ANNOUNCER: Warning. The following episode includes discussion of magical leaves, prophecies, miracles,
ANNOUNCER: big temples, bigger disappointments, black magic, fresh lime, soda, and
ANNOUNCER: snake astronauts. Sensitive listeners, you've been warned.
MANGESH: It's the middle of August. I've been in India for
MANGESH: two minutes and everything is falling apart. I want the
MANGESH: complaint number for the universe. I want a manager on
MANGESH: the line because this is not what my astrologer, Dr
MANGESH: Kumar told me WOULD happened.
DR KUMAR: So you're in the right track. Something very profound is
DR KUMAR: going to happen to you know.
MANGESH: I mean Dr Kumar did predict I'd be going to
MANGESH: India for this show.
DR KUMAR: There are lots of things for you to accomplish, including
DR KUMAR: foreign travels, So go to India because that is all
DR KUMAR: the gyaan wisdom is.
MANGESH: And he also said this
DR KUMAR: You cannot fail, let's put it as that.
DR KUMAR: Back in April, I experienced a miracle of astrology. I
DR KUMAR: had walked into a random astrologer's office and queens and
DR KUMAR: during my session, the astrologer Dr Kumar had told me
DR KUMAR: something horrible would happen, and he was right. Exactly one
DR KUMAR: month later, my father passed away and it changed the
DR KUMAR: trajectory of both this show and my life. And for
DR KUMAR: many people that would be enough to make them believe
DR KUMAR: in astrology, but it wasn't for me. Astrology had told
DR KUMAR: me what would happen, but I still had no idea
DR KUMAR: what to do about it. But there was one place
DR KUMAR: that I really thought could have and there's these little
DR KUMAR: shops hidden across India that practice nadi astrology. The idea is,
DR KUMAR: your fortune was written on scrolls centuries ago, and if
DR KUMAR: you can find your scroll, it'll reveal everything, your past,
DR KUMAR: your future, who's the person you're supposed to be? Anyway,
DR KUMAR: the moment I decided to book the trip to see
DR KUMAR: one of these shops, I called my aunt Suman and
DR KUMAR: asked her to be my fixer. When I was in
DR KUMAR: high school, Suman or Suman-akka and my uncle Jayant let me
DR KUMAR: live and intern with them in Bombay for a summer.
DR KUMAR: They were running this hot advertising company called Heartbeat, which
DR KUMAR: had just made huge waves with this racy condom campaign.
DR KUMAR: Of course, I sat in on the decidedly less racy
DR KUMAR: creative meetings, which I loved, pitching ideas and jingles for
DR KUMAR: things like washing machines and ceiling fans that summer gave
DR KUMAR: high school me a huge boost of confidence. It had
DR KUMAR: this direct impact on my co founding a magazine a
DR KUMAR: few years later. But also hanging with Suman-akka was just fun.
DR KUMAR: She inspired silliness, like sometimes she'll just decide it's more
DR KUMAR: enjoyable to have a conversation like you're singing opera to
DR KUMAR: one another.
SUMAN: Today's shopping list from me coffee jam, a bag of tea,
SUMAN: something sweet, and spaghetti. This will be hot, boring, spree.
SUMAN: So I'm eager to hang out with her again. Except
SUMAN: somewhere between Bombay's baggage claim and customs, I get this
SUMAN: call
SUMAN: Right now. I'm shivering away, so I'm so,
MANGESH: I'm really so sorry that you're you're ill.
SUMAN: It's really frustrating because I've arranged everything else.
MANGESH: Suman-akka is waiting for the doctor to call back, and
MANGESH: it's very likely she has dengue fever. Well, I've been
MANGESH: using my mosquito repellent like it's cologne, and so it's
MANGESH: I'm playing it cool on the phone, but this is
MANGESH: me secretly terrified. Not so much about the diseases though
MANGESH: dengue and COVID are definitely not great, but more how
MANGESH: I'm going to manage these interviews. If they speak English,
MANGESH: I'm fine going alone.
SUMAN: He speaks Hindi.
MANGESH: Huh, he only speaks Hindi. This is a problem because meri hindi bahut karab AKA,
MANGESH: my Hindi as shit. So I panic and then I
MANGESH: have an idea. What if her son plays translator for me?
MANGESH: And I realized this is a ridiculous question. But for
MANGESH: the Nadi guy, is there any way I could take
MANGESH: Arjun with me. Arjun, who's a few years younger than me,
MANGESH: was always a golden child. He was handsome, sensitive, artistic,
MANGESH: and musical. But I lost track of him in our
MANGESH: twenties when he moved to Dubai and started a career there.
MANGESH: And then there was this period where he fully disappeared,
MANGESH: this dark spot which our family doesn't really talk about.
SUMAN: We'll have to ask him. Yeah, you just call him, Yeah,
SUMAN: that could be nice.
MANGESH: The rain pommels the city as I take a cabin,
MANGESH: but I'm happy to see the monsoon. It's both wet
MANGESH: and sunny outside, and everything smells green and earthy as
MANGESH: the rain continues to fall. In the lobby, the hotel
MANGESH: doors are open, and if you look just right between
MANGESH: the swaying ponds and the mist, you can spot the
MANGESH: Arabian Sea. I'm fiddling with my recording equipment when I
MANGESH: spot Arjun walking in.
MANGESH: Doing good?
ARJUN: I'm brilliant. How are you?
MANGESH: Good!
ARJUN: Shall we sit for a minute?
MANGESH: Yeah, yeah, totally.
MANGESH: I can't tell you how happy I am to see him.
MANGESH: We're both grayer, both dads. Now, after a quick embrace,
MANGESH: I tell him about the chaos that's welcomed me, how
MANGESH: he saved me, because
MANGESH: I feel like that's my entire trip, is like everything's
MANGESH: falling apart slowly.
ARJUN: Do You know, the charm of India is that even
ARJUN: if everything's breaking, now everything's fine. You know, everyone has
ARJUN: a very nice, relaxed kind of attitude like this happens.
MANGESH: Yeah, Well,
ARJUN: you can't take life so seriously.
MANGESH: There's a phrase in India, chalta hai, which loosely translates to
MANGESH: don't worry things happen. You hear it a lot because
MANGESH: India is unbridled. No matter how much you try to
MANGESH: will it, it runs on its own schedule. And that's
MANGESH: wonderfully easy to embrace when you're on vacation or not
MANGESH: responsible for what happens. But it's a little more difficult
MANGESH: when you're on an impossible quest to determine what you
MANGESH: should and shouldn't believe for the rest of your life,
MANGESH: and you've given yourself two weeks to do that. But
MANGESH: that's why people come to India right, to go on
MANGESH: some sort of spiritual retreat and find themselves. God, I'm
MANGESH: such a cliche. The only thing I can hope for
MANGESH: now is that Dr Kumar is going to be right twice.
DR KUMAR: You cannot fail. Let's put it as that.
MANGESH: From Kaleidoscope and I Heart Podcasts. I’m Mangesh Hattikudur. Welcome to Skyline Drive. Chapter one. Straight from Shiva’s mouth. This is Bombay. As a kid, Bombay is where I used to start and end every trip to India… midnight arrivals and 2am feasts with relatives who’ve been waiting years to see us. The world was bigger then, harder to wrap your arms around. Flights to India took 22 hours with multiple layovers and refueling stops in New York, then Paris, then Cairo, then Delhi… and only then, Bombay. And it was expensive. We’d save up until we could go back, and every trip was an event. This is the library. It’s under my aunt’s apartment in Chembur, and it’s where I used to borrow old comics and Mad Magazines. And the gymkhana where I learned to play snooker. This is Xaviers, where my dad studied, and then didn’t, in his more delinquent years. This is the disco where I learned to dance, and Khyber, where my parents went on their first date. Bombay has always felt like my city. In New York, people correct me when I say Bombay, but Indians never do. Still, I toggle between the names, depending on my mood. Driving through the city, it feels like an old friend whose path has veered from your own. Like you don’t quite see eye to eye anymore, but you’re also not around each other for long enough to make a thing of it. The thing is, I still feel my dad here, like a fog that descended on this city ages ago and refused to burn off. [Sound: busy Bombay street with traffic] Arjun and I are standing on a street corner in the Santa Cruz neighborhood of Bombay, waiting to step into the nadi shop that my aunt Suman somehow located for us. From the outside, the place looks tiny and nondescript. Something you’d overlook if you weren’t hunting for it.
ARJUN: How would you describe it, since you're not from here?
MANGESH: There's a fleet of rickshaws going by us, right. And uh, and the rain has stopped now, but there are tons of puddles.
ARJUN: And lots of cow shit. And the cows seem to have moved on.
MANGESH: Even in central Bombay, cows own the road.
MANGESH: And, uh, and we're gonna walk into this place to see the nadi. Do you know anything about nadi?
ARJUN: This will be my first experience too. But there's a lot of fortune telling that happens in India, and some of it can be pretty authentic, though the charlatans are much more in number.
MANGESH: The funny thing about these nadi shops is that as soon as people tell you to go to one, they’ll also tell you how many fake ones there are. But this place is well-regarded, so I’m hopeful. We walk through the doorway, leave our shoes in a dusty two-foot by two-foot vestibule, and then enter reception barefoot. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a wall full of scrolls? Maybe big brass sculptures of little known deities and saints? Or maybe just some wall art? Instead we’re standing in a tiny, poorly lit box; a couple of benches pressed up against the walls and a desk facing the door. We give our name to the man pottering at the desk, and then… we just wait.
MAN: Ah, five, ten minutes.
MANGESH: Of course, of course.
MANGESH: The nadi reader, Mukesh-ji, peeks out from behind a wall to tell us he’s doing his morning prayers. He asks us if we’d like water or tea while we wait.How incredible would it be if the first astrologer I met in India located an instruction manual for the rest of my life? What if the leaves hiding in his archive actually contain my life’s purpose? I’m genuinely giddy. The prayers take longer than ten minutes, but sub chalta hai… “it all works.” We get ushered into an even tinier room, though this one actually has personality. It’s bright lime green, with a couple of temple calendars on the wall. Then Mukesh walks in with an armful of wooden bundles.
MANGESH: So these are a whole bunch of scrolls.
MUKESH: Actually, [speaks in Hindi]...
MANGESH: Mukesh places the scrolls on his desk, and lets us inspect them.
MANGESH: Oh, wow. It's engraved. It’s beautiful.
MANGESH: I’ve been calling them scrolls, but that feels like the wrong word. Have you ever seen those Pantone booklets with pages that fan out? These are almost like an ancient version of that, but longer, made of very thin sheets. Each scroll is maybe three to four inches wide, and about a foot and a half long, and they’re stacked and bound, with maybe thirty or forty per booklet. As we marvel at the tiny lines of text etched across them, Mukesh explains the origins.
MANGESH: And what, uh, these are, these are palm leaves.
MUKESH: Palm leaves.
MANGESH: Just- wow.
MANGESH: The leaves, he tells us, were etched in the 18th century, when a family made copies of the original millenia-old predictions. The engravings were laborious, and the script is tiny, but these scrolls have lasted because the caretakers meticulously rub them with oil once a year to preserve them. Here’s Arjun translating.
ARJUN: Basically, Sir said that this is coming from Tamil Nadu, where Tamil is the oldest language in the world. And it's coming from the Siddha tradition. The siddhas are some of the oldest keepers of knowledge, according to India.
MANGESH: Mukesh also tells us that these nadi shastras, or these sacred prophecies, have a mythological provenance. Lord Shiva in all his wisdom shared the knowledge with the goddess Parvati, his wife, who then passed it on to Lord Brahma, who passed the knowledge from the gods to the sages and then finally, to the priests. To me it sounds like a game of celestial telephone, but Mukesh-ji tells us these scrolls are less prone to human error than traditional astrology. Because the words inscribed here come straight from God…
ARJUN: So he is only the reader, but the information is directly available and cannot be soiled by human touch as such.
MANGESH: Mukesh tells us he’s been doing this for twenty-nine years. He shows us photos on his phone of him with clients—people he asks us not to share, but they include some of India’s biggest politicians and most famous scientists. He stresses that he’s a humble man. He’s just a reader providing answers for people in need. And I believe him. Then he gently reaches for my thumb, rolls it across a pad of ink, and he presses it onto a sheet of paper.
ARJUN: He said the Rishis, they gave us a methodology directly relating to the thumbprint for which there are one hundred and eight divisions.
MANGESH: Basically, the whorls on my finger will give the librarians a clue as to where my leaf might be. There are thousands and thousands of these bundles of scrolls in the back, and they’re all carefully organized. Sometimes, he says, the process can take fifteen minutes. Sometimes it takes months. He also comments on my aunt’s absence. He says part of the reason she fell ill was that she wasn’t meant to be here today. Sometimes people have car accidents trying to get here. Others apparently get Dengue. But since I’ve made it into this room, he tells me this is fate.
ARJUN: Life is such that at the end of the day, this is earth. There will be problems. He said that you must remain in your mind and your heart quiet. Problems will come, problems will go. So try and stay calm. But it is destiny sometimes.
MANGESH: I stare at the ink on my thumb, remembering this weird fact from my days at Mental Floss: that koalas have fingerprints that can be mistaken for humans. I laugh to myself, wondering if my scroll could be mistaken for a koala’s. If Mukesh-ji comes back and tells me that I’ll enjoy napping in trees for eighteen hours a day, or feasting on eucalyptus in my older age, I’ll know exactly what went wrong. It’s the type of dumb joke I’d share with Suman-akka, but it’s too dumb to make in this room. Over the next three weeks that I’m in India, Mukesh will look, and he’ll keep touching base, but he won’t find my scroll. [Music: RAK, “Local Kaiyye”] Chapter two. The thing that matters. Language is curious in how it informs and reflects ideals. The way my family talks is gentle. The dialect we speak is sing-songy. My old roommate Lisako used to tell me it was like butter when she heard me talking to my mom on the phone. But if it’s sweet and overly polite, it’s also not direct. My dad didn’t often talk about the sad things. Or the hard things. Often he’d skip over the specifics and allude to difficulties in terms that were vague, but capacious. So if he were to discuss my cousin Arjun, he might say: “It was so hard what he went through. It’s really good that he’s back now.” Which is insufficient. My cousin Arjun is back now. And of course I’d heard the whispers. But he told me his story.
ARJUN: So I'm also gonna try and catch you up in a nutshell.
MANGESH: It involves him building townships in the Ivory Coast.
ARJUN: If you’re ever in Ivory Coast, never SAY Ivory Coast.
MANGESH: Côte de-
ARJUN: Yeah.
MANGESH: And then coming back to Dubai to help sort a multi-million dollar deal.
ARJUN: Yeah. I actually shifted to the Middle East. Everyone was like, what's wrong with you?
MANGESH: It involves a reneged transaction. And him taking the fall for someone else’s carelessness.
ARJUN: I called up and I said, can I come back now that I've sent you all money to clear everything? And they said, Ah, come on back, there's no problem, you sent the money, you've cleared everything. I came back and I got arrested.
MANGESH: It’s him being thrown in some of the region’s worst and most violent prisons.
ARJUN: And I've been through multiple jails. Yeah. Tossed around.
MANGESH: And pretending to be a Buddhist, so he wouldn’t be killed for being a Hindu.
ARJUN: Many of them were petty criminals, but a lot of them were knife murderers.
MANGESH: It is a story of trauma.
ARJUN: I kind of collapsed, mentally, spiritually, psychologically, everything.
MANGESH: And finding a guru who nurtured his resiliency.
ARJUN: So the guru actually can identify within you whether you are ready or you're still holding back.
MANGESH: And it’s the story of a miracle.
ARJUN: When I came out, I had had malaria for fifty days.
MANGESH: Wow.
ARJUN: Without medication. There was no practical reason in the world I should have in my life.
MANGESH: And another.
ARJUN: My sentence disappeared. They had to let me go because they didn't know whatever they were doing with the person that didn't have any record of any jail sentence.
MANGESH: Some of our chats I taped, some of them I didn’t, but I know he could have died in prison, from beatings or malaria or anything. He would have been there forever, except somehow his guru told him his court records would disappear, and they did. The guru assured him the jails would release him, which they did. He found himself under house arrest as the courts tried to find his records, and then the guru told him if he wanted a new life, he needed to make his way home. That he would be protected, but he needed to flee, and take any help he could to get back to India. So, he ran, hid, and waited until the same person he’d taken the fall for arranged for his escape from the Middle East. And one night, in darkness, he was stuffed into the bed of a truck, crammed in with other terrified bodies—people he didn’t know and would never meet again—and trafficked across borders until he found his way home. And now it’s him, being here in India, with me.
ARJUN: And still I had come out alive once again, you know, cheating death too many times.
MANGESH: It is a way to tell a story without telling a story. It is vague, and capacious, and insufficient. But he is back now.
ARJUN: (laughing) How are you? I’m brilliant.
MANGESH: And it’s the thing that matters. [Music: Ahmer, “Rov”] Chapter three. Believe me. Despite Mukesh’s reputation, I had struck out in Bombay. But luckily, I’d come with a back-up plan: to make a pilgrimage to Chennai. The truth is, I don’t know anything about Chennai. I’ve never been, and mostly, people in my family have warned me there’s no reason to go—not because of anything cultural or political. It just comes down to the weather. Everyone complains about the intense heat and humidity. But Chennai, located in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is special in terms of nadi. According to the story, when the rishis, or holy men, received the wisdom of the gods, they transcribed it onto leaves. And those leaves were protected by generations of South Indian kings. At some point, these manuscripts ended up in a library in Tanjore, also in Tamil Nadu. And while some of the copies were loaned out to other cities like Delhi or Mumbai, the majority of the “authentic” nadi centers stayed local, within driving distance of Chennai. My friend and story editor Mark has agreed to come with me, which is a nice security blanket. And I also invite Arjun.
MANGESH: Should I, uh, should I get you a ticket to come meet us there?
ARJUN: I would love that, yeah.
MANGESH: Perfect.
ARJUN: And so is Mark coming now?
MANGESH: For a minute, we thought Mark wasn’t going to make it to India. His visa got backlogged. There was a moment when I wanted to tell him not to worry, chalta hai. But even I’d lost faith by this point. Then thanks to God, or the Indian Embassy, or possibly Dr. Kumar, it was approved right before he was set to leave.
MANGESH: It'll be fun, I think. I think the three of us hanging out will be fun.
ARJUN: That'll be so cool.
MANGESH: Okay, great. [Sound: Female voice, flight announcement, landing at Chennai International Airport domestic terminal] When we land we’re welcomed by our driver, Satish, and an entire town plastered in Chess Olympiad posters featuring a cartoon horse in a dhoti, because apparently Chennai is India’s chess capital. Besides the posters, which are honestly everywhere, I’m surprised by how little language I can follow. I don’t speak a lick of Tamil, the local language here, and neither does Arjun. And the six or seven languages we can cobble together between the two of us don’t help us in the slightest. So it’s funny how alien I feel in a country where I’m normally so at home. Speaking of aliens, I should probably tell you about the strangest person I’ll meet on my entire journey. Between Mumbai and Chennai, I’d stopped off in Bangalore, a town filled with relatives. [Sound: Crowd chatter] My aunt Sheila introduces me to a medicine man who supposedly channels the spirit of Saint Agusthya, and shakes metal keys as he goes into a trance to identify what’s wrong with your body. Saint Agusthya, aside from being the Siddha, or enlightened soul who supposedly brought the nadi leaves to humans by taking dictation from the gods, is also a patron saint of healing. I try to go into this meeting with an open mind. But the healer is a character—probably in his late 50s or early 60s—spry and cocky, with a mischievous smile. Iif I was trying to cast a South Asian leprechaun for an Indian Lucky Charms commercial, he’d be on my shortlist. And even though his accent is unbelievably thick—so thick that I’m working overtime to understand each and every word, I’m captivated by his experience with black magic. As he tells it, a neighbor put a voodoo-like curse on him, and he kept losing weight and balding, and losing weight and balding, and no one could tell him what was wrong with him. Until, sickly thin and robbed of his plumage, he found a talisman buried in his backyard. It was wrapped in rags and hair and blood—all the telltale signs of black magic. And when he burned it and reversed the curse, his neighbors had some of the worst luck ever: losing all their money, their health, even their home. He grins wide when he tells me about this instant karma. I honestly don’t know what to make of the guy—on one hand, my aunt told me that after years of not being able to conceive, it was this man who gave her the herbs and tinctures to finally carry a child. Her story is really powerful, and I’ve heard so many others that he’s helped or cured. But, he also tells me with absolute certainty that Tamil is the greatest language bar none because it’s the oldest—which is true. And the most powerful, which I don’t quite understand, but okay. And the most sophisticated, which I start to chuckle at, because now there are a lot of descriptors being used, and I’m sensing a real air of Tamil-hubris here. Then he brings his argument all together by saying—and this is the strangest part—it only makes sense that Tamil is the language that aliens communicate with.
HEALER: Pucka, a hundred percent.
MANGESH: But- all speak Tamil?
HEALER: Tamil. They, their language is Tamil, you know? We will come late, long time to take to find out.
MANGESH: When I look at him quizzically, trying to understand how exactly we’ve moved from astrology to aliens, he just assures me he’s right. Then he smiles at me like I’m an idiot. Because obviously, aliens speak Tamil. Chapter four. Snake astronauts.
ARJUN: Satish.
SATISH: Yes sir.
ARJUN: This place name is Kanjipuram.
SATISH: Yes sir.
ARJUN: It has 2000 temples. City of Temples. But yeah, that's where we're off to. Are you gonna record your six o'clock voice?
MANGESH: Yeah.
ARJUN: Good mooorrrrning. Sorry. I think I had two of those, uh, coffees this morning.
MANGESH: [Sound: Street traffic from inside the taxi, traditional Indian music playing from the car radio] It’s six a.m., and it feels so much earlier. We drive off the hotel lot, straight into traffic. And I can only tell we’re past the city limits when the cartoon horse posters disappear. Up until this point, it felt like every advertisement was about chess, but now the billboards are for toothpaste and soaps and clothes and wedding rings. Arjun and I both notice how strange it is that everyone in the ads is incredibly light skinned, and what a mindfuck that must be. But then I stop paying close attention. The drive starts to feel like every drive I’ve taken between cities in India. Stretches of rickety shops. Stretches of vibrant villages with kids playing outside. Long dusty in-betweens dotted with fields and factories, banks and petrol stations. Trees with red and white trunks, painted that way to prevent termites, and also to show poachers that the forestry service is keeping watch. Mark and I are both feeling the jet lag. But Arjun’s two coffees have definitely kicked in. He peppers us with questions about life in the States, about recent Supreme Court Cases. He talks about India, and all the miracles he’s witnessed that have made him a true believer. And then he says this.
ARJUN: If you study Hindi, Hindu Vedic texts, you'll understand that there's a lot of interaction between snake culture and human culture. And, um, there's a lot of snake worship that happens in India.
MANGESH: Okay. So. I’m going to pause right here to say, I don’t know what’s going on with all this snake talk. But they keep coming up, again and again, and it feels like it should mean something. The way George, in our last episode, saw a snake as a sign that he could be good to himself. That he could shed his trauma and transform. The way my mom experienced snakes as a curse, something she had to transcend with mysterious prayers. And now Arjun is talking about how he’s read early Hindu texts about snakes as superior beings, carriers of a greater wisdom. And he starts talking about one account he read, from a mystic who claims to have seen these astral snakes.
ARJUN: He said that his guru got him to meet one of the incoming astronauts. Space snake astronauts.
MANGESH: (laughing) Uh-huh.
ARJUN: Yeah, as I said, it’s-
MANGESH: Yeah. It feels unbelievable.
ARJUN: It is unbelievable. It’s-
MANGESH: But just the idea of a snake astronaut is, ahh.
MARK: Snake astronaut?
ARJUN: Yeah. Well, I mean-
MANGESH: Like a traveler, essentially.
ARJUN: A traveler. He doesn't have to wear a space suit. And when you read the book, he says it’s not possible for me to explain what exactly I saw, but the snakes are very different than what you all imagine in your head, and all I can describe to you is it was blue and glowing.
MANGESH: In my cursory understanding of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, these serpent-like beings rule over three planes filled with multiple planets, and they are worshiped as the keepers of both incredible treasure and concealed wisdom. “Treasure texts,” as one book puts it. As we drive further away from Chennai, they’re a harbinger of what we’re about to learn.
ARJUN: The snakes don't rule over hell. They rule over a different set of planets, and they're supposed to be very opulent creatures. Who-
MARK: Is this in this book, or is this a different book?
MANGESH: Mark, who’s been quiet this whole time, perks up at this talk of snake astronauts. He has so many questions, about the origins, about how much Arjun could possibly believe in this… but he mostly just saves his commentary for later.
MARK: And it's like, yeah, that's the problem that I have with this.
MANGESH: The hangup.
MARK: That's the issue that I have. Whether or not they wear spacesuits. First of all, let me imagine that snake astronauts wear spacesuits.
MANGESH: Before long we realize we’re in Kanjipuram. The temple town is famous for its beautiful shrines and architecture, along with its saris—gorgeous bolts of rich silk, embroidered with thread dipped in gold. I sit up to look at the surroundings, noticing little altars side by side with banana stands, when all of a sudden Satish turns and we pull up to one of the most gorgeous temples I’ve ever seen. It towers over the city, and I crane my neck to see where its crown touches the sky. I later learn it’s called Ekambareswarar Temple—records of its initial structure date back to 300 BCE. And it’s stunning, like a 60 meter tall ziggurat, except instead of a giant blocky pyramid, it has 11 stories of relief work, with intricately carved pillars and depictions of myths and avatars. If the greatest churches and cathedrals are meant to fill you with awe, to make you feel humbled in the presence of such great beauty, then this temple does the trick. I can’t wait to see the inside—to meet the temple leaf readers! But as soon as I try to hop out, Satish motions me to stay inside. He gets out and gestures and talks in Tamil to a man nearby. The man shakes his head. It’s clear we’re in the wrong place. So Satish jumps back in, and then, we drive. And drive. Fifteen minutes later, we’re parked in this dusty lot, in front of a cinder block wall in what feels like the middle of nowhere. If there wasn’t a big yellow sign outside declaring that this was a house of astrology, I would have assumed it was a storage facility, or maybe a clinic. Whatever it is, it’s no eleven-story carved temple. Chapter five. The waiting game. We swat mosquitos and reapply repellant. We make idle conversation. We look at our phones, like kids in a car asking over and over “are we there yet?” I walk from the patio into the little reception to see if we can get started. Arjun goes in a few times too. After a few hours of waiting, they finally take my thumbprint.
Receptionist: Your name, sir?
MANGESH: Mangesh.
Receptionist: Mangesh?
MANGESH: Mangesh.
Receptionist: That’s an Indian name.
MANGESH: Yeah, I’m Indian. I mean, born in America.
Receptionist: And your father’s name?
MANGESH: My father's name is Umesh.
Receptionist: Umesh. All Indian names, sir. You are not a foreigner, sir, you are Indian.
MANGESH: They put us in the queue, and then we wait some more. Every ten or fifteen minutes someone’s name is called, and one of the men—because it’s weirdly almost all men here—a mix of middle-aged business owners, and people who look anxious to get married, will disappear inside. When it’s finally our turn, we follow the receptionist to the second level. Despite the thatched roof, it’s much more modern up here. And welcoming. There are these sliding doors with little enclosures where people are doing one on ones. Arjun, Mark and I squeeze into a room. And when our man finally walks in, he’s wearing vibuthi, these three stripes across his forehead applied with sacred ash, often associated with priests. He also has a big pile of scrolls in his arms. Now, this is going to be hard to follow, but he asks if I speak Tamil, and then in broken English he tells us he needs to find my palm leaf first. He indicates the scrolls are like a card catalog: Your thumbprint helps you find your scroll, your scroll helps you find your full horoscope, which is also hidden somewhere in the stacks in the back.
Nadi astrologer: I am reading one, one, okay. I am reading father name, mother named. First your palm leaf we confirm.
MANGESH: Our reader starts reading the Tamil off the scroll. He asks: Your father’s dead and mother living? I respond yes. They’re looking for an exact match… the perfect card in the card catalog… and each time the details of the scroll don’t line up with my life, he slaps it to the back of the bundle, and moves on to the next. You are married and living with your wife? Yes. Your mother had two marriages ever? No. [Sound: leaf thumping on the table] Smack. The leaf goes into the back of the pile. Sometimes, when he starts reading a leaf and sees it doesn’t match, he doesn’t even ask. He just moves it to the back. And the sorting keeps going. He asks if I’m forty-five, and I just laugh. I’m enjoying this all, feeling like there’s real momentum. I tell him no, I’m forty-two. We keep going. Some of it gets confusing, like, he asks if I have two sons.
Nadi astrologer: Two children, you have?
MANGESH: I have two children.
Nadi astrologer: Two male children.
MANGESH: No.
MANGESH: I mean, I have a son and one kid who’s non-binary. He slaps it to the back of the pile. But I’m a little dizzy trying to stay on top of his accent and trying to make sure I’m answering the questions correctly, until, he says this.
Nadi astrologer: You have only one sister? No brother?
MANGESH: I have one sister, no brother.
Nadi astrologer: Sister unmarried?
MANGESH: Yeah. Yes.
Nadi astrologer: Married by engagement?
MANGESH: Yes.
Nadi astrologer: You’re married. Living with your wife?
MANGESH: Yes.
Nadi astrologer: No brother. Only one sister?
MANGESH: Yes.
Nadi astrologer: Sister married- unmarried.
MANGESH: Mm-hmm.
Nadi astrologer: You are married and living with your wife?
MANGESH: Mm-hmm.
Nadi astrologer: Father dead, the mother living?
MANGESH: Mm-hmm.
Nadi astrologer: You are in private job, working?
MANGESH: And bingo, that is it! He’s found it! After fifteen hours of being on planes, two weeks of hunting through stacks in Mumbai, another hourlong flight, a two-hour drive, and three hours of waiting on a humid patio that would give most steam rooms an inferiority complex, we see this man for twenty minutes, and… he just finds it. Arjun thinks I’m blessed. Mark looks more skeptical. And the three of us, we file downstairs.
MARK: So what happens now? Do we know?
ARJUN: So the tough part is done, which is he had to be matched. We weren't able to get him matched in Bombay. They didn't, they couldn't find him.
MANGESH: Yeah.
ARJUN: And now you've got the real deal. So now the fun will be, that'll be broadcasting to America your future.
MANGESH: [Music: Heems, “Al Q8a”] Chapter six. Son of a milkman. [Music: Ahmer, “Saladin”] We wait outside a little more. And then we’re called in, and walked through this long hallway to a room in the back which faces onto a courtyard. The complex is bigger than I’d realized, with places to do pujas, and with rooms to rent. As we sit down, Mr. Kumar, the same man from reception, double checks that this is the right file. He goes through some details about my thumb, that I’m a Brahmin, that I was born on May first. And then he reads my file.
DR KUMAR: You were born in good family. You were born in a good family…
MANGESH: I’m listening keenly, but nothing here is interesting. He says my mother may get ill, but medicines will help. He says my sister’s engagement has already taken place, and in the near future she will get married.
DR KUMAR: Your sister's marriage will take this- your sister will be enjoying her life with her husband.
MANGESH: But here’s the thing. While we’re sitting in this room, I have one of those Kaiser Soze moments from The Usual Suspects. In the whole scroll section, I’d given away all my details. Is your mom’s name Chitra? No, it’s Lalita. Is your father living? No, he’s passed. Is your sister married? Well, she’s engaged. And as I realize this, everything from here on becomes tainted. Like, the predictions are so mundane: You’ll have a good life. You’ll get sick. You’ll have medicine and get better. Your children will have a good education. You’ll make decent money. You’ll have good relationships with others. I mean, it’s just a mishmash of vague things that happen to everyone, and details I’ve already confirmed. In some ways, the most surprising thing he says is this line.
DR KUMAR: You will buy a luxurious car.
MANGESH: (laughing)
DR KUMAR: A new car.
MANGESH: I laugh because in some ways this is both the most ridiculous thing and the most specific thing about me. To date, I have never had a new car or a luxurious one. Since high school, I’ve just driven a series of beaters. And man, I’d love a car that starts when you want it to! Anyway, the rest of the reading is more of the same.
DR KUMAR: If you want to know anything else…
MANGESH: Basically, he’s upselling us. What I got was the starter pack. We’ve already paid for this part. And we put down a healthy tip on top, on his insistence.
MANGESH: You don’t take cards, right? Or you don’t take, like, Google Pay or anything like that?
DR KUMAR: Google Pay, yeah, Google Pay okay.
MANGESH: Okay, I’ll figure that out, then. And now, if we want to know more about any specific part of my life—the section of the leaf that deals with my career, or my health, or my kids, or one of like nine more things, we will need to pay more.
DR KUMAR: -in the other building, the building there.
MANGESH: There’s an ATM there? Okay. [Music: Raaginder, “Butterflies”]
MANGESH: I step outside to chat with Mark.
MARK: How are you feeling?
MANGESH: Confused.
MANGESH: The truth is, I was more than confused. I was feeling deflated. After that experience in Mumbai, we had spent so much time trying to figure out the perfect nadi place to visit. I’d come all this way and dragged Mark and Arjun here because this is where I thought I had the best chance of finding my fortune. And then, nothing.
MARK: Feels like kind of a bust.
MANGESH: Yeah.
MARK: It's like, I don't expect grand revelations every time-
MANGESH: There’s a line I didn’t catch on tape, but it’s stuck with me. Mark says: You already got your miracle of astrology. You can’t expect a second one. You can’t expect it every time. When I go back in, the reader opens the chapter about my last life. He says I had been born the son of a milk man. In the milk business. You know—in a typical milk vendor family.
DR KUMAR: He was born in, it is called, Uttar Pradesh, state of India. He was born in a milk vendor family.
MANGESH: He tells me that I slept around, and I think he’s saying I gave my wife STDs?
DR KUMAR: You gave problem to your wife. You did minimum karma in your last life.
MANGESH: I also treated my parents horribly and didn’t support them, I cheated my business partners. And I’m nodding vigorously, and enjoying this… and weirdly, this part is kind of the realest to me! Like, every time someone tells me they’ve seen a psychic or a reader, or had some revelation in a dream, they were a king or queen in their past life. And to me it’s like, there aren’t that many kings in history. How can all of us have been kings?! So, weirdly, this is finally a storyline I can buy into. Being here, smiling at this story, it reminds me of this thing the writer Shruti Ravindran, who grew up in Chennai, once wrote. How she loves to read and reread her horoscope because to her it’s “like a very soothing work of fan fiction.” And she told me about how sometimes the horoscope feels accurate and sometimes it doesn’t.
SHRUTI: She will be a girl of a restless nature. She will be a girl of a self-destructive timidity.
MANGESH: But as she puts it, “During times of upheaval, it reassures me to read these typewritten pages; to be reminded that one long-dead man took the measure of my life, and said it was not all bad.”
SHRUTI: She will brood over the memories of the past, she will brood on fancied slight. Very unflattering, but also like, really specific, and I’m afraid to say super accurate.
MANGESH: I do love this milkman stuff, not because I believe it, but because I love that someone has created a new mythology for me; a new origin story for the problems I’m facing. And now, they’ve given me a new way to remedy those problems, too– albeit through a few too many visits to temples for my liking! So it’s pure fun, but when I think about it later, it won’t scratch the itch I actually have: because, like Shruti, I wanted to walk into this shop and let someone take the measure of my life. [Music: Jelo, “Demon”] I had hoped that they would find my leaf, and look me in the eye, and with complete certainty, tell me that it wouldn’t be all bad. And although I made the journey here, and although those words were said, in the end I just couldn’t believe them. Chapter seven. Spinning. The drive back from the Nadi shop is somehow so long. And I feel the clock ticking. We have maybe five days left on this trip, and I have not felt the magic here. Nothing has brought me closer to believing. Arjun senses my tension. Mark too. I suggest to Mark maybe we should race to Varnasi, in Northern India, even though my astrologer friend Pete warned me it was the Disneyland of astrology. [Sound: Street traffic from inside car, honking] If we wanted to do something totally crazy, we could, we could actually, like, cut this short and fly to, like, Benares… There’s a university there, and a lot of astrology PhDs, and also conmen, so maybe there’s some fun to be had. Or we could do what the nadi reader told me to do for penance for my sins as a milkman: I could go do an offering at a Hanuman temple. And I have a specific one in mind. My aunt and family lived in this place in Hubli, it's where my grandfather retired. It's called Gin House. I don’t know. I’m just throwing ideas at the wall. We stop for lunch at this place our driver Satish loves—where they serve giant heaping plates of rice on banana leaf, with curries and chutneys ladled on top. We eat with our hands, in the traditional style, shoveling the piping hot food into our mouths. I pair mine with a Thums Up, a spicy Indian Coke of sorts. and while the food fills our bellies, it doesn’t calm my nerves. And I grow increasingly irritated about my journey to the nadi shop. A few days later, when I start reviewing my tape, I realize I’ve missed a crucial detail. A woman I’d interviewed previously, named Malti Das, had walked into a nadi shop a skeptic and walked out a believer not because of what she heard from the reader there, but because of what she saw.
Malti Das: I was looking very disinterested. So the man asked me, ma'am, can you read Tamil? I said, yes, very well, I can read Tamil. Then he started showing the palm leaf to me after a point. Then he said, does your father's name start with A? He said yes. And then I could see the name written there of my father-in-law, in Tamil. That was when it hit me. And I thought, okay, there is something here. They're not bluffing.
MANGESH: I feel like an idiot. I hadn’t thought to photograph my leaf. I don’t know if they would have let me, but maybe there was a miracle lurking in there. Not in the prophecy, but in the sorting system. Was there something beautiful I missed? When Mark and I talk about it later at our hotel bar, Mark has a different perspective on the place. [Sound: Busy hotel bar, music and chatter]
MARK: It's basically like a magic trick that we couldn't see the reveal.
MANGESH: It was like hearing a magic trick. As he puts it, it doesn’t matter if it’s real, because the shop is in the business of hope. I think about how he’s right. There's so many people that come in such desperate situations, right? Like if you hear you're gonna have a comfortable life, you're gonna get a new car and you're gonna like, you know.
MARK: Four to five years, you're gonna get a luxury automobile.
MANGESH: Yeah, I mean, that probably sustains a lot of people.
MARK: Right. That would be such a big deal to a certain kind of person.
MANGESH: Chapter eight. Double dose. Months later, my memories of Chennai are a blur. Early mornings, strong coffee, ceiling fans that were no match for the heat. But mostly, it’s just car rides. Hours in a car with Arjun talking about philosophy, and science, and our childhoods. The moments we were too proud. The moments that humbled us. And how we got here. If Bombay felt like an old friend whose path had diverged from my own, then Arjun was a close friend I’d lost and then found again. And it’s funny that he’s here with me, because I forgot that Arjun had been warned by his guru that he should not, at any cost, dabble in astrology… something I’m reminded of when my wife Lizzie calls.
ARJUN: Hi, Lizzie.
MANGESH: Wait, I'll put you on speaker.
LIZZIE: Thank you for taking Mangesh around.
ARJUN: Well, he is my brother at the end of the day and I wasn't gonna abandon him.
LIZZIE: That’s right. What are you gonna do.
MANGESH: There’s a phrase I grew up using in India: cousin-brother and cousin-sister. In joint families, you grow up thinking of cousins as closer than just a cousin. You tie rakhi to them, or these promise threads that promise love and protection, and you treat your cousins as if they’re siblings—because they are in a way. And the fact that Arjun is here with me now, despite the oceans between us, despite the time that’s passed…
ARJUN: But having said that, this is my first experience with astrology as well. I was actually warned not to dabble in these kind of, um, subjects. (laughs)
LIZZIE: So Mangesh is subjecting you to things you've been avoiding. You know, tempting you with danger?
ARJUN: Yeah. Tempting me with taboo subjects. Shame, shame.
LIZZIE: That's right.
ARJUN: He's the bad influence in my life.
MANGESH: Arjun has told me what he’s been through, but I can’t imagine it. It’s too horrifying. And I admire him so much. How he’s somehow pulled together his family, and picked up the shards of his life, and how he keeps moving forward with such grace and humility. If my days in Chennai were a blur of endless car rides, the final pitstop was always a seat at the empty hotel bar. Sometimes it was me and Mark, sometimes it was Arjun and me, and occasionally it was the three of us, sitting in a dimly lit patio, shooing away mosquitos as we sipped fresh lime sodas. On the tougher days, I’d cut the soda with gin, and bum a cigarette off of Arjun. And on one of these nights, Arjun told us about his sade sati—the seven and a half years of bad luck, brought on by Saturn, that everyone experiences at some point, according to Vedic astrology. His seven and a half years, he tells us, were considered particularly bad:
MARK: Does everyone experience it?
ARJUN: Ah, well, I experienced a double sade sati, almost. Mine pretty much came true. So I've had really shit luck, like, really shit luck.
MANGESH: Until this moment Arjun has never once talked about how difficult this period has been. He’s talked about it matter of factly; he’s talked about embracing the future, but this is the first time he says just how hard his life was.
ARJUN: But mine ended last year and, uh, I'm still trying to understand-
MANGESH: The difference?
ARJUN: The difference, yeah. I'm trying to figure out what went right, and I know there are certain things that have changed. But I can't, I can't feel it in a physical form.
MARK: Yeah.
MANGESH: That’s crazy. I didn’t realize that- And because this is India, of course, Arjun jokingly links his misfortune back to what he must have done in his past lives.
ARJUN: I obviously did much more than pass on STDs to one person.
MANGESH: I mean, Arjun doesn’t believe in astrology. I never asked him to get a reading. But astrology has happened to him—the shadow of that seven and a half years of bad luck has been lurking in the back of his mind. There’s another moment that I can’t stop thinking about from the bar, after I’d turned off my recorder. Mark says, too often, when a story isn’t going right, the impulse is to speed up—to book as many interviews as you can. It’s that old sailor’s adage: If you can’t tie a good knot, tie a lot of them. But Mark encourages the opposite. He says I need to slow down. He says if I’m going to resolve anything about my life, about my dad, it is not going to be with him. Or Arjun. And it’s not going to be through astrology. Astrology was never the point. He tells me to make a pilgrimage to where I feel most connected—to my family, and to my past. To just sit with that experience. And I think about that. I really do. [Music: Ali Saffudin, “Wolivo”] But I don’t listen. Because I’m not thinking clearly. I haven’t been thinking clearly this whole time, this whole show. Instead, I ask Satish to race me across the state. I drag Arjun along. I collect interviews that will not add up to much. [Music: Heems, “Home”] And then, just when my time in India is nearly up, I realize Mark was right. And I spend sixteen hours in a car to find meaning where I should have been looking all along. Thank you so much for not forgetting about our little show. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. The show is hosted and written by me, Mangesh Hattikudur. And yes, I know this episode was sooo long, but I’m about to make it longer with these credits. Mary Phillips-Sandy is our Supervising Producer. How would we get this show out without Mary? The answer is we would not. Mitra Bonshahi is our delightful producer and conducted the interview with Shruti. Mark Lotto is my excellent story editor, and was such a trouper for suffering with me in India, in a city I knew nothing about. Though I did feed him lots of parathas. This episode was also produced by the insanely talented Anna Rubanova. I don’t know how we could’ve gotten through this much tape without her. Anna, you are a boon to this show. The super sweet Dhruv Shiva Rao hit the streets for this episode and collected extra tape for me. This episode was mixed by my pal at Soundboard. Oh my gosh, the warning, the warning was read by producer extraordinaire Nadia Reiman, who won the first-ever audio Pulitzer along with the team at This American Life. Nadia wants you to listen to TAL’s next episode, but I want you to know she’s a badass. I’ve gotta thank my pal Botany for the theme song and compositions. Also, Azadi Records, how can I thank Azadi enough. Also my friends Himanshu Suri, Peter Matthew Bauer, and Motor Sales. And I can’t forget my pal Rog, aka Lushlife, for lending me his tunes as well. I am dropping a second mixtape with more music from Skyline Drive, volume two, it’ll be in the show links. Please go check it out. Additional production and research support from my love Lizzie Jacobs, Suman “rock around the clock” Bakshi, and my beautiful cousin Arjun Bakshi. Arjun, I love you. The show is Executive Produced from iHeart by my good pals Nikki Ettore and Katrina Norvell. And a shoutout to Nikki’s baby girl Pearl. And also Enzo, Enzo, I have not forgotten about you, buddy. Also, gotta thank my incredible partners at Kaleidoscope: Oz Woloshyn, Kate Osborn, Costas Linos, Vahini Shori. You inspire me every day. Special thanks to Ally, Nathan, Conal, Will, and Bob at iHeart for getting behind this show. Saurabh and Shanta, my kiddos Henry and Ruby, my family everywhere. And as always, a big big thank you to my Amma and my dad, Lalita and Umesh Hattikudur, who I thank my lucky stars for. We have one more episode to go so thank you so much for listening. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.