Speaker 1: Warning. The following episode contains adult language, discussion of miracles,
Speaker 1: arranged marriages, Channing Tatum, and disclosure of at least one
Speaker 1: Bible approved stoning sensitive listeners. Take care. So here's the
Speaker 1: confession I'm going to make right at the top of
Speaker 1: the show. I don't believe in astrology, but astrology keeps
Speaker 1: happening to me. Now. Everyone says podcasting is the most
Speaker 1: visual medium, So I made you a slide show to
Speaker 1: try to explain. This is the real skyline drive. It's
Speaker 1: in Delaware, and growing up when I couldn't sleep, it's
Speaker 1: one of the many places I would drive to look
Speaker 1: at the stars. This is the moon. It rules our emotions.
Speaker 1: This is mercury in retrograde. You know it because it
Speaker 1: makes life miserable. This is Rahu and Kathu. They're important
Speaker 1: and mischievous nodes in basic astrology. They're prominent in Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's horoscope, and they're also responsible for Paris Hilton. This
Speaker 1: is me. I was born May first, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: This is the sky at the time I was born.
Speaker 1: In Western astrology, it makes me a Taurus. These are
Speaker 1: some other Truss polepod I told KOMENI Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler,
Speaker 1: Barbara Streisan. The fact that we're all truses has made
Speaker 1: me doubt astrology for a very long time. These are
Speaker 1: my parents. They've been hitched fifty one years and every
Speaker 1: morning my dad makes my mom a cup of tea
Speaker 1: and then they sit and do the spelling being pencil.
Speaker 1: It's adorable, right. These are my parents calling in the
Speaker 1: middle of this recording, and I think goes climbing back,
Speaker 1: give me a club. This is India when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, where it's like yoga and meditation and turmeric
Speaker 1: and astrology. These are words that were part of my
Speaker 1: Indian life, but they weren't a part of my going
Speaker 1: to school fitting into America one. But now now everyone
Speaker 1: has an opinion about it. I'm a Gemini, which I've
Speaker 1: heard is bad. I'm a Libra, so I'm indecisive. That's
Speaker 1: definitely true. I'm a tourist. I find it starts to
Speaker 1: be beautiful. It sucks that we can't see you start
Speaker 1: in New York because all the lights. I know a
Speaker 1: few people who are kind of into it, and they
Speaker 1: like ask, yo, did you see the horoscope today? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, bro, not really I'm not worried about
Speaker 1: what the horoscope says. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't believe in it, but why can't people just believe
Speaker 1: in things for fun, like it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: backed up by anything. If you believe in fantasy football,
Speaker 1: why can't you believe in astrology. A few months ago,
Speaker 1: my friends and I sit out to make this show
Speaker 1: about astrology. We wanted to run around the city and
Speaker 1: have some wild adventures and understand why after so many millennia,
Speaker 1: people still looked the sky for answers. This is an
Speaker 1: astrologer I met in Queens. He promised me, you're going
Speaker 1: to dig this show. I think if you do your
Speaker 1: own show, it will become a super hit, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. This is a graph of how much I
Speaker 1: believed in astrology before our session. Not that much. This
Speaker 1: is a graph of how much I started believing thirty
Speaker 1: minutes later when something horrible he said came true. That's
Speaker 1: why I asked again, from the time he started a
Speaker 1: couple of years back. Still now, the situation doesn't look good.
Speaker 1: This is me traveling halfway around the world to answer
Speaker 1: the biggest question my entire life. This is a shop
Speaker 1: in India, where your fortune is waiting for you. It
Speaker 1: was written centuries ago and put on a shelf, and
Speaker 1: the shopkeepers know which one to pull because it's coated
Speaker 1: by your thumb print and the time you're going to
Speaker 1: walk through that door. This is me walking through that door.
Speaker 1: I'm Muggy's Fatigular from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This is Skyline Drive,
Speaker 1: chapter one. Leave your acts at home. So I figured,
Speaker 1: you know, I do need to sown an astrologer. And
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of astrologers on the Upper West
Speaker 1: Side who have set up these Wait so you're looking
Speaker 1: for an astrologer to sewn. Oh yeah, well I need
Speaker 1: to check it off the list. I've got a hundred,
Speaker 1: you know already, This reporting and starting off weirder than
Speaker 1: I thought. It's ten o'clock on a bright summer day
Speaker 1: and I'm standing here with A. J. Jacobs. I am
Speaker 1: an author and a journalist and a pisces in addition
Speaker 1: to being a pisces or technically on the cusp of
Speaker 1: pisces and aries. AJ's a friend and he's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite writers. I've come to meet him in this
Speaker 1: neighborhood because in two thousand and seven, he wrote a
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller called The Year of Living Biblically.
Speaker 1: The book was a phenomenon. It came out in multiple languages,
Speaker 1: There were magazine and TV pieces about it. It was
Speaker 1: such a big deal that at one point Marlon Waynes
Speaker 1: was lined up to play AJ in the Network TV version.
Speaker 1: The premise was that I would follow all the rules
Speaker 1: of the Bible as literally as possible, so that man
Speaker 1: the famous ones like the Ten Commandments and love your neighbor,
Speaker 1: but also the lesser known ones like you cannot wear
Speaker 1: clothes made of two different kinds of fabrics, so I
Speaker 1: had to get rid of all of my polycotton blend.
Speaker 1: Giving up polyconton blends is just one of the hardships
Speaker 1: Aga endured in the Navy journalism. He also grew a
Speaker 1: massive beard, shoved a wild birds so he could steal
Speaker 1: its egg and say a prayer on it. And he
Speaker 1: followed seven hundred other Biblical rules literally in an attempt
Speaker 1: to understand religion. And somewhere along the way he decided
Speaker 1: that to fully appreciate the Bible, you actually had to
Speaker 1: stone people who committed these abominations, and the abominations include adultery,
Speaker 1: breaking the Sabbath, but also astrology, witchcraft, divination, they're all
Speaker 1: sort of lumped together. Just the fact that he decided
Speaker 1: to stone someone was a shock to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: Aj is one of the nicest people I know, but
Speaker 1: that's how committed he was. I didn't want to go
Speaker 1: to jail for assault. I just wanted to check it
Speaker 1: off my list, you know, stone and astrologer check. So
Speaker 1: I walked by this astrologer on the street and just
Speaker 1: very subtly dropped the pebble so that it landed on
Speaker 1: her shoe, kind of a drive by stoning. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, she's probably not even gonna notice because I
Speaker 1: just kept walking. Oh she noticed, and she's like, what's
Speaker 1: going on? Why did you do that? And so I
Speaker 1: had to tell the truth. Because I was following the Bible.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe she'll think it's funny. She did not
Speaker 1: think it's funny. She was pissed. She started yelling at me, like,
Speaker 1: f you go to f and hell, I was rattled.
Speaker 1: Even if you're trying to stone someone in modern day
Speaker 1: using pebbles, people don't like it. Well that's a lesson,
Speaker 1: that's a takeaway. Rule Number one don't stone an astrologer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the advice I'd come for, but I wrote
Speaker 1: it down anyway. But the thing I really wanted to know.
Speaker 1: The reason I traveled all the way out here to
Speaker 1: meet with AJ was to ask him how to make
Speaker 1: the show, because doing the show in astrology it actually
Speaker 1: makes me nervous, like, is there a way to talk
Speaker 1: about how accurate of fortune telling parrot could possibly be?
Speaker 1: Or is there a way to joke about whether an
Speaker 1: astrocurse can make you bald? Because even if the show
Speaker 1: makes me look silly, like, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: disinvited from a family wedding because I said something that
Speaker 1: hurt friends or family or really anyone who puts stock
Speaker 1: in these subjects. As I'm trying to uncover threads and
Speaker 1: things like how do you tell a story delicately where
Speaker 1: you're not offending people but still engaging with all the
Speaker 1: subject I had that exact dilemma when I was writing
Speaker 1: The Year of Living Biblically, because I was coming in
Speaker 1: as an agnostic writing about religion. My big overall advice
Speaker 1: is go in with deep curiosity. Don't go in with
Speaker 1: an agenda that you're trying to disprove or prove astrology.
Speaker 1: You're just an explorer, So go in like with no
Speaker 1: ax leave your axes at home. That I think I
Speaker 1: can do. After the break, we talked to an astrologer
Speaker 1: who doesn't believe in astrology, take a subway ride to
Speaker 1: Queens and hear this from my mom. I felt like
Speaker 1: a jusie though. Chapter two, just for funds is the
Speaker 1: phone listening? Is that? Are you listening through the phone? Pattern? AI?
Speaker 1: The algorithm? That is the pattern? Back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: one of my friends shot me a text linking to
Speaker 1: this video of Channing Tatum. The actor had uploaded it
Speaker 1: himself after using an astrology app called the Pattern, But
Speaker 1: when Channing's readings became a little too spot on, he
Speaker 1: freaked out, are you listening through my phone? And then
Speaker 1: just regurgitating the stuff that I'm afraid of? And stuff?
Speaker 1: You know what? Pattern? People? You should just call me.
Speaker 1: I need answers right now, poor Channing. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he ever got his answers, but what I do
Speaker 1: know is that astrology is ubiquitous and lucrative. One venture
Speaker 1: capital investor told The New York Times that the app
Speaker 1: costar this pattern competitor had the potential to be a
Speaker 1: twenty four billion dollar business, claiming he could one day
Speaker 1: be as big as Spotify. But if astrology is as
Speaker 1: big an opportunity as everyone's saying, I'm wondering if my
Speaker 1: company should get into the act. After all, it feels
Speaker 1: so obvious that I don't know even a nine year
Speaker 1: old could see the potential. So I decided to try
Speaker 1: the pitch out on my nine year old Ruby. Hey Ny,
Speaker 1: why let me do this closet? I brought you to
Speaker 1: this closet because I wanted to pitch you on an
Speaker 1: astrology app? Are you ready for it? Why is that?
Speaker 1: What do you think about astrology? It's dumb? Oh gosh, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe you're not the right person of her. But the
Speaker 1: reason I came to you is because you actually have
Speaker 1: a bank. You spend only my money. You seem to
Speaker 1: hoard all your money, and you keep all of Henry's
Speaker 1: money as well, which you charge them a small fee for.
Speaker 1: So I thought you might be the savvagest person in
Speaker 1: this family. Is it okay if I pitch you an
Speaker 1: astrology app? Okay? So here's my case for it. These
Speaker 1: aren't your grandmother's horse ghosts. Right, they're talking to you
Speaker 1: in this very fresh and fun way. They're up to
Speaker 1: the minute with NASA data. They look beautiful, and they
Speaker 1: have a chat feature where astrologers will chat with you
Speaker 1: live about your birth charts. Right, and then by twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: right like you could see astrology or starting to take
Speaker 1: over Bumble, the dating app. They start allowing you to
Speaker 1: sort your matches by their birth signs. So like you
Speaker 1: could say, like I only want to date toruses or
Speaker 1: I only want to date Geminiis or whatever. In astrology
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen was a two point two billion dollar market.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that? Mind, I can't tell
Speaker 1: whether you're serious or not, but apps made forty million
Speaker 1: dollars that year, and in fact, the next year, when
Speaker 1: COVID really hit, people started searching for birth charts and astrology.
Speaker 1: Both of those searches hit five year peaks on Google.
Speaker 1: So it's no wonder that all these venture capital funds
Speaker 1: had started investing in astrology apps early and then continue
Speaker 1: to invest. And I'm here to ask you to invest
Speaker 1: in my astrology app. What do you think? Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: spending oh my money on a skateboard, not on you Okay, Well, so, Rube,
Speaker 1: what type of business would you invest in? Bubble? Okay?
Speaker 1: Chapter three, Truth and Poetry. When you go out with
Speaker 1: a recorder in hand, it's interesting to see who'll talk
Speaker 1: on tape. We found scientists at NASA who actually wouldn't
Speaker 1: talk about their interest in astrology to us because they
Speaker 1: were afraid of losing their jobs. We found PhDs and
Speaker 1: postdocs who are worried that if they talk at all
Speaker 1: to our podcasts, even to say that astrology was nonsense,
Speaker 1: they would face professional repercussions. I mean, it is insanity
Speaker 1: what a lightning rod astrology can be. But luckily we
Speaker 1: found Jamie Green. My grandfather showed me a little half
Speaker 1: of a peanut that had the German in it, and
Speaker 1: he said, that's going to become a plant. And it
Speaker 1: was just things like that that got me interested in
Speaker 1: the world, which is the same as being interested in science.
Speaker 1: Jamie is a celebrated science writer and I'm Sagittarius, although
Speaker 1: you would not know it from looking at anything about
Speaker 1: my life. I've got some planet in Capricorn that explains
Speaker 1: why I'm not an impulsive adventurer. She has a new
Speaker 1: book coming out called The Possibility of Life, and she's
Speaker 1: co editor of the annual Best American Science and Nature
Speaker 1: writing volumes, And whether it's chatting about her garden or
Speaker 1: the way we perceive constellations, her capacity for wonder is
Speaker 1: incredible and infectious. But perhaps what I love most about
Speaker 1: Jamie was how she clarified that science and astrology don't
Speaker 1: actually have to be at odds with one another, that
Speaker 1: we don't need science to disprove astrology. Not that she
Speaker 1: thinks astrology is a science exactly scientifically, in terms of astronomy,
Speaker 1: astrology doesn't hold a lot of meaning because it's all
Speaker 1: very human centric. From the point of view of looking
Speaker 1: at the stars from Earth, the stars are light years apart.
Speaker 1: They have no real relation to each other except in
Speaker 1: our minds. But that relationship, the one we make up
Speaker 1: while looking up at the stars, that means something, or
Speaker 1: it can mean something if you want it to. It's
Speaker 1: like a much more eloquent, poetic personal fortune cookie. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean that disparagingly. I just think that it's
Speaker 1: for you to take from it what you need. And
Speaker 1: like we don't think it's anti science to say a
Speaker 1: poem is true. I think that's where science gets defensive
Speaker 1: is when people say that astrology is a science and
Speaker 1: has physical roots in the stars. It's like, oh no
Speaker 1: it doesn't, but it's true the way a poem is true.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much I love that. I mean,
Speaker 1: as someone who's a skeptic but also a romantic, this
Speaker 1: idea that astrology is true the same way a poem
Speaker 1: is true. That feels right to me. And it's something
Speaker 1: my friend Pete also said when I talk to him,
Speaker 1: Pete Steel is, well, it's complicated. So like even though
Speaker 1: I was like a semi successful like musician, I was like,
Speaker 1: I need to make money somehow, like right now, Like
Speaker 1: what other skills do I happen? Oh? I do astrology.
Speaker 1: T is a rock star, like a real rock star.
Speaker 1: He used to be in the Walkman, that massive seminal
Speaker 1: indie rock band, and yes, his backup career was professional astrology.
Speaker 1: When he was younger, he trained with this big famous
Speaker 1: grew He was living in his guesthouse and that's where
Speaker 1: he learned to read star charts. You would take him
Speaker 1: back to him and he would say like, no, it's
Speaker 1: the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Like you're wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: And then he kind of in very traditional style, like
Speaker 1: yell at the apprentice sort of thing, ung Fu master, right,
Speaker 1: a very very karate kid kind of feeling. Right, said,
Speaker 1: here's the other thing. Pete doesn't even believe in astrology.
Speaker 1: He's a rock star who does astrology for politicians and
Speaker 1: World Bank economists and all sorts of interesting folks, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't believe in it. It's this art to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean that dismissively, like, but that's like
Speaker 1: my whole being, Like, that's what I care about. What
Speaker 1: he believes really is in a more vivid reality, a
Speaker 1: kind of embroidered view of the world. Pete and I
Speaker 1: both spent formative years in India, and we have a
Speaker 1: certain comfort in the magical. If you read like a
Speaker 1: hundred years of Solitude or something like that, world of
Speaker 1: like this kind of magical Colombia. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: that felt very similar in a lot of ways to
Speaker 1: how we were raised. Magical explanations have been woven throughout
Speaker 1: my life, like why was my family's little community in
Speaker 1: India so well off a century ago? You could say
Speaker 1: it's because of luck or global economics. You could say
Speaker 1: it's because when the civil war was happening in the US,
Speaker 1: England actually needed more sources of cotton to replace all
Speaker 1: the cotton that the US had been producing. In my family,
Speaker 1: they just happened to be in the right place to
Speaker 1: manage mills and plant cotton on their land. Or you
Speaker 1: could tell the story in a way that's way, way
Speaker 1: more magical, that a great great ancestor had this powerful
Speaker 1: vision from a goddess that if he chanted a simple
Speaker 1: string of prayers every single night, and he taught all
Speaker 1: his children to sing it, and they taught all their children,
Speaker 1: his people would be protected for years. And for most
Speaker 1: of my life, I only knew that second story Champai
Speaker 1: Masla ma lu Majia maslai ja Jakovambama by oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that chapter four mopeds and miniskirts. Arranged marriage has always
Speaker 1: been this thing that's hard for me to talk about.
Speaker 1: When I first moved to Delaware, kids in my elementary
Speaker 1: school had all these questions for me about being Indian, right,
Speaker 1: like does your family sleep on a bed of nails?
Speaker 1: Can you charm snakes? Just you know, these things they'd
Speaker 1: seen on cartoons, And arranged marriage was just another one
Speaker 1: of these questions I'd have to field, except this one
Speaker 1: actually bothered me more because this time I'd have to
Speaker 1: admit that, yes, my parents did have an arranged marriage,
Speaker 1: and then I'd have to explain that The thing is,
Speaker 1: everyone assumed my mom and dad were like forcibly paired
Speaker 1: off when they were nine years old and then sent
Speaker 1: away to work and have kids, and that isn't true.
Speaker 1: It's like my parents' situation was a little more like
Speaker 1: pride and prejudice. Like, you come from a good family,
Speaker 1: your parents want you to marry into another good family,
Speaker 1: so they set you up. They make introductions to certain people,
Speaker 1: and if you like each other, they kind of fast
Speaker 1: track the marriage or they make more introductions. But since
Speaker 1: this was already super hard to explain, I just left
Speaker 1: out the part of astrology, which also plays a big
Speaker 1: role in the whole arranged marriage thing. It was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, just too difficult or embarrassing something. After all,
Speaker 1: it's it's a weird thing to have to admit you
Speaker 1: only exist because of astrology. But I'll let my mom explain.
Speaker 1: Tell me about how your marriage was arranged. Oh that's funny, okay.
Speaker 1: Umish's aunt shouted. The cup she came to see Amma,
Speaker 1: because she'd heard that you know I was available. I
Speaker 1: guess this story starts, of course, with two families dusting
Speaker 1: off their kid's horse copes and handing them off to
Speaker 1: a trusted astrologer, not some low level quack. So they
Speaker 1: matched it, and it matched perfectly. The traditional Indian matching
Speaker 1: system is way more complicated than just saying is you
Speaker 1: a scorpio? A proper celestial marriage is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a union of souls, so the astrologers inspect all the
Speaker 1: vagaries of your chart and pressure test everything, like your personalities,
Speaker 1: your feelings about class and status, even how a couple's
Speaker 1: health will be affected by one another. It's all on
Speaker 1: the scale of thirty six points, and any match under
Speaker 1: eighteen points shouldn't be considered. But anything over thirty two,
Speaker 1: that's something you want to lock down immediately. My badness
Speaker 1: want to make sure that the man and matted did
Speaker 1: not yell let me, She asked the astrologer. You know,
Speaker 1: how is this nature? So the astrologer to Dama that
Speaker 1: Umish was a gently creature, you know, never lost system.
Speaker 1: But so this part is one hundred percent crue. I've
Speaker 1: only ever heard my dad yell a handful of times,
Speaker 1: and most of that was when our dog Lupine would
Speaker 1: just race out of the house and he would run
Speaker 1: after her with this like slice of Kraft singles cheese,
Speaker 1: just waving it to try to tempt her back. And
Speaker 1: it always worked because she was super greedy. But one
Speaker 1: fault he'd have has never come on time to the
Speaker 1: table to have dinner. And we thought it was a
Speaker 1: big joke and that came true. We couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: astrology could be that powerful to tell a quirk like that.
Speaker 1: Wasn't there something else with a mother in law? The
Speaker 1: mother in law, Yes, they said that I would be
Speaker 1: best for a boy that did not have a mother.
Speaker 1: Why is that? I really don't know. They said was
Speaker 1: something to do with the stars. And if I had
Speaker 1: a mother in law it wouldn't go ahead. So here
Speaker 1: who had lost his mother when he was under a year.
Speaker 1: I think we just about to hear so it was perfect.
Speaker 1: This is something I think about a lot, how astrology
Speaker 1: accounts for everything. My dad had an aya or a nanny,
Speaker 1: but he never had a mother. His life was a
Speaker 1: series of hostels and boarding schools, sometimes in cities hundreds
Speaker 1: of miles from his home. It makes me sad to
Speaker 1: think about, but if his mom had survived, my parents
Speaker 1: would never have been together. Astrology would have made sure
Speaker 1: of that. Anyway, back to my mom. Even though my
Speaker 1: grandmam was working really hard to set her up, my
Speaker 1: mom was not keen to get married. I wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: I was still studying and it was in my final
Speaker 1: year for master's studying linguistics. I didn't want to give
Speaker 1: that up and didn't want to get married that fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I felt like a Josie Cowl. I wasn't happy,
Speaker 1: and things were really moving faster than I ever expected,
Speaker 1: so I'd said, I'm going to foil this. So, just
Speaker 1: to get the picture, a typical woman hoping for a
Speaker 1: match would be waiting, sitting by her parents, dressed in
Speaker 1: a sorry or something traditional like making a big show
Speaker 1: of what a quiet and obedient wife they could be.
Speaker 1: And instead had a miniskirton and I had Lambretta. I
Speaker 1: wrote that and came, oh, and she's also late, Like
Speaker 1: my mom is the most punctual person I know. She
Speaker 1: gets at the airport three hours ahead of time, and
Speaker 1: that since I was a kid, So she's clearly trying
Speaker 1: to tank this thing and my hair, I'd let it
Speaker 1: loose and curly. Wasn't done. But instead, you know, said, oh,
Speaker 1: that's no problem. We love more than girls. What type
Speaker 1: of woman do you think Mama was expecting to present.
Speaker 1: She wanted them to know that I was absolutely sensitive
Speaker 1: and very loving, very kind and gentle with everyone, and
Speaker 1: animal lover. But my Grandmam was also incredibly honest, so
Speaker 1: she was sure to tell my dad's family this. I
Speaker 1: had no interest in cooking anyway. Despite my mom's lack
Speaker 1: of interest in the kitchen and her dramatic attempt to
Speaker 1: topple this whole affair, she somehow still won my dad's
Speaker 1: family over. So I must say, here's the deal. Let
Speaker 1: him write to you. If you don't like him, it's fine.
Speaker 1: He was a charming writer, he was a charming director.
Speaker 1: So they wrote letters back and forth for a year,
Speaker 1: and when they finally met in person, you know, he
Speaker 1: looked so vulnerable that they said, oh, this is great.
Speaker 1: I can handle him. My parents don't have a perfect marriage,
Speaker 1: but there are lots of wonderful bits things that make
Speaker 1: me think those thirty two points meet in something like
Speaker 1: once when they were young, they visited Paris, and they
Speaker 1: went to dinner at this fancy restaurant with a ballroom,
Speaker 1: and an orchestra started playing, and no one was dancing crickets.
Speaker 1: So my dad just whisked my mom onto the dance
Speaker 1: floor and then slowly everyone in the place joins in.
Speaker 1: And when my parents went back to their table, the
Speaker 1: band leader had actually sent them this gorgeous spottle of
Speaker 1: brandy to say thank you for livening the place up
Speaker 1: and forgetting everyone dancing. I mean, if astrology can promise
Speaker 1: you those sorts of scenes, it's like who wouldn't listen.
Speaker 1: Of course, astrology has done damage in the family too.
Speaker 1: Here's my mom telling me about an arranged marriage gone wrong.
Speaker 1: My cousin Nana. The girl that they looked for the
Speaker 1: horoscope matched with him. Who's your cousin, Nana Nana from
Speaker 1: Manglo Nalia, So there was a danger of his brother
Speaker 1: dying if the girl married Nana. The astrologers have predicted
Speaker 1: that if the couple went through with the marriage, even
Speaker 1: though their horoscopes matched, it could lead to Nanu's brother's death.
Speaker 1: I mean, who wants that on their hands, even if
Speaker 1: it's putting your chances for love at risk. So to
Speaker 1: this day he stood a bachelor. Really, Oh well, what
Speaker 1: do you think about that? It's a shame. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: could have found other girls. He just was dejected. He said,
Speaker 1: normal goods, normal horoscopes sisted about you. That's heartbreaking, it
Speaker 1: really is. Yeah. After chatting with my mom, two things
Speaker 1: occurred to me. First, the chasm between the way Americans
Speaker 1: and Indians use astrology. That only felt wider, like no
Speaker 1: app was going to tell you to quit your NBA,
Speaker 1: to marry some guy in America, or to break it
Speaker 1: off with this girl because it could bring bad luck
Speaker 1: or death to another family member, like the starkness of
Speaker 1: the way Indian astrology can be used to control lives.
Speaker 1: It felt so dark, but also pretty intriguing, like it
Speaker 1: only made me want to dig in more. And the
Speaker 1: second thing I remembered is this piece of advice AJ
Speaker 1: gave me about really embracing the show. I think you
Speaker 1: gotta go all in, So you got to hire an
Speaker 1: astrologer to help you with the show. I figure out
Speaker 1: when you should start, when should the air date be,
Speaker 1: Who should you hire to help you? Should it be
Speaker 1: a Virgo or a Capricorn? Like, go for it, because
Speaker 1: that's one way to test it. It's to see does
Speaker 1: it work for you. So I decided to find an
Speaker 1: Indian astrologer and solve both problems. I could lean into
Speaker 1: my Indian side and also have some fun with it.
Speaker 1: But what I didn't know was that that visit was
Speaker 1: going to change my life. Chapter five we go to Queens.
Speaker 1: On April ninth, I headed to Kleeans to meet an astrologer.
Speaker 1: He's someone my friend and showrunner for the show, Mary
Speaker 1: recommended that I reached out to, and coincidentally, he happened
Speaker 1: to be an astrologer that my cousin Aditya had used. Hey,
Speaker 1: ad is another rational type. He's kind of this white
Speaker 1: shoe lawyer, masters from Cambridge, and he used this astrologer
Speaker 1: in a difficult time and apparently the predictions had proven accurate.
Speaker 1: So other's actually wanted to see him again. So I
Speaker 1: took a train to Jackson Heights to meet doctor Rocketsh.
Speaker 1: Kumar and we entered his white wood frame office. From
Speaker 1: the outside, it's kind of nondescripts like this row house,
Speaker 1: but when you opened the door, you immediately sensed these
Speaker 1: temple like vibes. So I took off my shoes at
Speaker 1: the entrance, walked through a fog of sweet sandalwood, and
Speaker 1: there were these massive photos of his guru on the wall.
Speaker 1: And then I turned into this tiny room with a desk,
Speaker 1: and it had a giant stack of books on it
Speaker 1: with a little black laptop on top. Looking around, I
Speaker 1: realize how fun this is. I'm here on this field
Speaker 1: trip with my cousin, this astrology adventure, and I'm so
Speaker 1: ready to hear some ridiculous things and enjoy this experience.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kamar very sweetly welcomes me in. He closes his emails,
Speaker 1: and then, using the information I'd sent him a few
Speaker 1: days before, he pulls up my chart and turns on
Speaker 1: his recorder. Songs. Looking at it choked me first. Nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, go before in the afternoon in summer New Jersie.
Speaker 1: You're born on a Tuesday, You'll have the sign cancer rising.
Speaker 1: I've got to say I was a little surprised by
Speaker 1: how quickly doctor Kamar dives in. It seems like he's
Speaker 1: just staring at a bunch of numbers on his screen,
Speaker 1: but he's interpreting them, kind of like Neo from the Matrix.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious to hear my reading. But what I
Speaker 1: really want to do, is asked doctor Khmar about the show.
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be fun if there were these auspicious
Speaker 1: dates for my podcast, or if you could protect something
Speaker 1: about how many people would listen. But first he had
Speaker 1: some questions for me. So how's word been since January
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. That's when I decided to quit my job. Okay,
Speaker 1: so either you would have quit your job or a
Speaker 1: job would have quit you one of the things. Because
Speaker 1: the time was such, because it impacts you. It's so ironic.
Speaker 1: You come here today, who days from now? You plue
Speaker 1: thirteenth onwards. Thereafter a new chapter of your life begins,
Speaker 1: another beginning of your life, which will be very good.
Speaker 1: This is what I came for. I write down April
Speaker 1: thirteenth in my notebook, and I circle it big. Four
Speaker 1: days from now. That's the date I'm going to get
Speaker 1: started on my show. Doctor Kahmar continues with more work
Speaker 1: related things. He says foreign travel is in the cards,
Speaker 1: which is super exciting, and that I should wear an
Speaker 1: emerald to improve my communication skills, which is funny. I
Speaker 1: make a note to do an episode on gems and
Speaker 1: Vedic astrology. Down the line. But the best part is
Speaker 1: that doctor Kamar seems to think this whole podcast will
Speaker 1: go really well. So it's very profound, So you'll make
Speaker 1: it big in life, You'll be very successful in everything,
Speaker 1: because your planets show that. I'm so excited about all
Speaker 1: this tape, getting a start date for the show, the
Speaker 1: talk of gems, this prediction that everything might go well,
Speaker 1: that I'm caught off guard by doctor Kamar's next question,
Speaker 1: which comes out of nowhere, get to be something about
Speaker 1: your father, like what he did for work, or it
Speaker 1: still does. He's a chemical engineer. Okay, he's retired. He's
Speaker 1: ill right now listening back, I don't know why I
Speaker 1: mentioned my dad was ill. Doctor Kamara hadn't asked, and
Speaker 1: maybe it's because I was trying to participate fully, like
Speaker 1: I thought I should let him know. Years ago my
Speaker 1: dad was diagnosed with cancer, but he actually sailed through
Speaker 1: that treatment and he's been cancer free for a while now.
Speaker 1: But recently he broke a rib reaching for something, which
Speaker 1: was odd, and then he also had the slight boost
Speaker 1: and some liver counts which his doctor told him not
Speaker 1: to worry about. Because that's why I asked again from
Speaker 1: the time he started a couple of years back. Still,
Speaker 1: now the situation doesn't look good for father. There is
Speaker 1: a risk to father. This thing about my dad. It
Speaker 1: was a throwaway line in the middle of an hour
Speaker 1: and a half interview. I don't even know how closely
Speaker 1: I was listening. By the time we hit stop on
Speaker 1: the recorder, I was thrilled. I had over an hour
Speaker 1: of material and I was cutting tape my head as
Speaker 1: I was asking questions, and I don't know, I felt good.
Speaker 1: I thanked doctor Khmar for his time, and I let
Speaker 1: him run off to feed his mother lunch, which he
Speaker 1: does every day, and my cousin and I walked off
Speaker 1: to get fresh dosas and Italy's that one of the
Speaker 1: many canteens that dot this area of Jackson Heights. I
Speaker 1: try to thank you, and then twenty minutes into chatting
Speaker 1: and laughing and debating what's real about astrology and what
Speaker 1: isn't and how can you even tell right? I received
Speaker 1: this email from my dad. It read we just received
Speaker 1: the results of the MRCP testing. Unfortunately, the news is
Speaker 1: not as good as it could be. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: doctor Thomas and doctor Shakur and let you know as
Speaker 1: soon as we can study result diffuse metastatic disease throughout
Speaker 1: the liver and bones from unknown primary. The cancer had
Speaker 1: metastasized through my dad's liver and bones. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it means, but I've forgotten about astrology. I don't
Speaker 1: care about emeralds or whether any of this feels embarrassing anymore.
Speaker 1: My stomach drops. I can't finish my chie I don't
Speaker 1: know what to write, so I just tap out. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, Dad. I'll call you back in a bit.
Speaker 1: And all I'm thinking now is how fast can I
Speaker 1: get to Atlanta next week? On Skyline Drive, we take
Speaker 1: a train to Bay Ridge, meet a therapist who secretly
Speaker 1: uses astrology behind your clients backs, and hang out with
Speaker 1: a seventy four year old who just wants to know
Speaker 1: am I ever going to have sex with somebody again?
Speaker 1: And we use astrology to get her an answer. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. I have so many people
Speaker 1: to thank. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast. The show is hosted and written by me
Speaker 1: Mangish Hatikular With a ton of help, like so much
Speaker 1: help from these wonderful people. Mary Philip Sandy is our
Speaker 1: cat loving supervising producer Mitra Bunshah. He produced this whole
Speaker 1: thing despite my constantly getting in the way. Mark Ltto
Speaker 1: is our incredible story editor who even suffered a trip
Speaker 1: to India with me. This episode was mixed by my
Speaker 1: pal at Soundboard with scoring from Botany. The song Yola
Speaker 1: Mango is my absolute favorite. The insane music in between
Speaker 1: is courtesy of Azadi Records, Himanshu Suri and Peter Matthew Bauer.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear or we made you a mixtape,
Speaker 1: just check out the show notes. Additional production and research
Speaker 1: support from the wonderful Anna Rubinova through Chivirao Lucas, Riley
Speaker 1: Bethan Macaluzo, Aditya bus Throur, and my wonderful wife Lizzie Jacobs.
Speaker 1: There's also my superstar Aunt Summon, the Woman Buckshee and
Speaker 1: my cousin Arguin Buckshee, who helped me out of a
Speaker 1: giant pinch abroad. The show is executive produced from I
Speaker 1: harp On, my good pals Nicky Etour, and Katrina Norvelle.
Speaker 1: This show would not have happened without the support of
Speaker 1: my friends at Kaleidoscope. Starting with my good pal Oswolsian,
Speaker 1: who believed in this show. He's also my partner at Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1: Also Kate Osbourne for her spot on notes, cost Us
Speaker 1: Linos for his encouragement, and Fahini Shory for her delightful suggestions.
Speaker 1: I also want to give a little special thanks to
Speaker 1: all the kiddos who bore with us through this production,
Speaker 1: Henry Ruby, Julian Grendel, Lou and little Enzo Etour. All
Speaker 1: my friends Heart including Bob Connall will Carry, Nathan Jason,
Speaker 1: Jerry my New York and Atlanta Cruz. There are too
Speaker 1: many to name. Also Shanta and Sarab, my family in India,
Speaker 1: my family in the States, my friend Noel Brown who
Speaker 1: read this episode's warning check out his shows ridiculous history
Speaker 1: and stuff they don't want you to know. And just
Speaker 1: one last thank you to my Amah and my dad
Speaker 1: is Lolita and Amir Tatigudur, who I thank my lucky
Speaker 1: stars for Thank you so much for listening. Dumdum dimdimdumdumdimdumdum
Speaker 1: dim DoD