Speaker 1: Warning.
Speaker 2: The following episode involves alchemy, treasure hunts, costco deals, palm
Speaker 2: reading on babies, and custom T shirts. Sensitive listeners, please
Speaker 2: take care.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my parents are very demanding. They're very funny, but
Speaker 3: they are fucking tons of work. Am I l to cuss?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, good.
Speaker 4: For the record. I am not used to hearing any
Speaker 4: choice curse. In fact, I'm not really used to seeing
Speaker 4: her in person. I mostly know Any as an animated
Speaker 4: character from the show Brain Pop. And I'm not sure
Speaker 4: if no brain pop, but my family certainly does. Let's
Speaker 4: let my younger kid, Ruby explain.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So it's like this really cool program where there's
Speaker 5: actually a boy named Tom or a girl named Annie.
Speaker 6: And there's like this robot named Movie.
Speaker 2: No Movie.
Speaker 6: This isn't a gift for you.
Speaker 4: I made it for Tasha. Well, you know we're doing
Speaker 4: the show about Annie.
Speaker 7: Right, really?
Speaker 6: Oh that's really cool.
Speaker 4: How would you describe Annie?
Speaker 5: She teaches us a lot about like math and reading
Speaker 5: and writing and stuff like that. Her pants are always jeans,
Speaker 5: and she is in pigtails and does she have glasses? Yes,
Speaker 5: she does classes. She says in one of the episodes
Speaker 5: that she is Korean. She's definitely like a very mellow person.
Speaker 4: But real life Annie, she's about my age, with nerd
Speaker 4: cheek glasses, a warm smile, chunky jewelry. Yeah, she's It's
Speaker 4: definitely funnier and spicier than animated Annie.
Speaker 3: I don't know where my mom picked up Jesus, but
Speaker 3: it totally bled into like a lot of the things
Speaker 3: that she does in terms of decor. Like you go
Speaker 3: to her house and it looks like a Catholic church
Speaker 3: gift shop. Do you need like this many crucifixes?
Speaker 6: Can we just have one?
Speaker 4: Instead of teaching me or a robot about the word responsibility.
Speaker 1: Responsibility is something you should do, chores at home, homework,
Speaker 1: following the rules.
Speaker 4: Today, she's trying to define responsibility for herself.
Speaker 3: I see other friends whose parents are so independent, you know,
Speaker 3: and they're like, they're white. Their parents are doing their
Speaker 3: own thing, going on trips, and like my mom literally
Speaker 3: asking me to buy stuff on Amazon for them because
Speaker 3: they don't know how to do it.
Speaker 4: Annie's brother lives near her parents in California, while she
Speaker 4: lives in New York, but because of her family dynamics,
Speaker 4: the brunt of caring for them falls to her.
Speaker 3: I think It's like a dynamic of Korean family is
Speaker 3: where the older boy gets to do whatever they want
Speaker 3: and the younger girl has to literally do everything. It's
Speaker 3: like classic gender roles.
Speaker 4: And while she hates the gender dynamic, these are still
Speaker 4: her parents. She wants to help them.
Speaker 3: It's a pain in my ass, but it's sort of
Speaker 3: like time to return the favor.
Speaker 6: I guess the responsibility is something you should.
Speaker 3: Do, which I think is a pretty classic Asian upbringing
Speaker 3: thing too. I'm a little bit more Asian than I
Speaker 3: thought it was, I guess, which is kind of annoying.
Speaker 4: It's like, ah, and as her mom and dad are
Speaker 4: getting older and a little more helpless, Annie is something
Speaker 4: she desperately wants to know who's.
Speaker 3: Going to die first, my mom and her dad, because
Speaker 3: there's an answer that I want.
Speaker 4: It's so dark. From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Mongish
Speaker 4: Articular Welcome the Skyline Drive, Chapter one, an Ideal Boy.
Speaker 4: As a kid visiting Hindia, one of the things I
Speaker 4: remember were these colorful classroom posters that looked like they
Speaker 4: were pulled from an Indian version of Highlights magazine. Sometimes
Speaker 4: they teach you Hindi. Sometimes they teach you about seasons
Speaker 4: or bad behaviors to avoid. But the one I really
Speaker 4: remember was.
Speaker 5: Titled an ideal Boy with Good Habits in parenthesis under it.
Speaker 4: As I was trying to find the posters online, I
Speaker 4: ended up chatting about them with my kid Henry, And
Speaker 4: this one says an ideal boy gets up early in
Speaker 4: the morning, salutes his parents, goes for a morning walk,
Speaker 4: brushes his teeth, helps others.
Speaker 5: He bathes daily praise to God, takes meals in time
Speaker 5: like I guess what it means is like he doesn't snack.
Speaker 6: I'm not an ideal boy.
Speaker 4: You are an ideal boy. So what do you think
Speaker 4: about a poster like this? Should we put this up
Speaker 4: in your room?
Speaker 6: I mean it helped me a lot. Helps you do
Speaker 6: what salute my parents?
Speaker 4: Of course, the charts and the posters make it all
Speaker 4: seem very easy, but as we all know, and Annie
Speaker 4: in particular knows, family isn't easy.
Speaker 3: I've written two books. One is called Happy Birthday or whatever,
Speaker 3: and the other one is shut Up, You're welcome. They're
Speaker 3: both books about growing up with my crazy family.
Speaker 4: Recently, her mom's fallen ill, which means Annie's been traveling
Speaker 4: back and forth more, and while her dad still works,
Speaker 4: he essentially leans on Annie's mother for everything else.
Speaker 3: My dad can't even like make toast. He's like, how
Speaker 3: does this work. I'm like, it's a machine. You push
Speaker 3: the button. Like he can't. It's learned helplessness.
Speaker 4: So there are day to day things Annie worries about,
Speaker 4: but she's also concerned about the future. One huge hurdle
Speaker 4: is figuring out what to do with their collection of
Speaker 4: random stuff.
Speaker 3: Imagine never having thrown out a pair of shoes from
Speaker 3: when you were born. So my parents' garage there's like
Speaker 3: suitcases with broken wheels, a credenza, two giant filing cabinets,
Speaker 3: a desk, a sewing table. It's just like shit like that.
Speaker 3: Like a vacuum cleaner that's like that avocado green that
Speaker 3: was big in the seventies that like definitely doesn't work.
Speaker 3: And my dad has a duct tape it's filled with
Speaker 3: black mold and Asian AIA's disease. Since moving here in
Speaker 3: the seventies, they've never thrown a single thing out.
Speaker 4: In some ways, Annie understands.
Speaker 3: You know, they grew up at the twilight of the
Speaker 3: Crane War, so there's very few resources and people were starving,
Speaker 3: and I get it, and we want to hold onto everything.
Speaker 3: It's like you save every single fucking thing, like you're
Speaker 3: never gonna see it again.
Speaker 4: But to Annie, there's something incongruous about how the only
Speaker 4: truly American value that our parents seem to have picked
Speaker 4: up over the years was over consumption.
Speaker 3: They shop at Costco, which is totally evil. There's only
Speaker 3: two people by the way, so like, you don't need
Speaker 3: like a twenty pound bag of flour, but you know
Speaker 3: it's such a good deal, Annie, Like you got to
Speaker 3: buy it. The upbringing of like not having enough and
Speaker 3: the americanness of like having too much, both of these
Speaker 3: are inhabiting them and me trying to be like, you
Speaker 3: don't need any of this stuff.
Speaker 4: Annie's dad is a chemist. His job is to take
Speaker 4: objects like old electronics and jonkin estimate how much gold
Speaker 4: is in them.
Speaker 3: It's like a super weird niche He's basically an alchemist, and.
Speaker 4: That's led him to invest in gold. But because Annie's
Speaker 4: parents are so disorganized, no one seems to know where
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 3: He just has gold. It's hidden. He told me it's hidden.
Speaker 3: I mean it probably in the garage, right, But he
Speaker 3: refuses to sell any of it because gold is down.
Speaker 3: But it's like, I don't know what he's waiting for,
Speaker 3: you know, because the man is old. I would like
Speaker 3: him to sell the gold and actually use that money
Speaker 3: to like live his life.
Speaker 4: While making this show, I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 4: what we owe our parents, what they owe us, our
Speaker 4: obligations to one another. So I asked my son, Henry,
Speaker 4: have we ever talked about the four stages of Hindu life.
Speaker 6: I've not talked about Hindu life at all.
Speaker 4: The first stage is called a brahmacharya, and that means
Speaker 4: like you're a student, and so it's like when you're
Speaker 4: a kid and your student and you're supposed to spend
Speaker 4: all your days and study and like really understanding things
Speaker 4: so that you have a grasp of knowledge.
Speaker 6: I like that idea better. It's as good grades.
Speaker 4: That actually brings us to like the second stage of life,
Speaker 4: being a householder. So it's like taking care of your kids,
Speaker 4: getting a good job, taking care of your parents, like
Speaker 4: that type of thing. What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: That's a great rule.
Speaker 5: I mean you also should like love your family and
Speaker 5: taking care of people is a very important rule in life.
Speaker 4: And then the third stage of life is like, once
Speaker 4: you've gotten your kids married and settled and all that stuff,
Speaker 4: then you want to retreat from your life. Right, so
Speaker 4: this is when you're older. You want to start getting
Speaker 4: rid of your stuff. You want to start volunteering, want
Speaker 4: to start going to temples more or ostroums. What do
Speaker 4: you think about that?
Speaker 5: It definitely makes sense because after your life has been
Speaker 5: like structured, you're gonna want to top it off with
Speaker 5: some icing on the cake and start to relax.
Speaker 7: What's the fourth step?
Speaker 4: The fourth step is is really sort of preparing for
Speaker 4: death in a way, And so it's spending a lot
Speaker 4: of time in prayer and meditation and quiet and forests
Speaker 4: and nature and how should we put in Yeah.
Speaker 5: Like, after you've done all that, just take a minute
Speaker 5: to breathe in that fresh nature air, pray a little
Speaker 5: bit so that your afterlife will be nice and healthy.
Speaker 5: Sit back, watch your grandchildren play, and have last days
Speaker 5: that you have be beatingful.
Speaker 4: Chapter two, Starting points.
Speaker 6: She said, ooh, you still broke his coat up.
Speaker 4: Not a boy as the fucking man. Just hold out. Yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I'm paying homs like I was from the.
Speaker 6: Talent bit.
Speaker 4: In Vedic astrology, Knowing the minute you're born is key
Speaker 4: to understanding your life because the planets and stars, they're
Speaker 4: all in constant motion, right, So like the difference of
Speaker 4: a single minute can dramatically change your personality, it can
Speaker 4: change your career, it can change your love life. All
Speaker 4: of your happiness comes down to which specific minute you
Speaker 4: were born. Henry, do you know what birth sign you are?
Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure I'm a Virgo.
Speaker 4: I also asked Ruby, I'm a aries. What does that
Speaker 4: mean to you?
Speaker 5: They tend to be very cheerful and popular and feisty
Speaker 5: and tall, which is incorrect for our family because me
Speaker 5: and my mom were definitely not tall. But zodiacs are
Speaker 5: there to like tell you what this is who you are.
Speaker 5: It's not always who you are, and it's also like
Speaker 5: you could listen to it or you don't have to. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I really don't care about all that, because you
Speaker 5: define who you are not the day that you were
Speaker 5: born on.
Speaker 4: Of course, some people put a whole lot more stock
Speaker 4: in their star signs than my kids do, and these
Speaker 4: days it's become more and more common for wealthy Indian
Speaker 4: parents to game their children's life and their horoscopes through
Speaker 4: elective C section. They enlisted in astrologer and pick the
Speaker 4: exact sixty second window that an obgyn has to deliver
Speaker 4: that baby.
Speaker 8: People who just come in and say, Okay, I want
Speaker 8: to delivery on this particular date, this particular time, or
Speaker 8: this particular hour, so on and so forth.
Speaker 4: That's doctor Mccaishkua, a Mumbai based obstetrician.
Speaker 9: With my primary focus on delivering babies.
Speaker 4: Doctor Kopa is no ordinary obg yn. When I met him,
Speaker 4: I noticed all these things sparkling from his shelves. I
Speaker 4: look around this room and they're like forty different words.
Speaker 4: Can you can you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 4: just your achievements here?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 8: Okay, So I'm a hard core scientific person, but the
Speaker 8: patient wants this and we need to know about this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and we need to.
Speaker 8: Learn about this and understand this astrology or But then
Speaker 8: I have to not forget about my core competency of
Speaker 8: which they are coming here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So I cannot compromise this on that.
Speaker 4: The awards are this visual reminder to patients that he
Speaker 4: clearly knows what he's doing. Beyond graduating at the top
Speaker 4: of his medical class, doctor Goupa has advanced degrees in
Speaker 4: psychological counseling and a strategy management degree from one of
Speaker 4: India's top business schools. He has up ethics boards and
Speaker 4: shared state boards for doctors. And when politicians in Mumbai
Speaker 4: were trying to convince the public to heed warnings about
Speaker 4: COVID and go get their shots, it's doctor Gupa they
Speaker 4: put up on the podium.
Speaker 9: Now, what are these different type of masks.
Speaker 8: There are simple masks which are available, which are one
Speaker 8: fly or two flying masks which are easily available.
Speaker 4: Anyway, despite all these trophies and bona fides, doctor Guppa
Speaker 4: still has to contend with his patient's astrological ambitions.
Speaker 8: The turning point k when there was a serious situation
Speaker 8: when I came out of the delivery room and I
Speaker 8: informed about the delivery and the good news, and the
Speaker 8: grandfather of the child was born was more concerned about
Speaker 8: the precision of the time and he was asking me
Speaker 8: the details and what time the head came out, what
Speaker 8: time the baby cried?
Speaker 9: What time did you cut the cord?
Speaker 4: The questions alarmed him, especially because delivering this healthy baby
Speaker 4: had taken almost a miracle.
Speaker 8: If you want me to look at and keep track
Speaker 8: of all these things, and I should not deliver the woman.
Speaker 9: Then I would just be watching the time man. I
Speaker 9: would read the time manager.
Speaker 4: The situation would have irritated most people, but because doctor
Speaker 4: Guppa thinks deeply about patient care, he tried to look
Speaker 4: at it from another angle.
Speaker 8: There is a window of one and a half minutes, okay,
Speaker 8: after which the things will change. So, whether it is
Speaker 8: a constellation, whether it is a joggadias, everything has a
Speaker 8: window of time.
Speaker 4: Look, every part of parenting is hard. Bringing a child
Speaker 4: into this world as hard. Raising a child as hard.
Speaker 4: There are so many responsibilities. Parents constantly worry that they're
Speaker 4: not doing enough to advocate for their kids or to
Speaker 4: secure their futures. And you see the compromises people make
Speaker 4: all the time to give their kids a better life.
Speaker 4: And if you really believe in astrology, why wouldn't you
Speaker 4: adjust the time of your c section and give your
Speaker 4: child a possible advantage. But that drive can lead parents
Speaker 4: to some surprising places. As we were sipping coffee and
Speaker 4: talking more about doctor Guppa's background, the doctor offhandedly told
Speaker 4: me something that he'd found shocking.
Speaker 9: There was not exhibition that this couple had come and
Speaker 9: creaking for an abortion.
Speaker 4: I knew I'd come here to learn about time births,
Speaker 4: but I had no idea that we'd be discussing terminating
Speaker 4: pregnancies and the role astrology plays in that. According to
Speaker 4: doctor Gupta, this couple came in for a consult. They
Speaker 4: wanted a family, They wanted to have a child. It's
Speaker 4: just they didn't want a child with a bad horoscope.
Speaker 4: Doctor Guppa shook his head as he told me the story.
Speaker 9: You know the child is going to get both in
Speaker 9: this month and this particular data. I don't want to
Speaker 9: have a child at that time.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm pro choice, but I couldn't fathom the logic, like,
Speaker 4: if you legitimately want to bring a child into the world,
Speaker 4: a birth sign shouldn't matter.
Speaker 8: If somebody tells me to put away all my instincts
Speaker 8: and information and knowledge, no I would not. We tried
Speaker 8: to accommodate everybody's beliefs without losing our primary focus of
Speaker 8: what is the right thing to do.
Speaker 4: We finished our coffees and before I let him go,
Speaker 4: I asked Doctor gupa one last question about this sonographer
Speaker 4: from the Middle East with a peculiar side hustle. This
Speaker 4: specialist claims to read the palms of children in utero
Speaker 4: and then determines the best moment for their birth. Of course,
Speaker 4: he charges very wealthy families a bomb for that information,
Speaker 4: and he refused to speak with me on the record,
Speaker 4: so I got doctor Gupta's opinion instead.
Speaker 8: I have an extremely costly machine, a sonography machine from
Speaker 8: one of the top companies globally, and even with the
Speaker 8: best of the machines, in the best of these, you
Speaker 8: cannot really read the lines on the bomb.
Speaker 4: Most fetuses bawled their hands into fists. He told me,
Speaker 4: you almost never see a palm in the womb, so.
Speaker 9: It's a myth.
Speaker 8: So that is probably a very smart ass was trying
Speaker 8: to make money out of someone.
Speaker 4: Re Listening to this tape now makes me think of
Speaker 4: Annie and this time in grad school, one of her
Speaker 4: friends just kind of grabbed her hand and.
Speaker 3: She like, read my palm and she was like, you're
Speaker 3: going to die really early, and I'm like, why would
Speaker 3: you tell me that?
Speaker 4: And then another friend jumped in the peak and.
Speaker 3: She said, yeah, you're going to die early, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: why do people tell me this? I was like laughing
Speaker 3: because the lines of my weird ass palms, what does
Speaker 3: early even mean.
Speaker 4: Annie jokes that she started wearing gloves after that, just
Speaker 4: to avoid another surprise reading.
Speaker 3: You never know where they are lurking around the corner,
Speaker 3: these pom readers.
Speaker 4: Chapter three, killing them softly. Wait, have you had any
Speaker 4: encounters with astrology?
Speaker 10: Because I yes, of course I have.
Speaker 3: You have?
Speaker 4: Of course, Well tell me from the first time, like
Speaker 4: when what was the first time that you all know?
Speaker 1: How much time do you have?
Speaker 4: It's the end of summer. My sister and I haven't
Speaker 4: talked much since my dad's passing. We've been distracting ourselves
Speaker 4: in different ways. She's been busy planning her wedding, I've
Speaker 4: been traveling for the show. Our rare conversations have been
Speaker 4: around hence subjects, how to help her mom, how to
Speaker 4: deal with life insurance or close my dad's accounts. Shota's
Speaker 4: younger than me, and we're some in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: We laugh at the same jokes. We've both inherited the
Speaker 4: same family bee, we went to the same schools and colleges,
Speaker 4: even took some classes together. We both go to extreme
Speaker 4: lengths to help the people we love. But I found
Speaker 4: a way where we're nothing alike. No one has ever
Speaker 4: fallen deathly ill trying to cast my horoscope.
Speaker 1: So Amama, our grandma, wanted me to get my horoscope read.
Speaker 4: Our Amama is our mom's mom, and after Shanta was
Speaker 4: done with college, she sent shatas details off to this
Speaker 4: legendary astrologer in Dharwad and he was kind of an
Speaker 4: older man known for his skill at reading charts.
Speaker 1: He died in the middle of reading this horoscope, which
Speaker 1: wasn't great.
Speaker 4: Then my grandmom tried to send Shanta's birth details to
Speaker 4: the former astrologer's apprentice, and.
Speaker 1: Then he got really sick while apparently like my horoscope
Speaker 1: was in front of him, and I heard about that.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, no, like, no more people reading
Speaker 1: my horoscope. This seems like a really bad thing.
Speaker 4: I didn't remember any of this, but it left a
Speaker 4: lasting impression on Shanpa.
Speaker 1: So I've always been like, Okay, there's something out there
Speaker 1: that I'm not supposed to know my horoscope because I
Speaker 1: never get to see it. It's almost like you don't
Speaker 1: need to know more. That's how I interpreted.
Speaker 4: I can't believe my sister was satisfied with not getting
Speaker 4: her reading back. That would make me crazy. I only
Speaker 4: want to know my forecast even more. It drove my
Speaker 4: mom's mom crazy too, because she really just wanted to
Speaker 4: hear someone tell her your granddaughter will get married by
Speaker 4: such and such a date, So she started pounding the
Speaker 4: pavement for other leads and dragging my sister across Bangalore.
Speaker 4: Or the various astrologers, they were.
Speaker 1: Never very specific about stuff with me. So one of
Speaker 1: the guys he gave a lot of information about my health,
Speaker 1: but then when it came to when I was going
Speaker 1: to marry someone, he said, her life before thirty will
Speaker 1: be good and her life after thirty will be good.
Speaker 1: And IMMO is very dissatisfied with an answer old, How
Speaker 1: old am I now forty one and you're getting married? Yes,
Speaker 1: so my life before was good in my life after
Speaker 1: is good. It was accurate, just not specific enough.
Speaker 4: When I hear this tape, it makes me feel like
Speaker 4: we're typical Indians, but we're really not. I mean, in
Speaker 4: American pop culture, the way Indians are represented, there are
Speaker 4: only two or three storyline tropes. There's the kid who
Speaker 4: secretly wants to be an artist, but his parents want
Speaker 4: him to be an engineer. Or there's a kid who
Speaker 4: wants to date someone of a different class or non Indian,
Speaker 4: but their family doesn't approve, or they think their family
Speaker 4: won't approve, and that causes all sorts of anxiety. But
Speaker 4: I never related to any of those tropes because my
Speaker 4: family wasn't like that. They were really progressive. My great
Speaker 4: grandfathers were kicked out of the community church for educating
Speaker 4: their daughters and for sending their sons to college overseas,
Speaker 4: and for rebelling against the notion of caste that only
Speaker 4: Brahmins like them deserved certain services. On the other hand,
Speaker 4: my Amama literally could not rest until she knew my
Speaker 4: sister's future was secured. I don't think she cared if
Speaker 4: Shanta's prospective husband was Muslim or Jewish, or white or black.
Speaker 4: It's just that my grandmam wanted her on a path
Speaker 4: towards settling down having kids. There was no way in
Speaker 4: her mind that my sister, this accomplished psychology professor, could
Speaker 4: possibly feel whole unless she got married. These traditional Hindu
Speaker 4: ideas of duty and life, they were an obstacle for
Speaker 4: my grandmother, hindering her from leading that quieter fourth stage
Speaker 4: where she could peacefully spend her time in serious meditation
Speaker 4: and contemplation before passing, whereas my dad used to call
Speaker 4: it cramming for finels. Chapter four, Don't make Me Relive
Speaker 4: the nineties. As I'm waiting for Annie and our astrologer
Speaker 4: Janelle to hop on the line for Annie's reading, I
Speaker 4: think back to that question Annie wanted answered, which of
Speaker 4: her parents is going to die first?
Speaker 3: I want my mom to live longer.
Speaker 4: Whatever you might want or think you want, do you
Speaker 4: really want to know if you get it? Chanta made
Speaker 4: a really good point. Sometimes you don't really need to
Speaker 4: know the future anyway. That's in the back of my mind.
Speaker 4: As we get going one seconds.
Speaker 11: You are a Virgo sun, a Virgo moon, and a
Speaker 11: Virgo rising. That's pretty rare for someone to have all
Speaker 11: three of their major legs sun, moon, and rising in
Speaker 11: one sign.
Speaker 4: As usual, even through the screen, Janelle radiates warmth and
Speaker 4: comfortable energy, and.
Speaker 11: I think about Virgo. I think about Beyonce right. Tireless practice.
Speaker 11: You never turn off your mind because you're always thinking
Speaker 11: about what do I have to do next, how do
Speaker 11: I plan?
Speaker 10: How do I get ahead? Which is great, we could
Speaker 10: also be very tiring.
Speaker 4: She does seem tired to me, tired of having to
Speaker 4: deal with these problems, tired of being the organized one
Speaker 4: who has to carry everyone's anxiety and swoop into solve
Speaker 4: issues that don't have to be issues.
Speaker 11: Okay, So do you want to dive into the parent
Speaker 11: question first or are there other things you want to
Speaker 11: talk about before that?
Speaker 3: Noah, I mean the parent question is certainly, you know,
Speaker 3: one that's been on my mind. My mom had a
Speaker 3: second open heart surgery, which meant the whole family had
Speaker 3: to go through that again, which we need, particularly as
Speaker 3: the only daughter, to be the one bearing a lot
Speaker 3: of the caring duties. I'm just trying to keep her alive,
Speaker 3: have her, you know, followed directions and stick to the
Speaker 3: strict diet that she's on, what she hates doing, and
Speaker 3: you know, all those like very annoying things to do
Speaker 3: for yourself, and now you're trying to get someone else
Speaker 3: to do it. It's like, I can't even do that myself.
Speaker 4: As Annie makes these confessions, Janelle starts looking for Annie's
Speaker 4: parents in her chart.
Speaker 11: So I'm wondering if you and your mom have somewhat
Speaker 11: of a complicated relationship in terms of her larger than
Speaker 11: life presence can also feel kind of overbearing at times,
Speaker 11: and I don't know if this is something where one
Speaker 11: parent or both parents kind of thrown kind of like
Speaker 11: cold water on your dreams in a way, and you
Speaker 11: had to kind of fight to overcome that. But at
Speaker 11: the same time, there's some really great career stuff happening
Speaker 11: in your life.
Speaker 3: And today our company just got sold.
Speaker 11: You do have Jupiter and Ares right now in the
Speaker 11: house of other people's money, so selling the business, so
Speaker 11: money that comes from the business, that's great, right, Yeah,
Speaker 11: But I do think financially it almost feels like in
Speaker 11: your chart right now, it feels like your money is
Speaker 11: disappearing in weird ways. No, not to make you scared,
Speaker 11: but if you're like, I don't know, like is it
Speaker 11: being siphoned off?
Speaker 4: Anny had helped her parents out in a pinch, learning
Speaker 4: them money to buy a new car, but now they're
Speaker 4: probably going to need help with medical bills.
Speaker 3: I mean, the thing is, we have the money, but
Speaker 3: it's in solid gold form.
Speaker 11: You show up as someone who serves behind the scenes,
Speaker 11: or you do the work and no one really knows
Speaker 11: and you know you're not getting a lot of praise
Speaker 11: for it.
Speaker 10: But that can also be a lot of frustration too.
Speaker 4: Janelle sympathizes with any but she also lets her know
Speaker 4: she's probably been here before.
Speaker 11: So for you, Saturn, moving into Pisces is going to
Speaker 11: be in your seventh house of relationships. So Saturn takes
Speaker 11: about thirty years to get around the wheel. You might
Speaker 11: want to think about, well, what was happening in nineteen
Speaker 11: ninety three to about ninety five ninety six, because this
Speaker 11: is a reup or redo of that story.
Speaker 3: Oh no, don't make me re live the nineties again.
Speaker 4: While Annie contemplates a time of too much flannel and
Speaker 4: bucket hats, Janelle focuses the conversation on Annie's life specifically,
Speaker 4: As it turns out, when Annie was in college, her
Speaker 4: mom was fighting off cancer.
Speaker 11: Now we have thirty years, so mom's a little bit
Speaker 11: older now, right, So this might be a tougher go
Speaker 11: around because time has passed, and also timing is such
Speaker 11: if mom, and this is not to spook you at anyway,
Speaker 11: but if mom chooses that she's raided to leave, that's
Speaker 11: not something that you can control either. Right.
Speaker 4: That line chooses to leave catches my ear, Janelle phrases
Speaker 4: it so delicately, it knocks me back.
Speaker 11: So this is a very big existential crisis kind of
Speaker 11: Saturn where.
Speaker 10: We're just like what is life?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 10: Like, why is life? Why is this happening?
Speaker 11: Like this is a situation that's gonna be very challenging
Speaker 11: emotionally for us. And are we going to lean into
Speaker 11: our analytical try to fix everything or are we just
Speaker 11: gonna feel it right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 11: Yeah, don't beat yourself up like this is not helpful, Annie,
Speaker 11: this is not constructive. Who cares? I'm tired, I'm sad.
Speaker 11: You know, I want to cry in bed today. Yeah,
Speaker 11: so if that comes up.
Speaker 10: For you, try not to beat yourself up so much.
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: Chapter five, She's a real beast, right, we got no stop.
Speaker 4: What do you think about when Mama and I get older?
Speaker 5: Hopefully I planned to start family or like like you
Speaker 5: guys are my family, but I planned to get married
Speaker 5: and have a younger generation.
Speaker 4: You want to be a debt?
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely. I love kids.
Speaker 4: And what about what about with us, like when we
Speaker 4: are Onima's age?
Speaker 6: I think we would definitely take care of you.
Speaker 5: And if you were like a name, like a little money,
Speaker 5: can you retire you're not really working anymore? Would probably
Speaker 5: give you a sub Once you guys get around retirement age.
Speaker 5: I'll be like, you do you well you get over
Speaker 5: the age of seventy five.
Speaker 6: You guys give a couple of about my place.
Speaker 4: I smile when I hear this, and then I look
Speaker 4: around Henry and Ruby's messy room where we're taping. If
Speaker 4: I'm going to move in with them when I'm seventy five,
Speaker 4: we've got to teach them how to tidy up. Janelle's
Speaker 4: left the chat and I'm sitting with Annie for the debrief.
Speaker 4: I know Annie's a skeptic.
Speaker 3: I'm not like a big astrology person. I'm too virgo
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 4: And the reading was a little heavier than I was expecting,
Speaker 4: so I'm curious how she's feeling. Was there anything you
Speaker 4: heard that was surprising.
Speaker 3: I didn't know about like the thirty years coming back
Speaker 3: to things. I thought that was kind of bizarre and interesting.
Speaker 3: So like my mom having cancer, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's like coming back to her heart situation.
Speaker 4: Now in that period, did you have to be as
Speaker 4: present as you've been now?
Speaker 3: Not really, because at the time I was in college,
Speaker 3: so I didn't have the same responsibilities. They also like
Speaker 3: hit it for me, which is classic classic Asian family
Speaker 3: you just get a's at college. So I'm just not
Speaker 3: going to tell you that I'm like secretly in chemo
Speaker 3: and it's sucking for me.
Speaker 10: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: So I know, right, it's like the worst that to
Speaker 3: your kids. Please, So I think, like then, I felt helpless,
Speaker 3: So this time around, I'm feeling a little too helpful.
Speaker 4: Parents hiding things from you to let you focus on
Speaker 4: your studies. Yeah, I know that all too well. When
Speaker 4: I was in college, my dad lost his job. My
Speaker 4: parents had never really saved for schooling, and when I
Speaker 4: found this out, I felt guilty about being at a
Speaker 4: school I knew my parents couldn't afford because I didn't
Speaker 4: really have a sense of how bad their finances were.
Speaker 4: At first, I knew they took loans. I took out loans.
Speaker 4: Later I found out they borrowed money from friends to
Speaker 4: make sure Shantha could get the same opportunity I did.
Speaker 4: It's incredible how they made things work and tried to
Speaker 4: give us a sense of normalcy. But more than that,
Speaker 4: they never pressured either of us to go into a
Speaker 4: field that would make a lot of money. I just
Speaker 4: wanted us to learn and grow and do something worthwhile
Speaker 4: with our lives. It's such a gift and a debt
Speaker 4: I'll never pay back in full.
Speaker 11: Mom being six sucks, right, it's up the first time.
Speaker 11: It sucks a second time. It's annoying, it's frustrating.
Speaker 10: It's scary.
Speaker 4: I was so worried that Annie would feel like the
Speaker 4: challenges ahead were insurmountable, but she took it in stride
Speaker 4: from talking to her parents about finances and what to
Speaker 4: do with all this gold.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you can't like go to Kaiser and be like, hey,
Speaker 3: here's a bully on Like, I don't know how much
Speaker 3: it's worth that.
Speaker 4: Annie is so resilient. It's hardening to me. My real
Speaker 4: worry is that Annie knows she can deal with her mom.
Speaker 3: She's a real beast. Yeah, I have no doubt that
Speaker 3: she'll like come out of this, you know, a new
Speaker 3: person or better, stronger, healthier, new heart whodys lady.
Speaker 4: But her dad's another story. They don't see eye to eye.
Speaker 4: And while we never explicitly asked Janelle to tell us
Speaker 4: who might die first, the thing I heard in the
Speaker 4: reading was Janelle bracing Annie for the worst.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, like, my dad has to die first.
Speaker 3: My mom literally does everything I think I just need
Speaker 3: to like get them to start smoking again, or you know,
Speaker 3: like yeah, like you should get in and out. I
Speaker 3: don't know what else to do this because I've never
Speaker 3: met an adult man more ill prepared to live in
Speaker 3: a penalty in my life.
Speaker 4: Yea, The truth is, I don't think the years ahead
Speaker 4: are going to be easy for Annie.
Speaker 1: Responsibility is something you should do.
Speaker 4: There's so many health concerns that will ultimately land on
Speaker 4: our plate. There's so much stuff in that garage. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of gold Locate.
Speaker 3: You know, crane Zone. Everyone say I'm happy, I'm having
Speaker 3: a great time, such an Instagram influencer thing, which I
Speaker 3: do not get, like, look at my great life. What
Speaker 3: I do is like, look how shitty my life is
Speaker 3: right now. I'm look at this piece of trash I found,
Speaker 3: you know, in my mom's house, Like look at this,
Speaker 3: Like that's like my whole vibe.
Speaker 4: Chapter six. I can't make you happy, I can't make
Speaker 4: you sad. That night, when my sister and I were together,
Speaker 4: the conversation slipped towards my dad. I mean, how could
Speaker 4: it not. We told each other little things my dad
Speaker 4: had revealed in the hospital in his moments of weakness
Speaker 4: on those last few days. That's when she told me this.
Speaker 1: Yet it was at that point I was trying to
Speaker 1: get him to go to the bathroom. Dad, you should
Speaker 1: probably try and go to the bath I can help
Speaker 1: you up and you have to walk and whatever. And
Speaker 1: I was like, kind of Mom had told me to
Speaker 1: be a little pushy, so it's like trying to get
Speaker 1: him to do it. And he looked to me and
Speaker 1: he was like, I can't make you happy and I
Speaker 1: can't make you sad.
Speaker 4: My dad was an incredibly sweet and good natured man,
Speaker 4: but he could be hard to read. He didn't like
Speaker 4: to talk about the past. Most of what my sister
Speaker 4: and I know about his childhood isn't gleaned from him
Speaker 4: or even my mom. It's stories we've stitched together from
Speaker 4: family members in India. How he was so smart that
Speaker 4: he went to college at age twelve. How he was
Speaker 4: a really good table tennis player and used to be
Speaker 4: a practice partner for some of Bombay's top talent. How
Speaker 4: he starred in college radio plays and was a backup
Speaker 4: singer and a Rolling Stones cover bin. I mean, the
Speaker 4: stories were wild and funny, and going to India hearing
Speaker 4: these anecdotes. It all brought us closer to him. When
Speaker 4: we used to ask my dad about these tales, which
Speaker 4: honestly felt like fiction to us, he'd kind of laugh
Speaker 4: and reluctantly admit they had happened, or he changed the subject.
Speaker 4: But if he didn't talk about his achievements, he definitely
Speaker 4: didn't talk about his hardships, how lost he was without
Speaker 4: a mom, how he felt abandoned at boarding schools, how
Speaker 4: once he came to the US to get a PhD.
Speaker 4: He kept pushing off going back to goa to take
Speaker 4: over the family businesses, the ones my grandfather had worked
Speaker 4: so hard to build for his family. My dad resented
Speaker 4: these businesses for taking up all my grandfather's attention. I
Speaker 4: can imagine his loneliness. That there were deep pockets of
Speaker 4: sadness we just never saw or understood, because my dad's
Speaker 4: way of dealing with sadness wasn't to yell or to
Speaker 4: act out or to share, but just to go quiet.
Speaker 1: And I said, Dad, I'm not sad about anything, and
Speaker 1: he was like, no, Shanta, I can't make you happy
Speaker 1: and I can't make you sad. And I was like no, Dad,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just asking you to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be okay.
Speaker 4: But Chanta knows what he means. He's clearly not talking
Speaker 4: about the bathroom.
Speaker 1: And I was trying to think like an analogy, you know,
Speaker 1: to help him put into perspectives.
Speaker 6: I was like, Dad, when your dad died, it was probably.
Speaker 1: Pretty hard for you. You were okay, and you bounced
Speaker 1: back and life goes on and you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, I'll be sad when you die,
Speaker 1: but you know it'll be okay.
Speaker 4: My dad, who could be so tight lipped in that moment,
Speaker 4: He's like, no, Shaanpa, my dad died.
Speaker 1: I was sad and I was happy. I was sad
Speaker 1: because he was gone, but I was happy because I
Speaker 1: could never make him happy. And that was really heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: The thing that's only occurred to me since having children
Speaker 4: is as a parent, you prioritize what you didn't get
Speaker 4: from your parents, and you discount the things you did.
Speaker 4: And for whatever shortcomings my dad might have had, he
Speaker 4: never hesitated to show us love. He couldn't walk past
Speaker 4: us without tussling our hair or kissing our heads. He
Speaker 4: attended every recital and performance and tournament he could and
Speaker 4: when we surprised him with a trophy or an award
Speaker 4: or some ridiculous invention, we glued and duct taped together.
Speaker 4: He didn't always say much, but he deemed with pride.
Speaker 4: That day in the hospital, Shanta took the opportunity to
Speaker 4: tell him, my.
Speaker 1: Dad, you know, whether you tell us or not, whether
Speaker 1: you say it out loud, I know you're proud of us,
Speaker 1: and I know you're proud among Ish. I know you're
Speaker 1: proud of me. And he shook his head and he said.
Speaker 4: That moment got me wondering do we show our kids
Speaker 4: enough love? Do they know how much they mean to us?
Speaker 4: Do you think you and Henry make me and Mama proud?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 10: I do.
Speaker 5: I do think we do. Thank you, Goad. It's like
Speaker 5: also like a Jew's father was a hard parent.
Speaker 4: A Jew is what my kids call my dad. It's
Speaker 4: a company word for grandfather.
Speaker 5: Like his mom died at a very young age, but
Speaker 5: his dad was just like, Oh, you look like my wife,
Speaker 5: but you know I can't have you around here.
Speaker 4: I'd forgotten about this until Ruby mentioned it. It's true.
Speaker 4: My grandmother, who I never met and died just a
Speaker 4: year after my father was born. Famously had this warm
Speaker 4: and magnetic personality. My granddad was so in love with
Speaker 4: her he could never bring himself to remarry, and her
Speaker 4: face haunted him. He could see her in the children,
Speaker 4: and as much as my grandfather loved my dad and
Speaker 4: his sister, his heart broke over and over each time
Speaker 4: he looked at them.
Speaker 5: So I think if you had like a dad like you,
Speaker 5: he definitely would have felt like the way you mean,
Speaker 5: Hanno did, were like, we do feel like we've lived
Speaker 5: up to the expucitations, and we do feel like we've
Speaker 5: made you fad.
Speaker 4: As I talked with my kids about life about my dad,
Speaker 4: it became apparent how I'm not the only one feeling
Speaker 4: the loss. In fact, Henry still wears a shirt that
Speaker 4: says a jew power. This T shirt my father in
Speaker 4: law made for all of us to raise my dad's spirits.
Speaker 4: What does that mean to you?
Speaker 5: So my grandpa on my other side made a T
Speaker 5: shirt for my grandpa who was dying from cancer, and.
Speaker 6: I love that shirt. Guys.
Speaker 5: My grandpa was a great man.
Speaker 7: And that shirt showed we were there for him. He
Speaker 7: is now deceased, but hopefully he's looking down at us.
Speaker 7: I'm looking at that shirt and uh he's happy.
Speaker 4: Henriam, I love you so much, kiddy, I love you too.
Speaker 12: Out the Deep by your team, the Bigger, the Hot,
Speaker 12: the Deep by the Strong, oh lousing, my bad, bad Sway.
Speaker 4: Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 4: This show is hosted and written by me Mungas s articular,
Speaker 4: but I'm whooping you know by now. A show is
Speaker 4: not one person, and so I've got a million people
Speaker 4: to thank. Mary Philip Sandy is our incredible supervising producer.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for finding Annie Mary Metapha. He
Speaker 4: somehow made time to produce for us in between dealing
Speaker 4: with her frisky new puppy. Mark A. Lotto is the
Speaker 4: very best story editor. Even though he cut a really
Speaker 4: funny story about hearing aids, I am not holding a
Speaker 4: grudge against him. This episode was also produced and mixed
Speaker 4: by the insanely talented Anna Rubinova, who sat with me
Speaker 4: through way too many video sessions. Scoring as always for Botany.
Speaker 4: Everyone who's upset that they don't know where to find
Speaker 4: the show's theme song check out Botany's SoundCloud. Thank my kiddos,
Speaker 4: Henry and Ruby for being pretty great kids, and for
Speaker 4: my parents in law John and Betty for making and
Speaker 4: sending those Ajupower t shirts. They really done a lot
Speaker 4: to us. As you heard the warning. For some reason,
Speaker 4: Rachel Kong, the incredible writer behind Goodbye Vitamin, which is
Speaker 4: one of my favorite books, agreed to do our warning.
Speaker 4: Her beautiful book about parents and kids and memory and
Speaker 4: forgiveness is out. You should go pick it up today.
Speaker 4: Gotta thank my friends Azadi Records, Mumbai's dopest label. Also
Speaker 4: my brother Himanshu Suri for lending us his tunes and
Speaker 4: Kaju Suri, the most fashionable dog out in Strong Island.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to my pals Key and Jay for motor sales.
Speaker 4: Their song closes out this episode. Thank you to my
Speaker 4: sister Shanta articular for getting on Mike and sharing more
Speaker 4: than maybe she wanted. And also doctor Gupta, who is
Speaker 4: an extraordinary obigiim Additional production and research support from the
Speaker 4: wonderful through of Chavarrao, Lizzie Jacobs, my very understanding wife
Speaker 4: Someone park Lane in the fast Lane Buckshie, and my
Speaker 4: sweetheart of a cousin Argent Buckshie. The show is executive
Speaker 4: produced from iHeart by my good pals Nikki y Tour
Speaker 4: and Kastrina Norvel. Also got to thank my wonderful partners
Speaker 4: from Kaleidoscope who have been so supportive oswell listen Kate Osborne,
Speaker 4: Costas Linos and Vami SHOORI. Special thanks to Ali Nathan Connell,
Speaker 4: Will and Bob at iHeart for getting behind this show,
Speaker 4: Barkley and Sarah, Rachel and Rinz, my family everywhere and
Speaker 4: as always a big thank you to my Alma and
Speaker 4: my dad, Lalitha and Umejh who I thank my lucky
Speaker 4: stars for thank you for very with me and thank
Speaker 4: you for listening