1
00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:13,720
Speaker 1: Warning. The following episode contains adult language discussion of miracles,

2
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:16,760
Speaker 1: arranged marriages, chanting tatum, and disclosure of at least one

3
00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:29,560
Speaker 1: Bible approof stoning. Sensitive listeners. Take care.

4
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:38,639
Speaker 2: So here's a confession I'm going to make right at

5
00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:41,680
Speaker 2: the top of the show. I don't believe in astrology,

6
00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:44,360
Speaker 2: but astrology keeps happening to me.

7
00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 3: Now.

8
00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:50,360
Speaker 2: Everyone says podcasting is the most visual medium, So I

9
00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:53,840
Speaker 2: made you a slide show to try to explain. This

10
00:00:53,960 --> 00:00:57,520
Speaker 2: is the real skyline drive. It's in Delaware, and growing

11
00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:00,200
Speaker 2: up when I couldn't sleep, it's one of the many

12
00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:03,080
Speaker 2: places I would drive to look at the stars. This

13
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:07,200
Speaker 2: is the moon. It rules our emotions. This is mercury

14
00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:10,319
Speaker 2: in retrograde. You know it because it makes life miserable.

15
00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:14,679
Speaker 2: This is Rahu and k Thu. They're important and mischievous

16
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,160
Speaker 2: nodes in Vedaic astrology. They're prominent in Donald Trump's horoscope,

17
00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:22,360
Speaker 2: and they're also responsible for Paris Hiltan. This is me.

18
00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:26,360
Speaker 2: I was born May first, nineteen seventy nine. This is

19
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:29,560
Speaker 2: the sky at the time I was born. In Western astrology,

20
00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:32,960
Speaker 2: it makes me a Taurus. These are some other tauruses,

21
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:38,959
Speaker 2: polepot I, Toolo, Komeni, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Barbara Streisan.

22
00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:41,959
Speaker 2: The fact that we're all tauruses has made me doubt

23
00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:45,600
Speaker 2: astrology for a very long time. These are my parents.

24
00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:48,800
Speaker 2: They've been hitched fifty one years and every morning my

25
00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:51,000
Speaker 2: dad makes my mom a cup of tea and then

26
00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:54,320
Speaker 2: they sit and do the spelling, be and pencil. It's adorable, right,

27
00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 2: These are my parents calling in the middle of this recording, Si, Magisha,

28
00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:01,760
Speaker 2: I thank you. It's going calling back. Give me a club.

29
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:05,560
Speaker 2: This is India when I was growing up, where it's

30
00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:09,880
Speaker 2: like yoga and meditation and turmeric and astrology. These are

31
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 2: words that were part of my Indian life, but they

32
00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 2: weren't a part of my going to school fitting into

33
00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:18,520
Speaker 2: America one. But now now everyone has an opinion about it.

34
00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:21,000
Speaker 2: I'm a Gemini, which I've heard is bad.

35
00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:23,400
Speaker 4: I'm a Libra, so I'm indecisive.

36
00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:25,360
Speaker 5: That's definitely true.

37
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:26,760
Speaker 2: I'm a tourust.

38
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:28,160
Speaker 1: I find it starts to be beautiful.

39
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:29,520
Speaker 2: It sucks that we can't see your starts in New

40
00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:30,680
Speaker 2: York because all the lights.

41
00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:33,000
Speaker 6: I know a few people who are kind of into it,

42
00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:35,560
Speaker 6: and they like ask, yo, do you see the horoscope today?

43
00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:37,960
Speaker 6: And I'm like, nah, bro, not really, I'm not worried

44
00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:39,120
Speaker 6: about what the horoscope says.

45
00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:40,880
Speaker 4: I know a lot of people don't believe in it,

46
00:02:41,160 --> 00:02:43,240
Speaker 4: but why can't people just believe in things for fun,

47
00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:45,120
Speaker 4: Like it doesn't have to be backed up by anything.

48
00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:47,120
Speaker 7: But if you believe in fantasy football, why can't you

49
00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:48,120
Speaker 7: believe in astrology.

50
00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:50,960
Speaker 2: A few months ago, my friends and I set out

51
00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:53,400
Speaker 2: to make this show about astrology. We wanted to run

52
00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:56,800
Speaker 2: around the city and have some wild adventures and understand

53
00:02:56,840 --> 00:02:59,959
Speaker 2: why after so many millennia, people still look to the

54
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:03,560
Speaker 2: sky for answers. This is an astrologer I met in

55
00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:06,080
Speaker 2: Queen's He promised me you're going to dig this show.

56
00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:08,919
Speaker 8: I think if you do your own show, he'll become

57
00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:10,839
Speaker 8: a super hit, no doubt about it.

58
00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:14,400
Speaker 2: This is a graph of how much I believed in

59
00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:18,760
Speaker 2: astrology before our session. Not that much. This is a

60
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:21,120
Speaker 2: graph of how much I started believing thirty minutes later

61
00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 2: when something horrible he said came true.

62
00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:28,040
Speaker 8: That's why I asked again. From the time it started

63
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:31,000
Speaker 8: a couple of years back till now, the situation doesn't

64
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:31,399
Speaker 8: look good.

65
00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:36,480
Speaker 2: This is me traveling halfway around the world to answer

66
00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:39,640
Speaker 2: the biggest question my entire life. This is a shop

67
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:41,920
Speaker 2: in India where your fortune is waiting for you. It

68
00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:44,120
Speaker 2: was written centuries ago and put on a shelf, and

69
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:46,880
Speaker 2: the shopkeepers know which one to pull because it's coated

70
00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:49,200
Speaker 2: by your thumbprint and the time you're going to walk

71
00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:53,600
Speaker 2: through that door. This, this is me walking through that door.

72
00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:03,320
Speaker 2: I'm Mungi's articular from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This is Skyline Drive,

73
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:41,000
Speaker 2: chapter one. Leave your axe at home.

74
00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:49,039
Speaker 6: So I figured, you know, I do need to soone

75
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:52,400
Speaker 6: an astrologer, and there are a bunch of astrologers on

76
00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 6: the Upper West Side who have set off with these.

77
00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,560
Speaker 2: Wait till you're looking for an astrologer to zone.

78
00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:02,240
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, well I need to check it off the list.

79
00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:03,520
Speaker 6: I've got one.

80
00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:06,400
Speaker 2: Hundred, you know already, this reporting and starting off weirder

81
00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:08,679
Speaker 2: than I thought. It's ten o'clock on a bright summer

82
00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:11,480
Speaker 2: day and I'm standing here with Ajjacobs.

83
00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:14,440
Speaker 6: I am an author and a journalist and a pisces.

84
00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:17,960
Speaker 2: In addition to being a pisces or technically on the

85
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,160
Speaker 2: cusp of Pisces and ares. AJ's a friend and he's

86
00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:23,560
Speaker 2: one of my favorite writers. I've come to meet him

87
00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:25,800
Speaker 2: in this neighborhood, because in two thousand and seven he

88
00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:27,960
Speaker 2: wrote a New York Times bestseller called The Year of

89
00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:32,000
Speaker 2: Living Biblically. The book was a phenomenon. It came out

90
00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,679
Speaker 2: in multiple languages, there were magazine and TV pieces about it.

91
00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:37,880
Speaker 2: It was such a big deal that at one point

92
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,599
Speaker 2: Marlon Wayns was lined up to play AJ in the

93
00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:41,839
Speaker 2: Network TV version.

94
00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:46,560
Speaker 6: The premise was that I would follow all the rules

95
00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:49,480
Speaker 6: of the Bible as literally as possible, So that meant

96
00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:52,360
Speaker 6: the famous ones like the Ten Commandments and love your neighbor,

97
00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:57,120
Speaker 6: but also the lesser known ones like you cannot wear

98
00:05:57,560 --> 00:06:00,560
Speaker 6: clothes made of two different kinds of fabrics, so I

99
00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:02,760
Speaker 6: had to get rid of all of my polycotton blends.

100
00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:06,039
Speaker 2: Giving up polycotton blends is just one of the hardships

101
00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:09,000
Speaker 2: Aga endured in the name of journalism. He also grew

102
00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,200
Speaker 2: a massive beard, shoved wild birds so he could steal

103
00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:14,359
Speaker 2: its egg and say a prayer on it. And he

104
00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:18,600
Speaker 2: followed seven hundred other Biblical rules literally in an attempt

105
00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:22,000
Speaker 2: to understand religion. And somewhere along the way he decided

106
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,080
Speaker 2: that to fully appreciate the Bible.

107
00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:28,719
Speaker 6: You actually had to stone people who committed these abominations,

108
00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:37,080
Speaker 6: and the abominations include adultera, breaking the Sabbath, but also astrology, witchcraft, divination,

109
00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:38,599
Speaker 6: they're all sort of lumped together.

110
00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:42,080
Speaker 2: Just the fact that he decided to stone someone was

111
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:44,599
Speaker 2: a shock to me. I mean, Aj is one of

112
00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:48,040
Speaker 2: the nicest people I know, but that's how committed he was.

113
00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:50,919
Speaker 6: I didn't want to go to jail for assault. I

114
00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:53,320
Speaker 6: just wanted to check it off my list, you know,

115
00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:58,560
Speaker 6: stone and astrologer check. So I walked by this astrologer

116
00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:02,839
Speaker 6: on the street and just very subtly dropped the pebble

117
00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:05,200
Speaker 6: so that it landed on her.

118
00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:07,400
Speaker 2: Shoe, kind of a drive by stoning.

119
00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:11,520
Speaker 6: And I was thinking, she's probably not even gonna notice

120
00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:15,400
Speaker 6: because I just kept walking. Oh she noticed, and she's like,

121
00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:20,000
Speaker 6: what's going on? Why did you do that? And so

122
00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:22,320
Speaker 6: I had to tell the truth. Because I was following

123
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,280
Speaker 6: the Bible. I thought maybe she'll think it's funny. She

124
00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:26,400
Speaker 6: did not think it's funny.

125
00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:27,800
Speaker 2: She was pissed.

126
00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:30,720
Speaker 6: She started yelling at me, like, f you go to

127
00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:34,480
Speaker 6: f and hell I was rattled. Even if you're trying

128
00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:38,440
Speaker 6: to stone someone in modern day using pebbles, people don't

129
00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:39,679
Speaker 6: like it. Well, that's a lesson.

130
00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:44,840
Speaker 2: That's a takeaway rule number one, don't stone an astrologer.

131
00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:48,040
Speaker 2: It wasn't the advice I'd come for, but I wrote

132
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:51,280
Speaker 2: it down anyway. But the thing I really wanted to know.

133
00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:54,160
Speaker 2: The reason I traveled all the way out here to

134
00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:56,880
Speaker 2: meet with AJ was to ask him how to make

135
00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:00,640
Speaker 2: the show, because doing the show in astrology it actually

136
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:04,040
Speaker 2: makes me nervous, like, is there a way to talk

137
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:07,960
Speaker 2: about how accurate a fortune telling parrot could possibly be?

138
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:10,600
Speaker 2: Or is there a way to joke about whether an

139
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:14,760
Speaker 2: astro curse can make you bald? Because even if the

140
00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:17,640
Speaker 2: show makes me look silly, like I don't want to

141
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:21,200
Speaker 2: get disinvited from a family wedding because I said something

142
00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:25,200
Speaker 2: that hurt friends or family or really anyone who puts

143
00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:28,920
Speaker 2: stock in these subjects. As I'm trying to uncover threads

144
00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,880
Speaker 2: and things like how do you tell a story delicately

145
00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:34,600
Speaker 2: where you're not offending people but still engaging with all

146
00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:35,520
Speaker 2: the subject.

147
00:08:35,880 --> 00:08:39,319
Speaker 6: I have that exact dilemma when I was writing The

148
00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:43,000
Speaker 6: Year of Living Biblically, because I was coming in as

149
00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:48,320
Speaker 6: an agnostic writing about religion. My big overall advice is

150
00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:53,000
Speaker 6: go in with deep curiosity. Don't go in with an

151
00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:57,800
Speaker 6: agenda that you're trying to disprove or prove astrology. You're

152
00:08:57,880 --> 00:09:02,319
Speaker 6: just an explorer, So go in like with no acts.

153
00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:03,680
Speaker 6: Leave your axes at home.

154
00:09:04,559 --> 00:09:10,400
Speaker 2: That I think I can do. After the break, we

155
00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:13,400
Speaker 2: talked to an astrologer who doesn't believe in astrology. Take

156
00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 2: a subway ride to Queen's and hear this from my mom.

157
00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:18,800
Speaker 4: I felt like a josic though.

158
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:40,559
Speaker 2: Chapter two, just for funds.

159
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:43,120
Speaker 4: Is the phone listening?

160
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:43,440
Speaker 2: Is that?

161
00:09:43,480 --> 00:09:44,600
Speaker 4: Are you listening through the phone?

162
00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:44,960
Speaker 2: Pattern?

163
00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:45,480
Speaker 8: AI?

164
00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:46,319
Speaker 2: The algorithm?

165
00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:47,040
Speaker 8: That is the pattern?

166
00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:49,480
Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty, one of my friends shot me

167
00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:52,520
Speaker 2: a text linking to this video of Channing Tatum. The

168
00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:56,079
Speaker 2: actor had uploaded it himself after using an astrology app

169
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:59,439
Speaker 2: called the Pattern, But when Channing's readings became a little

170
00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:01,840
Speaker 2: two spot on, he freaked out.

171
00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:03,280
Speaker 4: Are you listening through my phone?

172
00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:05,440
Speaker 2: And then just regurgitating the stuff that I'm afraid of?

173
00:10:05,640 --> 00:10:06,840
Speaker 5: And the stuff? You know what?

174
00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:08,400
Speaker 8: Pattern? People?

175
00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:09,200
Speaker 4: You should just call me.

176
00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,080
Speaker 2: I need answers right now, poor Channing. I don't know

177
00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:15,560
Speaker 2: if he ever got his answers, but what I do

178
00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:21,000
Speaker 2: know is that astrology is ubiquitous and lucrative. One venture

179
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:23,319
Speaker 2: capital investor told The New York Times that the app

180
00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:27,560
Speaker 2: co star this pattern competitor had the potential to be

181
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:31,400
Speaker 2: a twenty four billion dollar business, claiming it could one

182
00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:35,040
Speaker 2: day be as big as Spotify. But if astrology is

183
00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 2: as big an opportunity as everyone's saying, I'm wondering if

184
00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:40,839
Speaker 2: my company should get in on the act. After all,

185
00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:43,719
Speaker 2: it feels so obvious that I don't know even a

186
00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:46,760
Speaker 2: nine year old could see the potential. So I decided

187
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:49,160
Speaker 2: to try the pitch out on my nine year old Ruby.

188
00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:52,120
Speaker 4: Hey only, why let me get this closet.

189
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:55,600
Speaker 2: I brought you to this closet because I wanted to

190
00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:58,719
Speaker 2: pitch you on an astrology app. Are you ready for it?

191
00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:04,640
Speaker 2: Why is that? What do you think about astrology? It's dumb?

192
00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:08,400
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, Well, maybe you're not the right person for it.

193
00:11:08,480 --> 00:11:10,880
Speaker 2: But the reason I came to you is because you

194
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:14,240
Speaker 2: actually have a bank. You spend only my money. You

195
00:11:14,280 --> 00:11:16,720
Speaker 2: seem to hoard all your money, and you keep all

196
00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:18,800
Speaker 2: of Henry's money as well, which you charge him a

197
00:11:18,840 --> 00:11:21,520
Speaker 2: small fee for. So I thought you might be the

198
00:11:21,559 --> 00:11:23,480
Speaker 2: savviest person in this family. Is it okay if I

199
00:11:23,520 --> 00:11:24,560
Speaker 2: pitch you an astrology app?

200
00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:26,080
Speaker 4: Okay?

201
00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:30,440
Speaker 2: So? Here's my case for it. These aren't your grandmother's

202
00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,080
Speaker 2: horse ghosts, right, They're talking to you in this very

203
00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:36,960
Speaker 2: fresh and fun way. They're up to the minute with

204
00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:41,120
Speaker 2: the NASA data. They look beautiful, and they have a

205
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,320
Speaker 2: chat feature where astrologers will chat with you live about

206
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:47,480
Speaker 2: your birth charts. Right. And then by twenty nineteen, right,

207
00:11:47,559 --> 00:11:50,560
Speaker 2: like you could see, astrology are starting to take over Bumble,

208
00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:52,959
Speaker 2: the dating app. They start allowing you to sort your

209
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:56,000
Speaker 2: matches by their birth signs, so like you could say,

210
00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:57,840
Speaker 2: like I only want to date Tauruses, or I only

211
00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,280
Speaker 2: want to date Geminis or whatever. In fact, astrology in

212
00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:05,640
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen was a two point two billion dollar market.

213
00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:12,960
Speaker 2: What do you think about that? Mind, I can't help

214
00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:17,600
Speaker 2: whether you're serious or not. But apps made forty million

215
00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:21,000
Speaker 2: dollars that year, and in fact, the next year, when

216
00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:25,880
Speaker 2: COVID really hit, people started searching for birth charts and astrology.

217
00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:29,079
Speaker 2: Both of those searches hit five year peaks on Google.

218
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,680
Speaker 2: So it's no wonder that all these venture capital funds

219
00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:36,600
Speaker 2: had started investing in astrology apps early and then continued

220
00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:40,760
Speaker 2: to invest. And I'm here to ask you to invest

221
00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:42,120
Speaker 2: in my astrology app.

222
00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:45,839
Speaker 4: What do you think, oh, I know, I'm spending oh

223
00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:48,120
Speaker 4: my money on a skateboard now on you?

224
00:12:49,559 --> 00:12:52,480
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, so Ruby, what type of business would you

225
00:12:52,480 --> 00:13:09,880
Speaker 2: invest in? Bubble gum? Okay? Chapter three, Truth and Poetry.

226
00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 2: When you go out with a recorder in hand, it's

227
00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:17,000
Speaker 2: interesting to see who will talk on tape. We found

228
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:19,839
Speaker 2: scientists at NASA who actually wouldn't talk about their interest

229
00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,600
Speaker 2: in astrology to us because they were afraid of losing

230
00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:26,240
Speaker 2: their jobs. We found PhDs and postdocs who were worried

231
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:29,400
Speaker 2: that if they talk at all to our podcasts, even

232
00:13:29,400 --> 00:13:34,240
Speaker 2: to say that astrology was nonsense, they would face professional repercussions.

233
00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:38,000
Speaker 2: I mean, it is insanity what a lightning rod astrology

234
00:13:38,040 --> 00:13:41,520
Speaker 2: can be. But luckily we found Jamie Green.

235
00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:45,480
Speaker 9: My grandfather showed me a little half of a peanut

236
00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:47,640
Speaker 9: that had the germ in it, and he said, that's

237
00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:49,840
Speaker 9: going to become a plant. And it was just things

238
00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:53,080
Speaker 9: like that that got me interested in the world, which

239
00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:55,080
Speaker 9: is the same as being interested in science.

240
00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:58,160
Speaker 2: Jamie is a celebrated science writer, and.

241
00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:01,720
Speaker 9: I'm Sagittarius, although you would not know it from looking

242
00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:04,680
Speaker 9: at anything about my life. I've got some planet in

243
00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:10,400
Speaker 9: Capricorn that explains why I'm not an impulsive adventurer.

244
00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:13,160
Speaker 2: She has a new book coming out called The Possibility

245
00:14:13,160 --> 00:14:15,640
Speaker 2: of Life, and she's co editor of the annual Best

246
00:14:15,679 --> 00:14:19,440
Speaker 2: American Science and Nature writing volumes. And whether it's chatting

247
00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:23,600
Speaker 2: about her garden or the way we perceive constellations, her

248
00:14:23,640 --> 00:14:29,520
Speaker 2: capacity for wonder is incredible and infectious. But perhaps what

249
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:32,760
Speaker 2: I love most about Jamie was how she clarified that

250
00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:36,280
Speaker 2: science and astrology don't actually have to be at odds

251
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,400
Speaker 2: with one another, that we don't need science to disprove astrology.

252
00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:43,800
Speaker 2: Not that she thinks astrology is a science.

253
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:50,160
Speaker 9: Exactly scientifically, in terms of astronomy, astrology doesn't hold a

254
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:53,240
Speaker 9: lot of meaning because it's all very human centric. From

255
00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:56,360
Speaker 9: the point of view of looking at the stars from Earth, the.

256
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:59,720
Speaker 2: Stars are light years apart. They have no real relation

257
00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:03,360
Speaker 2: to you each other except in our minds. But that relationship,

258
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,360
Speaker 2: the one we make up while looking up at the stars,

259
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:11,800
Speaker 2: that means something, or it can mean something if you

260
00:15:11,880 --> 00:15:12,360
Speaker 2: want it to.

261
00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:18,960
Speaker 9: It's like a much more eloquent, poetic personal fortune cookie.

262
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:20,960
Speaker 9: And I don't mean that disparagingly. I just think that

263
00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:23,440
Speaker 9: it's for you to take from it what you need.

264
00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:26,560
Speaker 9: Like we don't think it's anti science to say a

265
00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:31,120
Speaker 9: poem is true. I think that's where science gets defensive,

266
00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 9: is when people say that astrology is a science and

267
00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:38,120
Speaker 9: has physical roots in the stars. It's like, oh no

268
00:15:38,320 --> 00:15:41,480
Speaker 9: it doesn't, but it's true the way a poem is true.

269
00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:43,920
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how much I love that. I mean,

270
00:15:44,240 --> 00:15:48,040
Speaker 2: as someone who's a skeptic but also a romantic, this

271
00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:51,240
Speaker 2: idea that astrology is true the same way a poem

272
00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:55,400
Speaker 2: is true. That feels right to me, and it's something

273
00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:58,760
Speaker 2: my friend Pete also said when I talk to him,

274
00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:02,280
Speaker 2: Pete Steele is, well, it's complicated.

275
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:05,480
Speaker 7: So like even though I was in like a semi

276
00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:08,800
Speaker 7: successful like musician, I was like, I need to make

277
00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:12,360
Speaker 7: money somehow, like right now, Like what other skills do

278
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:12,560
Speaker 7: I have?

279
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:12,840
Speaker 8: Oh?

280
00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:14,320
Speaker 7: I do astrology.

281
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:18,280
Speaker 2: He is a rock star, like a real rock star.

282
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:27,680
Speaker 2: He used to be in the Walkman, Oh that massive

283
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:32,600
Speaker 2: seminal Indie rock band. And yes, his backup career was

284
00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:36,280
Speaker 2: professional astrology. When he was younger, he trained with this

285
00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:39,520
Speaker 2: big famous guru. He was living in his guest house

286
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:42,000
Speaker 2: and that's where he learned to read star charts.

287
00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:43,920
Speaker 7: You would take him back to him and he would

288
00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:46,760
Speaker 7: say like, no, it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Like,

289
00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:50,000
Speaker 7: you're wrong, you know, and then he kind of in

290
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:54,800
Speaker 7: very traditional style like yell at the apprentice sort of thing,

291
00:16:55,280 --> 00:16:58,640
Speaker 7: kung Fu master, right, the very very karate kid kind

292
00:16:58,680 --> 00:16:59,720
Speaker 7: of feeling right.

293
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:05,720
Speaker 2: But here's the other thing. Pete doesn't even believe in astrology.

294
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:09,080
Speaker 2: He's a rock star who does astrology for politicians and

295
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:13,520
Speaker 2: World Bank economists and all sorts of interesting folks, but

296
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:15,440
Speaker 2: he doesn't believe in it.

297
00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:16,320
Speaker 4: It's just art to me.

298
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:18,480
Speaker 7: And I don't mean that dismissively, like, but that's like

299
00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:20,520
Speaker 7: my whole being, Like, that's what I care about.

300
00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:24,560
Speaker 2: What he believes really is in a more vivid reality,

301
00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:27,879
Speaker 2: a kind of embroidered view of the world. Pete and

302
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:30,840
Speaker 2: I both spent formative years in India, and we have

303
00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:33,320
Speaker 2: a certain comfort in the magical if you.

304
00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:35,920
Speaker 7: Read like one hundred Years of Solitude or something like that,

305
00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:39,560
Speaker 7: world of like this kind of magical Columbia. You know,

306
00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:43,000
Speaker 7: it's like that felt very similar in a lot of

307
00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:45,200
Speaker 7: ways to how we were raised.

308
00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:56,000
Speaker 2: Magical explanations have been woven throughout my life, like why

309
00:17:56,119 --> 00:17:58,760
Speaker 2: was my family's little community in India so well off?

310
00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:02,160
Speaker 2: A century ago. You could say it's because of luck

311
00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:06,159
Speaker 2: or global economics. You could say it's because when the

312
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:09,560
Speaker 2: Civil War was happening in the US, England actually needed

313
00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:12,639
Speaker 2: more sources of cotton to replace all the cotton that

314
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:16,199
Speaker 2: the US had been producing. And my family they just

315
00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:18,480
Speaker 2: happened to be in the right place to manage mills

316
00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:21,920
Speaker 2: and plant cotton on their land. Or you could tell

317
00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:24,720
Speaker 2: the story in a way that's way, way more magical,

318
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:29,080
Speaker 2: that a great great ancestor had this powerful vision from

319
00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:31,679
Speaker 2: a goddess that if he chanted a simple string of

320
00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:35,359
Speaker 2: prayers every single night, and he taught all his children

321
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,919
Speaker 2: to sing it, and they taught all their children, his

322
00:18:39,040 --> 00:18:43,159
Speaker 2: people would be protected for years. And for most of

323
00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:46,200
Speaker 2: my life, I only knew that second.

324
00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:59,720
Speaker 5: Story Shanta Majimus mah Luxmi maji ja jakadambe I'm baby.

325
00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:10,800
Speaker 2: About buying Chapter four. Mopeds and mini skirts. Arranged marriage

326
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,119
Speaker 2: has always been this thing that's hard for me to

327
00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:15,840
Speaker 2: talk about. When I first moved to Delaware, kids in

328
00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:18,639
Speaker 2: my elementary school had all these questions for me about

329
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:21,800
Speaker 2: being Indian, right, like does your family sleep on a

330
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:25,720
Speaker 2: bed of nails? Can charm snakes? Just you know, these

331
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 2: things they'd seen on cartoons, and arranged marriage was just

332
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:32,480
Speaker 2: another one of these questions I'd have to field, except

333
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:36,240
Speaker 2: this one actually bothered me more because this time I'd

334
00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:39,119
Speaker 2: have to admit that, yes, my parents did have an

335
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:42,760
Speaker 2: arranged marriage, and then I'd have to explain that The

336
00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,119
Speaker 2: thing is, everyone assumed my mom and dad were like forcibly,

337
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,160
Speaker 2: paired off when they were nine years old and then

338
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:51,720
Speaker 2: sent away to work and have kids, and that isn't true.

339
00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:55,240
Speaker 2: It's like my parents' situation was a little more like

340
00:19:55,840 --> 00:20:02,080
Speaker 2: pride and prejudice. Like, you come from a good family,

341
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:04,240
Speaker 2: your parents want you to marry into another good family,

342
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:08,800
Speaker 2: so they set you up. They make introductions to certain people,

343
00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:11,879
Speaker 2: and if you like each other, they kind of fast

344
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 2: track the marriage or they make more introductions. But since

345
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:20,040
Speaker 2: this was already super hard to explain, I just left

346
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:23,520
Speaker 2: out the part of astrology, which also plays a big

347
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:26,560
Speaker 2: role in the whole arranged marriage thing. It was like,

348
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 2: I don't know, just too difficult or embarrassing something. After all,

349
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,040
Speaker 2: it's a weird thing to have to admit you only

350
00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:39,400
Speaker 2: exist because of astrology. But I'll let my mom explain.

351
00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:43,359
Speaker 2: Tell me about how your marriage was arranged.

352
00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:51,760
Speaker 4: Oh, that's funny, okay. Umishi's aunt Shadaka. She came to

353
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:55,200
Speaker 4: see Amma because she'd heard that, you know, I was available.

354
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:58,640
Speaker 2: I guess this story starts, of course, with two families

355
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 2: dusting off their kid's horse and handing them off to

356
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 2: a trusted astrologer, not some low level quack.

357
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 4: So they matched it and it mashed perfectly.

358
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 2: The traditional Indian matching system is way more complicated than

359
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:15,280
Speaker 2: just saying is you a scorpio? A proper celestial marriage

360
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 2: is supposed to be a union of souls, so the

361
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:21,000
Speaker 2: astrologers inspect all the vagaries of your chart and pressure

362
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:25,919
Speaker 2: test everything like your personalities, your feelings about class and status,

363
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:28,919
Speaker 2: even how a couple's health will be affected by one another.

364
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 2: It's all on the scale of thirty six points, and

365
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 2: any match under eighteen points shouldn't be considered, But anything

366
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:40,399
Speaker 2: over thirty two, that's something you want to lock down immediately.

367
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:43,480
Speaker 4: My patents want to make sure that the man Amadi

368
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:46,639
Speaker 4: did not let me, She asked the astrology you know,

369
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 4: how is his nature? So the strologia todama that Umish

370
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 4: was a gentle creature, you know, never lost system.

371
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,960
Speaker 2: But so this part is one hundred percent true. I've

372
00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,919
Speaker 2: only ever heard my dad yell a handful of times,

373
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 2: and most of that was when our dog Lupini would

374
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 2: just race out of the house and he would run

375
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 2: after her with this like slice of Kraft singles cheese,

376
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 2: just waving it to try to tempt her back. And

377
00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 2: it always worked because she was super greedy.

378
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 4: But one fault he'd have is never come on time

379
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,919
Speaker 4: to the table to have dinner. And we thought it

380
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 4: was a big joke, and that came true. If we

381
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 4: couldn't believe that astrology could be that powerful to tell

382
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:29,399
Speaker 4: a quirk like that.

383
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 2: Wasn't there something else with the mother in law?

384
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 4: The mother law? Yes, they said that I would be

385
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 4: best for a boy that did not have a mother.

386
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:40,760
Speaker 4: I really don't know. They said it was something to

387
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,640
Speaker 4: do with the stars, and if I had a mother

388
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:47,199
Speaker 4: in lot it wouldn't go well. So here Umish had

389
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:49,720
Speaker 4: lost his mother when he was under year. I think

390
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,400
Speaker 4: we just about a year, so it was perfect.

391
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 2: This is something I think about a lot, how astrology

392
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:01,439
Speaker 2: accounts for everything. My dad had an ayah or a nanny,

393
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,439
Speaker 2: but he never had a mother. His life was a

394
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:08,880
Speaker 2: series of hostels and boarding schools, sometimes in cities hundreds

395
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 2: of miles from his home. It makes me sad to

396
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 2: think about, but if his mom had survived, my parents

397
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:19,640
Speaker 2: would never have been together. Astrology would have made sure

398
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 2: of that. Anyway, back to my mom. Even though my

399
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 2: grandmom was working really hard to set her up, my

400
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 2: mom was not keen to get married.

401
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,920
Speaker 4: I wasn't ready. I was still studying and it was

402
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:36,400
Speaker 4: in my final year for Masters, studying linguistics. I didn't

403
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 4: want to give that up and didn't want to get

404
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 4: married that fast. Yeah, so I felt like a Josico.

405
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 4: I wasn't happy, and things were really moving faster than

406
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,639
Speaker 4: I ever expected. So I said, I'm going to foil this.

407
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,679
Speaker 2: So, just to get the picture, a typical woman hoping

408
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 2: for a match would be waiting, sitting by her parents,

409
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 2: dressed in a sorry or something traditional, like making a

410
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:06,239
Speaker 2: big show of what a quiet and obedient wife they

411
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 2: could be. And instead I.

412
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 4: Had a miniskirt on and I had lambretta. I wrote

413
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 4: that and came.

414
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,040
Speaker 2: Oh, and she's also late, Like my mom is the

415
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 2: most punctual person I know. She gets at the airport

416
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 2: three hours ahead of time. And that since I was

417
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 2: a kid, so she's clearly trying to tank this thing.

418
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:30,920
Speaker 4: And my hair, I'd let it lose and curly wasn't done.

419
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 4: But instead, you know, Mishuzana said, Oh, that's no problem.

420
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 4: We love more than girls.

421
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 2: What type of women do you think Mama was expecting

422
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 2: to present.

423
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 4: She wanted them to know that I was absolutely sensitive

424
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:49,240
Speaker 4: and very loving, very kind and gentle with everyone, and

425
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 4: animal lover.

426
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:54,560
Speaker 2: But my Grandmam was also incredibly honest, so she was

427
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:56,120
Speaker 2: sure to tell my dad's family this.

428
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 4: I had no interest in cooking.

429
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 2: Anyway. Despite my mom's lack of interest in the kitchen

430
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 2: and her dramatic attempt to topple this whole affair, she

431
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 2: somehow still won my dad's family over.

432
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 4: So I must say, here's the deal. Let him write

433
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 4: to you. If you don't like him, it's fine.

434
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 2: He was a charming writer.

435
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 4: He was a tom directed.

436
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: So they wrote letters back and forth for a year,

437
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 2: and when they finally met in person.

438
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 4: You know, he looked so vulnerable that I said, oh,

439
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 4: this is great. I can handle him.

440
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 2: My parents don't have a perfect marriage, but there are

441
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 2: lots of wonderful bits things that make me think those

442
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 2: thirty two points mean something like once when they were young,

443
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 2: they visited Paris and they went to dinner at this

444
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 2: fancy restaurant with a ballroom, and then orchestra started playing

445
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 2: and no one was dancing crickets. So my dad just

446
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 2: whisked my mom onto the dance floor and then slowly

447
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 2: everyone in the place joins in. And when my parents

448
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 2: went back to their table, the band leader had actually

449
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 2: sent them this gorgeous bottle of brandy to say thank

450
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 2: you for livening the place up and forgetting everyone dancing.

451
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 2: I mean, if astrology can promise you those sorts of

452
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 2: scenes like who wouldn't listen? Of course, astrology has done

453
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 2: damage in the family too. Here's my mom telling me

454
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 2: about an arranged marriage gone wrong.

455
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 4: My cousin Nana. The girl that they looked for the

456
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 4: horoscope matched with him.

457
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 5: Who's your cousin, Nana?

458
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 4: Nana from Manglo Nalipachison, So there was a danger of

459
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 4: his brother dying if the girl married Nana.

460
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 2: The astrologers have predicted that if the couple went through

461
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: with the marriage, even though their horoscopes matched, it could

462
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 2: lead to Nanu's brother's death. I mean, who wants that

463
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 2: on their hands? Even if it's putting your chances for

464
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 2: love at risk.

465
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 4: So to this day he still a bachelor.

466
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 2: Really, Oh wow, what do you think about that?

467
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 4: It's a shame. Yeah, they could have found other girls,

468
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 4: but he just was dejected, said normal, normal hotorscopes.

469
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 3: That's heartbreaking, really is Yeah.

470
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 2: After chatting with my mom, two things occurred to me. First,

471
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 2: the chasm between the way Americans and Indians used astrology

472
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 2: that only felt wider, Like no app was going to

473
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 2: tell you to quit your NBA to marry some guy

474
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 2: in America, or to break it off with this girl

475
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 2: because it could bring bad luck or death to another

476
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 2: family member, like the starkness of the way Indian astrology

477
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 2: can be used to control lives. It felt so dark,

478
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:49,360
Speaker 2: but also pretty intriguing, like it only made me want

479
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 2: to dig in more. And the second thing I remembered

480
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 2: is this piece of advice AJ gave me about really

481
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 2: embracing the show.

482
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 6: I think you got to go all in, So you've

483
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 6: got to hire an astrologer to help you with the show.

484
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 6: Let's figure out when you should start. When should the

485
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 6: air date be, Who should you hire to help you?

486
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 6: Should it be a Virgo or a Capricorn? Like, go

487
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 6: for it, because that's one way to test it is

488
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 6: to see does it work for you?

489
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 2: So I decided to find an Indian astrologer and solve

490
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 2: both problems. I could lean into my Indian side and

491
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 2: also have some fun with it. But what I didn't

492
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: know was that that visit was going to change my life.

493
00:28:50,240 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 2: Chapter five We go to Queens. On April ninth, I

494
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 2: headed to Queens to meet an astrologer. He's someone my

495
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: friend and showrunner for the show, Mary recommended that I

496
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 2: reach out to, and coincidentally, he happened to be an

497
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 2: astrologer that my cousin Aditya had used. Yeah, the hey,

498
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 2: how was you d A? That is another rational type.

499
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 2: He's kind of this white shoe lawyer, masters from Cambridge,

500
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 2: and he used this astrologer in a difficult time and

501
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 2: apparently the predictions had proven accurate. So I've actually wanted

502
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 2: to see him again. So I took a train to

503
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: Jackson Heights to meet doctor Rakish Kamar and we entered

504
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: his white wood frame office. From the outside, it's kind

505
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: of nondescripts like this row house, but when you opened

506
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 2: the door, you immediately sensed these temple like vibes. So

507
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 2: I took off my shoes at the entrance, walked through

508
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 2: a fog of sweet sandalwood, and there were these massive

509
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 2: photos of his guru on the wall. And then I

510
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 2: turned into this tiny room with a wood and it

511
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 2: had a giant stack of books on it with a

512
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: little black laptop on top. Looking around, I realize how

513
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 2: fun this is. I'm here on this field trip with

514
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 2: my cousin, this astrology adventure, and I'm so ready to

515
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 2: hear some ridiculous things and enjoy this experience. Doctor Kamar

516
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 2: very sweetly welcomes me in. He closes his emails, and then,

517
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 2: using the information I'd sent him a few days before,

518
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: he pulls up my chart and turns on his recorder.

519
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 8: So I'm just looking at it. Charted me first nineteen

520
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 8: seventy nine, Gel War four in the afternoon, summit, New Jersey.

521
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 8: You're born on a Tuesday. You have the sign Cancerizing this.

522
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 2: I've got to say I was a little surprised by

523
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 2: how quickly doctor Kamar dives in. It seems like he's

524
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 2: just staring at a bunch of numbers on his screen,

525
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 2: but he's interpreting them, kind of like Neo from the matrix,

526
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 2: and I'm curious to hear my reading. But what I

527
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 2: really want to do is asked doctor Kamar about the show.

528
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 2: I thought it'd be fun if there were these auspicious

529
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 2: dates for my podcast, or if you could predict something

530
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 2: about how many people would listen. But first he had

531
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 2: some questions for me.

532
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 8: So, how's work been since January twenty twenty.

533
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 2: That's when I decided to quit my job.

534
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 8: Okay, so either you would have quit your job where

535
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 8: the job would have quit you one of the things

536
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 8: because the time of such because it impacts your converch

537
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 8: through your work career. It's so ironic. You come here

538
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 8: today two days from now, April thirteenth onwards. Then after

539
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 8: a new chapter of your life begins, another beginning of

540
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 8: your life, which will be very good.

541
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 2: This is what I came for. I write down April

542
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 2: thirteenth on my notebook and I circle it big. Four

543
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 2: days from now. That's the date I'm going to get

544
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 2: started on my show. Doctor Kamara continues with more work

545
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 2: related things. He says foreign travelers in the cards, which

546
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 2: is super exciting, and that I should wear an emerald

547
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 2: to improve my communication skills, which is funny. I make

548
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 2: a note to do an episode on gems and veda

549
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 2: astrology down the line. But the best part is that

550
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 2: doctor Kamar seems to think this whole podcast will go

551
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: really well.

552
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 8: So it's very profound. So you'll make it big in life,

553
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 8: You'll be very successful in everything, because your planets show that.

554
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 2: I'm so excited about all this tape, getting a start

555
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 2: date for the show, the talk of gems, this prediction

556
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 2: that everything might go well, that I'm caught off guard

557
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 2: by doctor Kamar's next question, which comes out of nowhere.

558
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 8: Tell me something about your father, like what he did

559
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 8: for work or still does.

560
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 2: He's a chemical engineer. Okay, he's retired.

561
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 7: He's ill right.

562
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 2: Now listening back, I don't know why I mentioned my

563
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 2: dad was ill. Doctor Kamar hadn't asked, and maybe it's

564
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 2: because I was trying to participate fully, like I thought

565
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: I should let him know. Years ago, my dad was

566
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 2: diagnosed with cancer, but he actually sailed through that treatment

567
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 2: and he's been cancer free for a while now. But

568
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 2: recently he broke a rib reaching for something, which was odd,

569
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 2: and then he also had this slight boost and some

570
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 2: liver counts which his doctor told him not to worry about.

571
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 8: Because that's why I asked again. From the time he

572
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 8: started a couple of years back till now, a situation

573
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 8: doesn't look good for father. There is risk to father.

574
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 2: This thing about my dad. It was a throwaway line

575
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 2: in the middle of an hour and a half interview.

576
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 2: I don't even know how closely I was listening. By

577
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 2: the time we hit stop on the recorder, I was thrilled.

578
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 2: I had over an hour of material and I was

579
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 2: cutting tape in my head as I was asking questions,

580
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 2: and I felt good. I thanked doctor Kamar for his time,

581
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 2: and I let him run off to feed his mother lunch,

582
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 2: which he does every day, and my cousin and I

583
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: walked off to get fresh dosas in Italy's that one

584
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,240
Speaker 2: of the many canteens that dot this area of Jackson

585
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:14,800
Speaker 2: Heights so well, I turned to thank you for you,

586
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: and then twenty minutes into chatting and laughing and debating

587
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 2: what's real about astrology and what isn't and how can

588
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 2: you even tell right? I received this email from my dad.

589
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 2: It read we just received the results of the MRCP testing.

590
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 2: Unfortunately the news is not as good as it could be.

591
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:43,359
Speaker 2: We'll talk to doctor Thomas and doctor Shakur and let

592
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 2: you know as soon as we can. Study result diffuse

593
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 2: metastatic disease throughout the liver and bones from unknown primary.

594
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 2: The cancer had metastasized through my dad's liver and bones.

595
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 2: I don't know what it means, but I've forgotten about astrology.

596
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 2: I don't care about emeralds or whether any of this

597
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: feels embarrassing anymore. My stomach drops. I can't finish my child.

598
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 2: I don't know what to write, so I just tap out.

599
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, Dad. I'll call you back in a bit.

600
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 2: And all I'm thinking now is how fast can I

601
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 2: get to Atlanta Next week? On Skyline Drive, we take

602
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: a train to be a ridge, meet a therapist who

603
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,359
Speaker 2: secretly uses astrology behind your client's backs, and hang out

604
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 2: with a seventy four year old who just wants to know.

605
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 4: Am I ever gonna have sex with somebody again?

606
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 2: And we use astrology to get her an answer. Thank

607
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 2: you so much for listening. I have so many people

608
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 2: to thank. Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and

609
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcast. The show is hosted and written by me

610
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 2: Mongish Heartikular with a ton of help like so much

611
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 2: help from these wonderful people. Mary Philip Sandy is our

612
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:35,879
Speaker 2: cat loving supervising producer. Miitra Bunshahi produced this whole thing

613
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 2: despite my constantly getting in the way. Mark Lotto is

614
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 2: our incredible story editor who even suffered a trip to

615
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 2: India with me. This episode was mixed by my pal

616
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:50,280
Speaker 2: at Soundboard with scoring from Botany. The song Yola Mango

617
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 2: is my absolute favorite. The insane music in between is

618
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 2: courtesy of Azadi Records, Himanshusuri and Peter Matthew Bauer. If

619
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 2: you want to hear we made you a mixtape, just

620
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 2: check out the show notes. Additional production and research support

621
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:11,799
Speaker 2: from the wonderful Anna Rubinova through Shivrau Lucas, Riley Bethan Mcalouso,

622
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: aditya bus Thrower, and my wonderful wife Lizzie Jacobs. There's

623
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 2: also my superstar Aunt Summon, the Woman Buckshi and my

624
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,720
Speaker 2: cousin Argent Bukshi, who helped me out of a giant

625
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 2: pinch abroad. The show is executive produced from iHeart On,

626
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 2: my Good Pals, Nikki Etour and Katrina Norvel. This show

627
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 2: would not have happened without the support of my friends

628
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 2: at Kalidoscope, starting with my good pal Ozwolishan, who believed

629
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 2: in this show. He's also my partner at Kaleidoscope. Also

630
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 2: Kate Osborne for her spot on notes, cost Us Linos

631
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 2: for his encouragement, and Vahini Shori for her delightful suggestions.

632
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 2: I also want to give a little special thanks to

633
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: all the kiddos who bore with us through this production,

634
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 2: Henry Ruby, Julian Grendel, Lou and little enzo Etour. All

635
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 2: my friends at I Heart, including Bob Connell, Will Carrie,

636
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 2: Nathan Jason, Jerry My New York and Atlanta Cruz. There

637
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 2: are too many to name. Also Shantan Sarub, my family

638
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 2: in India, my family in the States, my friend Noel

639
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 2: Brown who read this episode's warning check out his show's

640
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 2: ridiculous history and stuff they don't want you to know.

641
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 2: And just one last thank you to my Amma and

642
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 2: my dad, Lalita and Amije Artigudur, who I thank my

643
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 2: lucky stars for thank you so much for listening.

644
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 4: Dom Dom Dim Dam Doom Doom Dim Doom Doom did