true believer, and then he says this, if.
30:06
Speaker 12: You dougy hindu Vedic texts, you'll understand that there's a
30:13
Speaker 12: lot of interaction between snake culture and human culture, and
30:21
Speaker 12: there's a lot of snake worship that happens in India.
30:24
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm going to pause right here to say
30:28
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on with all the snake talk,
30:31
Speaker 3: but they keep coming up again and again, and it
30:34
Speaker 3: feels like it should mean something. The way George in
30:39
Speaker 3: our last episode saw a snake as a sign that
30:42
Speaker 3: he could be good to himself, that he could shed
30:44
Speaker 3: his trauma and transform the way my mom experienced snakes
30:48
Speaker 3: as a curse, something she had to transcend with mysterious prayers.
30:53
Speaker 3: And now Argin is talking about how he read early
30:56
Speaker 3: Hindu texts about snakes as these superior carriers of a
31:01
Speaker 3: greater wisdom. And he starts talking about one account you
31:04
Speaker 3: read from a mystic who claims to have seen these
31:07
Speaker 3: astral snakes.
31:09
Speaker 5: He said that his guru got him to meet one
31:16
Speaker 5: of the.
31:18
Speaker 12: Incoming astronauts space snake astronauts.
31:24
Speaker 7: Huh, yeah, it feels unbelievable.
31:29
Speaker 3: It's but just the idea of a snake astronaut.
31:37
Speaker 13: Yeah, well, I mean like a traveler.
31:39
Speaker 5: Absolutely, he doesn't.
31:41
Speaker 12: Wear he didn't have to wear a space suit, and
31:45
Speaker 12: when you read the book, he says, it's it's not
31:51
Speaker 12: possible for me to explain what exactly I saw, But
31:56
Speaker 12: the snakes are very different than what you all imagine, and.
32:01
Speaker 13: And all I can describe to you is it is
32:04
Speaker 13: blue and glowing.
32:08
Speaker 3: In my cursory understanding of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, these
32:12
Speaker 3: serpent like beings rule over three planes filled with multiple planets,
32:18
Speaker 3: and they're worshiped as the keepers of both incredible treasure
32:21
Speaker 3: and concealed wisdom treasure texts, as one book puts it,
32:27
Speaker 3: As we drive further away from Chennai, I feel like
32:30
Speaker 3: they're this harbinger of what we're about to learn.
32:34
Speaker 13: The snakes don't rule over Hell, they rule over a
32:37
Speaker 13: different set of planets, and.
32:39
Speaker 5: They're supposed to be very opulent creatures.
32:44
Speaker 3: Is this in this book versus a different book? Mark,
32:47
Speaker 3: who's been quiet this whole time, perks up at this
32:49
Speaker 3: talk of snake astronauts. He has so many questions about
32:53
Speaker 3: the origins and about how much Urgent could actually believe
32:57
Speaker 3: in this, but he mostly just smirks and saves his
33:00
Speaker 3: commentary for later.
33:02
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's that's the problem that I have with That's
33:08
Speaker 10: the issue whether or not they wear space suits. First
33:13
Speaker 10: of all, let me imagine this space suits.
33:21
Speaker 3: Before long we realize where in Kanji Forum. The temple
33:25
Speaker 3: town is famous for its beautiful shrines and architecture, along
33:28
Speaker 3: with its saris, which are gorgeous bolts of rich silk
33:32
Speaker 3: embroidered with thread dipped in gold. I sit up to
33:35
Speaker 3: look at the surroundings, noticing these little altars side by
33:38
Speaker 3: side with banana stands. All of a sudden, so these
33:42
Speaker 3: turns in and we pull up to one of the
33:46
Speaker 3: most gorgeous temples I have ever seen. It towers over
33:50
Speaker 3: the city and I crane my neck to see where
33:52
Speaker 3: its crown touches the sky. I later learned it's called
33:56
Speaker 3: Akumbarra short temple. Records of its initials struck date back
34:00
Speaker 3: to three hundred BCE, and it is stunning like a
34:04
Speaker 3: sixty meter tall cigarette, except instead of a giant, blocky pyramid.
34:10
Speaker 3: It has eleven stories of relief work with intricately carved
34:14
Speaker 3: pillars and depictions of myths and avatars. If the greatest
34:19
Speaker 3: churches and cathedrals are meant to fill you with awe,
34:24
Speaker 3: to make you feel humbled in the presence of a
34:26
Speaker 3: greater beauty. Then this temple does the trick. I can't
34:31
Speaker 3: wait to see the inside, to meet the temple leaf readers.
34:34
Speaker 3: But as soon as I try to hop out, seth
34:36
Speaker 3: these motions me to stay inside. He steps out and
34:40
Speaker 3: gestures and a man nearby, and the man just shakes
34:43
Speaker 3: his head. It's clear we're in the wrong place. So
34:46
Speaker 3: something jumps back in and then we drive.
34:51
Speaker 14: And drive.
34:52
Speaker 3: Fifteen minutes later, we're parked in this dusty lot in
34:56
Speaker 3: front of a cinderblock wall that feels like it's in
34:59
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere. If there wasn't this big yellow
35:02
Speaker 3: sign outside declaring that this was a house of astrology,
35:06
Speaker 3: I would have assumed it was a storage facility, or
35:09
Speaker 3: maybe a clinic. Whatever it is, It's No eleven story
35:13
Speaker 3: at Carved Temple. In the chapter five the Waiting Game,
35:36
Speaker 3: we swap mosquitoes and reapply repellent. We make idle conversation,
35:40
Speaker 3: We look at our phones and like kids in a car,
35:43
Speaker 3: asking over and over, are we there yet? I walked
35:48
Speaker 3: from the patio into the little reception area to see
35:51
Speaker 3: if we can get started. Origin goes in a few
35:54
Speaker 3: times too. After a few hours of waiting, they finally
35:59
Speaker 3: take my thumbprint. Mugish Muggige, Yeah, I mean, I mean
36:06
Speaker 3: born in America, will follow me.
36:10
Speaker 5: My father's name is Lummish.
36:17
Speaker 3: They put us in the queue and then we wait
36:20
Speaker 3: some more. Every ten or fifteen minutes, someone's name is called,
36:23
Speaker 3: and one of the men. Because it is weirdly almost
36:27
Speaker 3: all men here, a mix of middle aged business owners
36:30
Speaker 3: and young people who look anxious to get married, they
36:34
Speaker 3: start disappearing inside. When it's finally our turn, we follow
36:37
Speaker 3: the receptionist to the second level. Despite the thatched roof,
36:41
Speaker 3: it's actually way more modern up here and welcoming. There're
36:45
Speaker 3: these sliding doors with little enclosures where people are doing
36:48
Speaker 3: one on ones and argin, Mark and I all squeeze
36:51
Speaker 3: into a room. When our man finally walks in, he's
36:56
Speaker 3: wearing vibithy, these three stripes across his four head, applied
37:01
Speaker 3: with sacred ash, often associated with priests. He also has
37:04
Speaker 3: a big pile of scrolls in his arm. Now this
37:08
Speaker 3: is going to be hard to follow, but he asks
37:10
Speaker 3: if I speak Tamil, and then in broken English, he
37:14
Speaker 3: tells us he needs to find my palm leaf first.
37:17
Speaker 3: He indicates how the scrolls are like a card catalog.
37:20
Speaker 3: Your thumbprint helps you find your scroll. Your scroll helps
37:22
Speaker 3: you find your full horoscope, which is also hidden somewhere
37:25
Speaker 3: in the stacks in the back.
37:27
Speaker 17: I am really okay, I am reading even name father,
37:34
Speaker 17: named mother, named fultater or not. To relieves the confound, our.
37:38
Speaker 3: Reader starts reading the tamil off the scroll. He asks,
37:42
Speaker 3: your father's dead and your mother's living. I respond yes,
37:46
Speaker 3: after I com from and I want to be a father.
37:48
Speaker 7: To merit.
37:49
Speaker 3: They're looking for an exact match, the perfect card in
37:52
Speaker 3: the card catalog, and each time the details of the
37:55
Speaker 3: scroll don't line up with my life, he slaps into
37:58
Speaker 3: the back of the bundle and moves on to the
38:00
Speaker 3: next You were married and living with your wife. Yes,
38:05
Speaker 3: your mother had two marriages. Ever, no smack. The leaf
38:09
Speaker 3: goes into the back of the pile. Sometimes, when he
38:12
Speaker 3: starts reading a leaf and sees it doesn't match, he
38:14
Speaker 3: doesn't even ask. He just moves it to the back,
38:17
Speaker 3: and this swording keeps going. He asks if I'm forty five,
38:20
Speaker 3: and I just laugh. I am enjoying all of this,
38:24
Speaker 3: feeling like there's real momentum, and I tell him no,
38:27
Speaker 3: I'm forty two. We keep going, and some of it
38:31
Speaker 3: gets confusing, like he asks if I have two sons,
38:36
Speaker 3: I have two children. I mean I have a son
38:44
Speaker 3: and one kid who's non binary. He slaps it to
38:48
Speaker 3: the back of the pile. But I'm a little dizzy,
38:50
Speaker 3: trying to stay on top of his accent and trying
38:52
Speaker 3: to make sure I'm answering the questions correctly until he
38:56
Speaker 3: says this, No, I have one sister nor brother and
39:01
Speaker 3: married it.
39:02
Speaker 17: Yeah, yes, Marriagy by engagement yes, married living me through white, Yes,
39:09
Speaker 17: another one one sister, yes, sister.
39:14
Speaker 5: Mary, unmarried it.
39:15
Speaker 17: You were married and living with the white bothered the
39:18
Speaker 17: mother leaving, you were in private job working.
39:22
Speaker 3: And dingo, that is it. He has found it. After
39:26
Speaker 3: fifteen hours of being on planes, two weeks of hunting
39:29
Speaker 3: through stacks in Mumbai, another hour long flight, a two
39:32
Speaker 3: hour drive, and three hours of waiting on a humid
39:35
Speaker 3: patio that would give most steam rooms an inferiority complex.
39:40
Speaker 3: We see this man for twenty minutes and he just
39:43
Speaker 3: finds it. Urgent thinks I'm blessed. Mark looks more skeptical,
39:49
Speaker 3: and the three of us we file downstairs.
39:53
Speaker 7: That's what happens to man.
39:56
Speaker 18: So the tough part is done, which is he had
39:58
Speaker 18: to be immatched. We weren't able to get him matched
40:01
Speaker 18: in Bombay. They didn't they couldn't find them. Yeah, and
40:06
Speaker 18: now you've got the real Now the part will be
40:09
Speaker 18: that you will be broadcasting to America your future.
40:18
Speaker 6: Ship.
40:18
Speaker 3: Right Chapter six, Son of a Milkman. We wait outside
40:45
Speaker 3: a little more and then we're called in and walked
40:48
Speaker 3: through this long hallway to a room in the back
40:51
Speaker 3: which faces onto a courtyard. The complex is bigger than
40:56
Speaker 3: I'd realized, with places to do poojas and with rooms
40:59
Speaker 3: to rent. As we sit down, mister Kumar, the same
41:03
Speaker 3: man from reception, double checks that this is the right file.
41:07
Speaker 3: He goes through some details about my thumb, that I'm
41:11
Speaker 3: a Brahmin, that I was born on May first, and
41:14
Speaker 3: then he reads my file.
41:20
Speaker 7: And family.
41:22
Speaker 3: I'm listening keenly, but nothing he says here is interesting.
41:26
Speaker 3: He says, my mother may get ill, but medicines will help.
41:30
Speaker 3: He says, my sister's engagement has already taken place, and
41:33
Speaker 3: in the near future she will get married the company.
41:43
Speaker 3: But here's the thing. While we're sitting in this room,
41:46
Speaker 3: I have one of those kaiser SoSE moments from the
41:49
Speaker 3: usual suspects. In the whole scroll section, I've given away
41:53
Speaker 3: all my details. Is your mom's name Chitre, No, it's Lalita.
41:58
Speaker 3: Is your father living, No, he's passed. Is your sister married, Well,
42:03
Speaker 3: she's engaged. And as I realized this, everything from here
42:07
Speaker 3: on becomes tainted, Like the predictions are so mundane. You'll
42:12
Speaker 3: have a good life, you'll get sick, you'll have medicine
42:15
Speaker 3: and get better, your children will have a good education,
42:18
Speaker 3: You'll make decent money, You'll have good relationships with others.
42:22
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just a mishmash of vague things that
42:25
Speaker 3: happen to everyone, and details I've already confirmed. In some ways,
42:29
Speaker 3: the most surprising thing he says is this line. I
42:36
Speaker 3: laugh because in some ways this is both the most
42:39
Speaker 3: ridiculous thing and the most specific thing about me today.
42:43
Speaker 3: I have never had a new car or a luxurious
42:46
Speaker 3: one since high school. I've just driven a series of beaters,
42:50
Speaker 3: and man, I would love a car that starts when
42:53
Speaker 3: you wanted to. Anyway, The rest of the reading is
42:57
Speaker 3: more of the same. Is basically he's up selling us here.
43:08
Speaker 3: What I got was the starter pack. We've already paid
43:10
Speaker 3: for that part, and we put down a healthy tip
43:13
Speaker 3: on top on his insistence.
43:16
Speaker 7: Take like Google pay or anything. Okay, I'll figure that out.
43:23
Speaker 3: And now, if I want to know more about any
43:26
Speaker 3: specific part of my life, the section of the leaf
43:29
Speaker 3: that deals with my career, or my health, or my
43:31
Speaker 3: kids or one of like nine more things, we will
43:35
Speaker 3: need to pay more. I step outside to chat with Mark.
43:51
Speaker 7: It's confused.
43:52
Speaker 3: The truth is I was more than confused. I was
43:55
Speaker 3: feeling deflated after that experience in Mumbai. We had spent
44:00
Speaker 3: so much time trying to figure out the perfect naughty
44:02
Speaker 3: place to visit. I'd come all this way and dragged
44:06
Speaker 3: Mark and Argin here because this is where I thought
44:10
Speaker 3: I had the best chance of finding my fortune, and
44:14
Speaker 3: then nothing.
44:18
Speaker 10: It feels like kind of a bus Yeah, it's like
44:21
Speaker 10: I don't expect grand revelations every time.
44:25
Speaker 3: There's a line I didn't catch on tape, but it
44:27
Speaker 3: stuck with me. Mark says, you already got your miracle
44:31
Speaker 3: of astrology. You can't expect a second one. You can't
44:35
Speaker 3: expect it every time. When I go back in the
44:41
Speaker 3: reader opens the chapter about my last life, he says
44:45
Speaker 3: I had been born the son of a milkman in
44:48
Speaker 3: the milk business, you know, in a typical milk vendor.
44:51
Speaker 3: Family was.
44:54
Speaker 13: No just part of it.
44:58
Speaker 5: Stirred up with you.
45:01
Speaker 3: He tells me that I slept around, and I think
45:05
Speaker 3: he's saying that I gave my wife STDs. I also
45:11
Speaker 3: treated my parents horribly and didn't support them. I cheated
45:15
Speaker 3: my business partners. And I am nodding vigorously and enjoying
45:19
Speaker 3: this because this part is kind of the realist to me,
45:23
Speaker 3: Like every time someone tells me they've seen a psychic
45:25
Speaker 3: or a reader and had some revelation in a dream,
45:29
Speaker 3: they're always a king or queen in their past life.
45:32
Speaker 3: And to me, it's like, there are not that many
45:35
Speaker 3: kings in history. How can all of us have been kings?
45:38
Speaker 3: So weirdly, this is finally a storyline I could buy
45:42
Speaker 3: into being here smiling at the story. It reminds me
45:48
Speaker 3: of this thing. The writer Shrethi Ravindrin, who grew up
45:52
Speaker 3: in Chennai, once wrote how she loves to read and
45:55
Speaker 3: reread her horoscope because to her, it's like a very
45:59
Speaker 3: souoning work of fan fiction. And she told me about
46:03
Speaker 3: how sometimes the horoscope feels accurate and sometimes it doesn't.
46:08
Speaker 8: She will be a girl of a restless nature. She
46:11
Speaker 8: will be a girl of a self destructive timidity her moods.
46:15
Speaker 3: But if she puts it during times of upheaval, it
46:18
Speaker 3: reassures me to read these typewritten pages, to be reminded
46:22
Speaker 3: that one long dead man took the measure of my
46:25
Speaker 3: life and said it was not all bad.
46:27
Speaker 8: She will brood over the memories of the past. She
46:30
Speaker 8: will brood on fancied slight, very unflattering, but also like
46:34
Speaker 8: really specific, and I'm afraid to say, like super accurate.
46:38
Speaker 3: I do love this Milkman stuff, not because I believe it,
46:42
Speaker 3: but because I love that someone has created a new
46:45
Speaker 3: mythology for me, a new origin story for the problems
46:49
Speaker 3: I'm facing, And now they've given me a new way
46:53
Speaker 3: to remedy those problems too, albeit through a few too
46:58
Speaker 3: many visits to temples for my liking. Still it is
47:03
Speaker 3: pure fun, But when I think about it later, it
47:07
Speaker 3: won't scratch the itch I actually have, Because, like Shriti,
47:12
Speaker 3: I wanted to walk into the shop and let someone
47:14
Speaker 3: take the measure of my life. I'd hope that they
47:16
Speaker 3: would find my leaf and look into my eyes and
47:20
Speaker 3: with complete certainty tell me that my life wouldn't be
47:24
Speaker 3: all bad. And although I made the journey here, and
47:27
Speaker 3: although those words were said in the end, I just
47:33
Speaker 3: couldn't believe them. Chapter seven, spinning its to be thirty
47:48
Speaker 3: in the morning. I cut tafteen and stuck in stot anyone.
47:53
Speaker 5: I'm curiously the demon's walking in my head.
47:58
Speaker 3: I can't do shleep.
48:00
Speaker 5: I've gotta go back to sleep.
48:04
Speaker 3: Right now.
48:04
Speaker 5: Let him make this as a statement.
48:06
Speaker 3: The drive home from the Naughty Shop is somehow so long,
48:11
Speaker 3: and I feel the clock ticking. We have maybe five
48:14
Speaker 3: days left on this trip, and I have not felt
48:17
Speaker 3: the magic here. Nothing has brought me closer to believing.
48:21
Speaker 3: Margin senses my tension Mark too. I tell Mark, maybe
48:26
Speaker 3: we should raise the Varnasi in northern India, even though
48:28
Speaker 3: my astrologer friend he warned me it was like a
48:31
Speaker 3: Disneyland of astrology.
48:32
Speaker 5: If we wanted to do some main totals. When we
48:34
Speaker 5: hit that, you could actually like.
48:38
Speaker 15: This and fly to like the knives.
48:43
Speaker 3: There's a university there and a lot of astrology PhDs
48:47
Speaker 3: and also con men, so maybe there's some fun to
48:50
Speaker 3: be had. Or we could do what the Nadi reader
48:52
Speaker 3: told me to do for penance for my sins. As
48:54
Speaker 3: a milkman, I could go to an offering at a
48:57
Speaker 3: Hanuman temple, and I have a specific like one in mind.
49:01
Speaker 7: My aunt and family.
49:03
Speaker 3: Lived in this place, and hopefully that's where my grandfather
49:06
Speaker 3: finds high through The.
49:08
Speaker 7: House is called gin house.
49:10
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, I am just throwing ideas
49:13
Speaker 3: at the wall. We stopped for lunch at this place.
49:16
Speaker 3: Our drivers at these shloves where they serve giant heaping
49:19
Speaker 3: plates of rice on banana leaves with curries and chutneys
49:23
Speaker 3: ladled on top. We eat with our hands in the
49:26
Speaker 3: traditional style, shoveling the piping hot food into our mouths.
49:30
Speaker 3: I paaramine with the thumbs up an Indian coke of sorts,
49:34
Speaker 3: And while the food fills our bellies, it doesn't calm
49:37
Speaker 3: my nerves, and I grow increasingly irritated about my journey
49:42
Speaker 3: to the naughty Shop. A few days later, when I
49:47
Speaker 3: start reviewing my tape, I realize I've missed a crucial detail.
49:51
Speaker 3: A woman i'd interviewed previously named Malti Das had walked
49:55
Speaker 3: into a naughty shop a skeptic and walked out a believer,
49:59
Speaker 3: not because of what she heard from the reader exactly,
50:01
Speaker 3: but because of what she saw, I.
50:04
Speaker 6: Was looking very disinterested. So that man asked me, man,
50:07
Speaker 6: can you read tamb It? I said, yes, very well,
50:10
Speaker 6: I can read tamb It. Then he started showing the
50:13
Speaker 6: falm leave to me up to a point. Then he said,
50:18
Speaker 6: that's your father's name start with A. They said yes,
50:22
Speaker 6: and then I could see the name written there of
50:25
Speaker 6: my mother in law, Arakiaswami in devil. That was when
50:30
Speaker 6: it hit me, really, you know, I thought, Okay, there
50:32
Speaker 6: is something here.
50:33
Speaker 1: They're not bluffing.
50:34
Speaker 3: Then I feel like an idiot. I hadn't thought to
50:37
Speaker 3: photograph my leaf. I mean, I don't know if they
50:40
Speaker 3: would have let me, but maybe there was a miracle
50:42
Speaker 3: lurking in there. Not in the prophecy, which I thought
50:47
Speaker 3: was so vague, but in the sorting system. Was there
50:51
Speaker 3: something beautiful I had missed? When Mark and I talked
50:55
Speaker 3: about it later at our hotel bar, Mark is a
50:58
Speaker 3: different perspective on the play.
51:01
Speaker 7: It's basically like a magic trek that we couldn't.
51:05
Speaker 3: See the word video.
51:07
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was like hearing it was like hearing a
51:09
Speaker 7: magic trek.
51:10
Speaker 3: As he puts it, it doesn't matter if it's real
51:13
Speaker 3: because the shop is in the business of hope. And
51:15
Speaker 3: I think about how he's right, Like, there's so many
51:18
Speaker 3: people that come in such desperate situations, right, Like if
51:22
Speaker 3: you hear you're like gonna have a comfortable life, You're
51:24
Speaker 3: gonna get a new car, and you're gonna like, you.
51:26
Speaker 10: Know, like four years watch her out.
51:29
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean like like that probably like sustains a.
51:33
Speaker 10: Lot of people, right, that would be such a big
51:37
Speaker 10: deal to a certain kind of person.
51:46
Speaker 3: Chapter eight, Double Dose. Months later, my memories of Chennai
51:54
Speaker 3: are blur early morning, strong coffee, ceiling fans that are
51:59
Speaker 3: no match for the heat. But mostly it's just car ride.
52:04
Speaker 3: Hours in the car with Argin, talking about philosophy and
52:07
Speaker 3: science and our childhoods, the moments we were too proud,
52:11
Speaker 3: the moments that humbled us, and how we got here.
52:15
Speaker 3: If Bombay felt like an old friend whose path had
52:18
Speaker 3: diverged from my own, then Argin was like a close
52:21
Speaker 3: friend I'd lost and then found again. And it's funny
52:27
Speaker 3: that he's here with me because I'd forgotten that Argin
52:30
Speaker 3: had been warned by his Guru that he should not,
52:32
Speaker 3: at any cost dabble in astrology. Something I'm reminded of
52:36
Speaker 3: when my wife Lizzie calls Lilie, wait, he'll for your Answergra.
52:45
Speaker 13: Well, he here is my brother at the end of
52:47
Speaker 13: the day, and I wasn't going to abandon him.
52:51
Speaker 3: But there's a phrase I grew up using in India
52:55
Speaker 3: cousin brother and cousin sister. In joint families. You grew
52:59
Speaker 3: up thinking of your cousins as closer than just a cousin.
53:03
Speaker 3: You tie rocky to them or these promised threads that
53:06
Speaker 3: promise love and protection, and you treat your cousins like
53:10
Speaker 3: their siblings because they are in a way. And the
53:14
Speaker 3: fact that Argin is here with me now, despite the
53:17
Speaker 3: oceans between us, despite the time that's past.
53:21
Speaker 9: But having said that, this is my first experience with
53:24
Speaker 9: astrology as well, so I was actually warned not to
53:28
Speaker 9: dabble in these kind of.
53:32
Speaker 13: Subjects.
53:35
Speaker 5: Is subjecting you to things you've been.
53:38
Speaker 13: Avoid it just you know, venting you with yeah, tending
53:42
Speaker 13: you with taboo subjects.
53:44
Speaker 5: Shame, shame, that's right.
53:45
Speaker 13: He's the bad influence in my life.
53:48
Speaker 3: Argin has told me what he's been through, but I
53:50
Speaker 3: can't imagine it. It is too horrifying. And I admire
53:54
Speaker 3: him so much, how he somehow pulled together his family
53:58
Speaker 3: and picked up the shards of his life, and how
54:01
Speaker 3: he keeps moving forward with such grace and humility. If
54:07
Speaker 3: my days in Chennai were a blur of endless car rides,
54:10
Speaker 3: the final pit stops were always a seat at the
54:12
Speaker 3: hotel bar. Sometimes it was me and Mark, sometimes it
54:16
Speaker 3: was Argin and me, and occasionally it was the three
54:19
Speaker 3: of us sitting in a dimly lit patio, chewing away
54:23
Speaker 3: mosquitoes as we sit on these fresh lime sodas. On
54:28
Speaker 3: the tougher days, I'd cut the soda with gin and
54:31
Speaker 3: bumb a cigarette off of Virgin. And on one of
54:34
Speaker 3: those nights, Argin told us about his sud Sati, the
54:37
Speaker 3: seven and a half years of bad luck brought on
54:40
Speaker 3: by Saturn that everyone experiences at some point according to
54:44
Speaker 3: Vade the Astrology, and his seven and a half years.
54:47
Speaker 3: He tells us, we're considered especially bad.
54:53
Speaker 16: Oh well, I experienced a double sub sorty almost and
54:57
Speaker 16: mine pretty much game to s So I've had really
55:01
Speaker 16: shit luckily, really shit lucky.
55:05
Speaker 3: Until this moment, Argin has never once talked about how
55:08
Speaker 3: difficult this period has been. He's talked about it matter
55:11
Speaker 3: of factly he's talked about embracing the future, but this
55:15
Speaker 3: is the first time he lets us in on just
55:18
Speaker 3: how hard his life one but my.
55:20
Speaker 16: Name DA last year and I'm still trying to understand
55:28
Speaker 16: the difference, the difference. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out
55:31
Speaker 16: what went right, and I know there are certain things
55:33
Speaker 16: that have changed, but I can't. I can't feel it
55:37
Speaker 16: in a physical form.
55:39
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's crazy.
55:40
Speaker 3: I didn't really because this is India. Argent jokingly links
55:44
Speaker 3: his misfortune back to what he must have done in
55:47
Speaker 3: his past lives.
55:49
Speaker 13: I obviously that much more than this pass against.
55:54
Speaker 3: I mean, Argin does not believe in astrology. I never
55:57
Speaker 3: asked him to get a reading, but trology has happened
56:01
Speaker 3: to him. The shadow of that seven and a half
56:04
Speaker 3: years of bad luck. It's been lurking in the back
56:07
Speaker 3: of his mind. There's another moment that I can't stop
56:11
Speaker 3: thinking about. From the bar, after I'd turned off my recorder,
56:15
Speaker 3: Mark says that too often when a story isn't going right,
56:19
Speaker 3: the impulse is to speed up to book as many
56:22
Speaker 3: interviews as you can. It's that old sailor's adage. If
56:27
Speaker 3: you can't tie a good knot tie a lot of them,
56:31
Speaker 3: but Mark encourages the opposite. He says, I need to
56:34
Speaker 3: slow down. He says, if I'm going to resolve anything
56:37
Speaker 3: about my life about my dad, it is not going
56:40
Speaker 3: to be with him or our June, and it's not
56:43
Speaker 3: going to be through astrology. Astrology was never the point.
56:49
Speaker 3: And he tells me to make a pilgrimage to where
56:51
Speaker 3: I feel most connected to my family and to my past,
56:57
Speaker 3: to just sit with that experience. And I think about that.
57:02
Speaker 3: I really do, but I don't listen because I'm not
57:08
Speaker 3: thinking clearly. I haven't been thinking clearly this whole time,
57:12
Speaker 3: this whole show. Instead, I asked Sathige to race me
57:17
Speaker 3: across the state. I drag ardin along, I collect interviews
57:21
Speaker 3: that will not add up too much, and then just
57:33
Speaker 3: when my time in India is nearly up, I realize
57:37
Speaker 3: Mark is right, and I spend sixteen hours in a
57:40
Speaker 3: car to find meaning where I should have been looking
57:44
Speaker 3: all along. Thank you so much for not forgetting about
58:11
Speaker 3: our little show. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope
58:14
Speaker 3: and iHeart Podcast. This show is hosted and written by
58:18
Speaker 3: me Mongay Schatigur. And yes, I know this episode was
58:22
Speaker 3: so long, but I'm about to make it longer with
58:24
Speaker 3: these credits. Mary Full of Sandy is our supervising producer.
58:28
Speaker 7: How would we get the show out without Mary?
58:30
Speaker 3: The answer is we would not. Meetropanshahi is our delightful
58:34
Speaker 3: producer and conducted the interview with Shirty. Mark Lotto is
58:38
Speaker 3: my excellent story editor and was such a trooper for
58:41
Speaker 3: suffering with me in India in a city I knew
58:43
Speaker 3: nothing about, though I did feed him lots of paratas.
58:47
Speaker 3: This episode was also produced by the insanely talented Anna Rubinova.
58:51
Speaker 3: I don't know how we could have got through this
58:53
Speaker 3: much tape without her. Anna, you were a boon to
58:55
Speaker 3: the show. The super sweet Drove Chevarrau hit the streets
58:59
Speaker 3: for this episode and collected extra tape for me. This
59:01
Speaker 3: episode was mixed by my pal at Soundboard. Oh my
59:05
Speaker 3: gosh the Warning. The warning was read by producer extraordinaire
59:08
Speaker 3: Nadia Raymond, who won the first ever Audio Pulitzer along
59:13
Speaker 3: with the team at This American Life. Nadia wants you
59:16
Speaker 3: to listen to TL's next episode, but I want you
59:19
Speaker 3: to know she's a badass. I've got to thank my
59:21
Speaker 3: pal Botany for the theme song and the compositions. Also
59:24
Speaker 3: Azadi Records. How can I thank Azadi enough? Also my
59:27
Speaker 3: friends Himanshu Suri, Peter, Matthew Bauer and Motor Sails. And
59:32
Speaker 3: I can't forget my Palavage aka Lush Life for lending
59:35
Speaker 3: me his tunes as well. I am dropping a second
59:39
Speaker 3: mixtape with more music from Skyline Drive Volume two. It'll
59:43
Speaker 3: be in the show links, please go check it out.
59:46
Speaker 3: Additional production and research support for my love Lizzie Jacobs,
59:50
Speaker 3: Someone Rock around the Clock, Buckshie and my beautiful cousin
59:54
Speaker 3: Arjin Buckshi Arjun.
59:55
Speaker 5: I love you.
59:57
Speaker 3: This show is executive produced from iHeart, My Good Palace,
1:00:00
Speaker 3: Nikki Etour and Katrina Norvel and a shout out to
1:00:03
Speaker 3: Nikki's baby girl Pearl and also Enzo Enzo, I have
1:00:08
Speaker 3: not forgotten about you, buddy. Also got to thank my
1:00:11
Speaker 3: incredible partners from Kaleidoscope, Oswad Listen, Kate Osborne, Costos Linos,
1:00:16
Speaker 3: Vahini Shouri. You inspire me every day Special thanks to Ali,
1:00:21
Speaker 3: Nathan Connell, Will and Bob at iHeart for getting behind
1:00:25
Speaker 3: the show, Barkley Sorrow Vinshanta, my Kiddos, Henry and Ruby
1:00:29
Speaker 3: my family everywhere, and as always, a big big thank
1:00:33
Speaker 3: you to my Amma and my dad, Lalita and Umesh particular,
1:00:37
Speaker 3: who I thank my lucky stars for. We have one
1:00:41
Speaker 3: more episode to go, so thank you so much for listening.
1:00:45
Speaker 3: He can't tell you how much it means to me
1:01:00
Speaker 3: to start