WEBVTT - It's Supposed to be Fun 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:13.720 Warning. The following episode contains adult language, discussion of miracles, 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.720 arranged marriages, Channing Tatum, and disclosure of at least one 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.960 Bible approved stoning. Sensitive listeners take care. 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:38.720 So here's a confession I'm gonna make right at the 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.360 top of the show. I don't believe in astrology, but 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:47.519 astrology keeps happening to me. Now everyone says podcasting is 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.320 the most visual medium, so I made you a slideshow 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.160 to try to explain. This is the real Skyline Drive. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.880 It's in Delaware, and growing up when I couldn't sleep, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.160 it's one of the many places I would drive to 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.600 look at the stars. This is the moon. It rules 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.640 our emotions. This is Mercury in retrograde. You know it 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.759 because it makes life miserable. This is Rahu and Ketu. 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.840 They're important and mischievous nodes in Vedic astrology. They're prominent 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.280 in Donald Trump's horoscope, and they're also responsible for Paris Hilton. 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.120 This is me. I was born May 1, 1979. This 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.360 is the sky at the time I was born. In 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.160 Western astrology, it makes me a Taurus. These are some 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:37.680 other Tauruses: Pol Pot, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.520 Barbra Streisand. The fact that we're all Tauruses has made 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.000 me doubt astrology for a very long time. These are 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.520 my parents. They've been hitched fifty-one years and every morning 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.840 my dad makes my mom a cup of tea, and 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.280 then they sit and do the spelling bee in pencil. It's adorable, right? 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.640 These are my parents calling in the middle of this recording. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:01:58.399 Hey Mangesh, I think you had called, so I was calling back. 0:01:58.399 --> 0:01:58.399 Give me a call. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.320 This is India. When I was growing up, words like "yoga" 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.360 and "meditation" and "turmeric" and "astrology"? These were words that were 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.679 part of my Indian life. But they weren't a part 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:17.520 of my going-to-school fitting-into-America one. But now? Now everyone has 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:18.520 an opinion about it. 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.800 I'm a Gemini, which I've heard is bad. I'm a Libra, 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.480 so I'm indecisive. That's definitely true. 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.120 I'm a Taurus. I find the start to be beautiful. 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:29.520 It sucks that we can't see you stars in New 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:30.600 York because of all the lights. 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:32.960 I know a few people who are kind of into it, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.560 and they're like, asked, yo, did you see the horoscope today? 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.919 And I'm like, nah, bro, not really, I'm not worried 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:39.080 about what the horoscope says. 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.000 I know a lot of people don't believe in it, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.200 but why can't people just believe in things for fun, 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.080 Like it doesn't have to be backed up by anything. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.360 If you believe in fantasy football, why can't you believe 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:48.519 in astrology. 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:50.919 A few months ago, my friends and I set out 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.359 to make this show about astrology. We wanted to run 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.760 around the city and have some wild adventures and understand 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.040 why after so many millennia, people still looked to the 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:01.040 sky for answers. 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.919 This is an astrologer I met in Queens. He promised me, 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:06.000 you're gonna dig this show. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.880 I think if you do your own show will become 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:10.720 a super hit, no doubt about it. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.359 This is a graph of how much I believe in 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.720 astrology before our session. Not that much. This is a 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.040 graph of how much I started believing thirty minutes later 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.600 when something horrible he said came true. 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.000 That's why I asked again from the time he started 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.960 a couple of years back. Still now, the situation doesn't 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:31.359 look good. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.440 This is me traveling halfway around the world to answer 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.600 the biggest question my entire life. This is a shop 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.880 in India where your fortune is waiting for you. It 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.080 was written centuries ago and put on a shelf and 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.880 the shopkeepers know which one to pull because it's coded 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.160 by your thumb print and the time you're going to walk 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.520 through that door. This, this is me walking through that door. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:02.360 I'm Mangesh Hattikudur. From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Radio, this is 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:03.280 Skyline Drive. 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.000 CHAPTER ONE: LEAVE YOUR AXE AT HOME 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.000 So I figured, you know, I do need to stone 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.400 an astrologer. And there are a bunch of astrologers on 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.520 the upper west Side. It was set up with these... 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.480 (laughing) Wait! So, you're looking for an astrologer to stone?! 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:02.200 Oh yeah, well I needed to check it off the list. I've got a hundred things to check off... 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.560 You know, already this reporting and starting off weirder than 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.880 I thought. It's ten o'clock on a bright summer day 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.440 and I'm standing here with A. J. Jacobs. 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.440 I am an author and a journalist and a Pisces. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.919 In addition to being a Pisces-- or technically on the 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.839 cusp of Pisces and Aries, A.J. is a friend... and 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.360 he's one of my favorite writers. I've come to meet 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.120 him in this neighborhood because in 2007, he wrote a 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.760 New York Times bestseller called The Year of Living Biblically. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.039 The book was a phenomenon. It came out in multiple languages, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.960 There were magazine and TV pieces about it. It was 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.720 such a big deal that at one point Marlon Wayans 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.800 was lined up to play A.J. in the network TV version. 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:46.520 The premise was that I would follow all the rules 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.360 of the Bible as literally as possible. So that meant 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.360 the famous ones: like the Ten Commandments and 'love your neighbor,' 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:57.080 but also the lesser known ones like 'you cannot wear 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.520 clothes made of two different kinds of fabrics,' so I 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.520 had to get rid of all of my poly-cotton blends. 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.320 Giving up poly-cotton blends is just one of the hardships A.J. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.800 endured in the name of journalism. He also grew a massive beard, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.599 shoved a wild bird so he could steal its egg 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.680 and say a prayer on it, and he followed 700 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.600 other Biblical rules literally in an attempt to understand religion. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.599 And somewhere along the way he decided that to fully 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:23.680 appreciate the Bible... 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:28.680 ... you actually had to stone people who committed these abominations. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:37.120 And the abominations included adultery, breaking the Sabbath, but also astrology, witchcraft, divination, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:38.599 they're all sort of lumped together. 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.039 Just the fact that he decided to stone someone was 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.520 a shock to me. I mean, A.J. is one of 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.000 the nicest people I know, but that's how committed he was. 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.919 I didn't want to go to jail for assault. I 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.279 just wanted to check it off my list, you know, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:58.480 stone an astrologer: check! So I walked by this astrologer 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.760 on the street and just very subtly dropped a pebble 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.599 so that it landed on her shoe 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.360 (kind of a drive by stoning) 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.480 And I was thinking, she's probably not even gonna notice 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.400 because I just kept walking. Oh she noticed, and she's like: 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.800 "what what's going on? Why did you do that?!" And 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:21.920 so I had to tell the truth, because I was 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.880 following the Bible. I thought maybe she'll think it's funny. 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.000 She did not think it's funny. She was pissed. She 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.760 started yelling at me like, "F you, go to F'in hell!" 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.280 I was rattled. Even if you're trying to stone someone 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.200 in modern day using pebbles, people don't like it. That's 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:40.600 a lesson, that's a takeaway. 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:46.480 Rule #1: don't stone an astrologer. This wasn't the advice 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.960 I'd come for, but I wrote it down anyway. The 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.880 thing I'd really wanted to know; the reason I traveled 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.800 all the way out here to meet with A.J. was 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.440 to ask him how to make this show... because doing 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.400 a show on astrology? It actually makes me nervous. Like, 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.600 is there a way to talk about how accurate a 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.320 fortune-telling parrot could possibly be? Or is there a way 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.520 to joke about whether an astro curse can make you bald? 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.600 Because even if the show makes me look silly, like, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.520 I don't want to get disinvited from a family wedding 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.320 because I said something that hurt friends or family... or 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.234 really anyone who puts stock in the subject. [to AJ] 0:08:27.234 --> 0:08:30.520 "As I'm trying to uncover threads and things like how 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:32.840 do you tell a story delicately where you're not offending 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.120 people but still engaging with the subject?" 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.280 I had that exact dilemma when I was writing The 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.960 Year of Living Biblically, because I was coming in as 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:48.320 an agnostic writing about religion. My big overall advice is 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.960 go in with deep curiosity. Don't go in with an 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:57.720 agenda that you're trying to disprove or prove astrology. You're 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:02.680 just an explorer. So go in with no axe. Leave 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:03.640 your axes at home. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:10.360 That I think I can do. After the break, we 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.360 talk to an astrologer who doesn't believe in astrology, take 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.280 a subway ride to Queens and hear this from my mom: 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:18.760 "I felt like a Jersey Cow." 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.040 CHAPTER TWO: JUST FOR FUNDS 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.160 Is the phone listening? Is that? Are you listening through 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.040 the phone? Pattern? AI? The algorithm? That is The Pattern? 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:49.520 Back in 2020, one of my friends shot me a 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.840 text linking to this video of Channing Tatum. The actor 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.400 had uploaded it himself after using an astrology app called 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.640 The Pattern. But when Channing's readings became a little too 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.679 spot on, he freaked out. 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.319 Are you listening through my phone? And then just regurgitating 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.760 the stuff that I'm afraid of? And stuff? You know what? 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.240 Pattern People-- you should just call me. I need answers 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:10.880 right now. 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.320 Poor Channing. I don't know if he ever got his answers, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.240 but what I do know is that astrology is ubiquitous 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.319 and lucrative. One venture capital investor told The New York 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.679 Times that the app Co-star, a Pattern competitor, had the 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.880 potential to be a twenty four billion dollar business, claiming 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.080 he could one day be as big as Spotify. But 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.880 if astrology is as big an opportunity as everyone's saying, 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.840 I'm wondering if my company should get into the act. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.360 After all, it feels so obvious that-- I don't know-- 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.160 even a 9 year old could see the potential? So 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:47.920 I decided to try to pitch out on my 9 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:48.400 year old. 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.080 Hey Anu, why did you bring me to this closet? 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:55.560 I brought you to this closet because I wanted to 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.679 pitch you on an astrology app? Are you ready for it? 0:10:59.760 --> 0:10:59.800 Booooooo... 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:03.840 Why is that? What do you think about astrology? 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:04.811 It's dumb. 0:11:04.811 --> 0:11:08.359 Oh gosh, well, maybe you're not the right person for it, 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.400 but the reason I came to you is because you actually 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.480 have a bank. You spend only my money. You seem 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.880 to hoard all your money. And you keep all of 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.079 Henry's money as well, which you charge him a small 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.000 fee for. So I thought you might be the savvaest 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:23.640 person in this family. Is it okay if I pitch 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:24.480 you an astrology app? 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:26.719 Uhhh... Okay. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:31.120 So here's my case for it. These aren't your grandmother's horoscopes, right? 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.400 They're talking to you in this very fresh and fun way. Uh, 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.920 they're up to the minute with the latest NASA data. 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.560 They look beautiful, and they have a chat feature where 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.319 astrologers will chat with you live about your birth charts. Right? 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.719 And then by 2019, right, like you can see astrology is 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.600 starting to take over. Bumble, this dating app, they start 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.360 allowing you to sort your matches by birth signs, so 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:56.840 like you could say, like I only want to date 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.280 Tauruses or I only want to date Geminis or whatever. 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:05.680 In fact, astrology in 2019 was a 2.2 billion dollar market. 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:06.480 What do you think about that? 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:07.720 Mind blown! 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.360 I can't tell whether you're serious or not, but apps 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.040 made forty million dollars that year. And in fact, the 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.679 next year, when COVID really hit, people started searching for 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.840 birth charts and astrology. Both of those searches hit five 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.240 year peaks on Google. So it's no wonder that all 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.160 these venture capital funds had started investing in astrology apps 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:39.160 early and then continue to invest... and I'm here to 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.280 ask you to invest in my astrology app. What do 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.280 you think? 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.679 Um, Anu... I'm spending my money on a skateboard, not 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:49.880 on you. 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.440 Okay, well, so Ruby, what type of business would you 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:52.880 invest in? 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:53.600 Bubble guuuuuummmm! 0:12:57.114 --> 0:13:02.640 [laughing] Okay. 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:09.256 CHAPTER THREE: TRUTH AND POETRY 0:13:09.256 --> 0:13:14.079 When you go out with a recorder in hand, it's 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.440 interesting to see who will talk on tape. We found scientists 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.880 at NASA who actually wouldn't talk about their interest in 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.199 astrology to us because they were afraid of losing their jobs. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.559 We found PhDs and post-docs who were worried that if 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.640 they talked at all to our podcasts, even to say 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:34.960 that astrology was nonsense, they would face professional repercussions. I mean, 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.280 it is insanity what a lightning rod astrology can be. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.480 But luckily we found Jaime Green. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.400 My grandfather showed me a little half of a peanut 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.680 that had this germ in it, and he said, that's going 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.000 to become a plant. And it was just things like 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.200 that that got me interested in the world, which is 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.080 the same as being interested in science. 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.079 Jaime is a celebrated science writer 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.400 and I'm Sagittarius, although you would not know it from 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.560 looking at anything about my life. I've got some planet 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:10.319 in Capricorn that explains why I'm not an impulsive adventurer. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.120 She has a new book coming out called The Possibility 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.600 of Life and she's co editor of the annual Best 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.400 American Science and Nature writing volumes, and whether it's chatting 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.560 about our garden or the way we perceive constellations, her 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:29.480 capacity for wonder is incredible... and infectious. But perhaps what 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.600 I love most about Jaime was how she clarified that 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.240 science and astrology don't actually have to be at odds 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.920 with one another, that we don't need science to disprove astrology. 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.680 Not that she thinks astrology is a science exactly scientifically: 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:50.480 In terms of astronomy, astrology doesn't hold a lot of 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.480 meaning because it's all very human centric. From the point 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.906 of view of looking at the stars from Earth. 0:14:55.906 --> 0:14:59.320 The stars are light years apart. They have no real 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.280 relation to each other except in our minds. But that relationship, 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.320 the one we make up while looking up at the stars, 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.800 that means something... or it can mean something, if you 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:12.320 want it to. 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:18.960 It's like a much more eloquent, poetic personal fortune cookie. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:20.960 And I don't mean that disparagingly. I just think that 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.360 it's for you to take from it what you need. 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.520 And like we don't think it's anti-science to say a 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:31.080 poem is true. I think that's where science gets defensive, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.920 is when people say that astrology is a science and 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.040 has physical roots in the stars. It's like, oh, no 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.680 it doesn't. But it's true the way a poem is true. 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.760 I can't tell you how much I love that. I mean, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:48.040 as someone who's a skeptic but also a romantic, this 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.200 idea that astrology is true the same way a poem 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.360 is true? That feels right to me. And it's something 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.600 my friend Pete also said when I talked to him. 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.320 Pete's deal is, well, it's complicated. 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.960 So like even though I was like a semi-successful musician, 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.680 I was like, I need to make money somehow, like 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:12.619 right now. Like what other skills do I have? Oh, 0:16:12.619 --> 0:16:14.799 I do astrology. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.240 Pete is a rock star; like a real rock star. 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:28.360 He used to be in The Walkman, that massive seminal 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:34.200 Indie rock band. And yes, his backup career was professional astrology. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.560 When he was younger, he trained with this big famous guru. 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.480 He was living in his guesthouse and that's where he 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:41.920 learned to read star charts. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:43.880 You would take them back to him and he would 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.560 say like, "no, it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.760 Like "you're wrong." You know? And then he kind of, 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.200 in very traditional style, like yell-at-the-apprentice sort of thing..." 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:56.000 Kung-fu master thing? 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.680 Right. Very very karate kid kind of feeling, right. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:05.400 But here's the other thing: Pete doesn't even believe in astrology. 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.000 He's a rock star who does astrology for politicians and 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.520 World Bank economists and all sorts of interesting folks, but 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.400 he doesn't believe in it. 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.000 It's this art to me. And I don't mean that dismissively. Like, 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.480 that's like my whole being. Like, that's what I care about. 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.960 What he believes really is in a more vivid reality, 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.879 a kind of embroidered view of the world. Pete and 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.800 I both spent formative years in India, and we have 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:32.800 a certain comfort in the magical. 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:34.840 If you read like a hundred Years of Solitude or 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:39.280 something like that, world of like this kind of magical Columbia. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.639 You know, it's like that felt very similar in a 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.160 lot of ways to how we were raised. 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.960 Magical explanations have been woven throughout my life, like why 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.720 was my family's little community in India so well off 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.120 a century ago? You could say it's because of luck 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:06.119 or global economics. You could say it's because when the 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.520 Civil War was happening in the US, England actually needed 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.600 more sources of cotton to replace all the cotton that 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.119 the US had been producing. And my family they just 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.399 happened to be in the right place to manage mills 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.880 and plant cotton on their land. Or you could tell 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.639 the story in a way that's way, way more magical: 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.080 that a great great ancestor had this powerful vision from 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.679 a goddess that if he chanted a simple string of 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.360 prayers every single night, and he taught all his children 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.919 to sing it, and they taught all their children, his 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:43.159 people would be protected for years. And for most of 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.959 my life, I only knew that second story. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.400 CHAPTER FOUR: MOPEDS AND MINI-SKIRTS 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.800 Arranged marriage has always been this thing that's hard for 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.520 me to talk about. When I first moved to Delaware, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:17.960 kids in my elementary school had all these questions for 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.440 me about being Indian, right? Like does your family sleep 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.480 on a bed of nails? Can you charm snakes? Just 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.159 you know these things they've seen on cartoons? And arranged 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.680 marriage was just another one of these questions I'd have 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.440 to field... except this one actually bothered me more because 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.439 this time I'd have to admit that, "yes, my parents 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.840 did have an arranged marriage." And then I'd have to explain. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.680 The thing is, everyone assumed my mom and dad were 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.800 like forcibly paired off when they were 9 years old 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:50.119 and then sent away to work and have kids, and 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.399 that isn't true. It's like my parents situation was a 0:19:54.480 --> 0:20:01.399 little more like Pride and Prejudice. Like, you come from 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.280 a good family, your parents want you to marry into 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.360 another good family, so they set you up. They make 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.359 introductions to certain people, and if you like each other, 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.160 they kind of fast-track the marriage, or they make more introductions. 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.200 But since this was already super hard to explain, I 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.000 just left out the part about astrology, which also plays 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.000 a big role in the whole arranged marriage thing. It 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.840 was like, I don't know, just too difficult or embarrassing something. 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.080 After all, it's it's a weird thing to have to 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.600 admit you only exist because of astrology. But I'll let 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:39.360 my mom explain. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.280 Tell me about how your marriage was arranged. 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:51.680 Oh, that's funny. Okay. Umesh's aunt, Shardakka-- she came to 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.119 see Amma because she'd heard that, you know, I was available. 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.600 I guess this story starts, of course, with two families... 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.520 dusting off their kids' horoscopes and handing them off to 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.760 a trusted astrologer, not some low-level quack. 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.720 So they matched it, and it matched perfectly. 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.679 The traditional Indian matching system is way more complicated than 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.199 just saying: is he a Scorpio? A proper celestial marriage 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.680 is supposed to be a union of souls, so the 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.960 astrologers inspect all the vagaries of your chart and pressure 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:25.760 test everything like your personalities, your feelings about class and status, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.840 even how a couple's health will be affected by one another. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.080 It's all on a scale of 36 points, and any 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.760 match under eighteen points shouldn't be considered. But anything over 32, 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.320 that's something you want to lock down immediately. 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.480 My parents want to make sure that the man I married 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.840 did not yell at me... so she asked the astrology, you know, how 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.536 is his nature? So the astrologer told Amma that he 0:21:50.536 --> 0:21:53.800 was a gentle creature you know, never lost his temper. 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.960 So this part is true: I've only ever heard my 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:00.800 dad yell a handful of times, and most of that 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.560 was when our dog Lupini would just race out of 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.119 the house, and he would run after her with this 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.920 like slice of Kraft singles cheese, just waving it to 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.439 try to tempt her back. And it always worked because 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:15.879 she was super greedy. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.640 But one fault he'd have has never come on time 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.800 to the table to have dinner. And we thought it 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:23.960 was a big joke and that came true. We couldn't 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:28.440 believe that astrology could be that powerful to tell a 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:29.280 quirk like that. 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:32.080 Wasn't there something else with the mother-in-law? 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.360 The mother-in-law? Yes, they said that I would be best 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.760 for a boy that did not have a mother. I 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:40.960 really don't know. They said was something to do with 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.320 the stars, and if I had a mother-in-law, it wouldn't 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:48.040 go well. So here Umesh had lost his mother when 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:50.879 he was under a year, I think, or just about 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:52.840 a year. So it was perfect. 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.879 This is something I think about a lot, how astrology 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:01.320 accounts for everything. My dad had an aaya or a nanny, 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.359 but he never had a mother. His life was a 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:08.800 series of hostels and boarding schools, sometimes in cities hundreds 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:11.800 of miles from his home. It makes me sad to 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:16.160 think about. But if his mom had survived, my parents 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.600 would never have been together. Astrology would have made sure 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:23.960 of that. Anyway, back to my mom. Even though my 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:26.760 grandmom was working really hard to set her up, my 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:28.560 mom was not keen to get married. 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:31.879 I wasn't ready. I was still studying and it was 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:36.359 in my final year for master's studying linguistics. I didn't 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:38.680 want to give that up, and I didn't want to 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:45.719 get married that fast. So I felt like a Jersey Cow. I wasn't happy. 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.639 And things were really moving faster than I ever expected, 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:51.520 so I said, I'm going to foil this. 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.600 So, just to get the picture, a typical woman hoping 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:58.800 for a match would be waiting, sitting by her parents, 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:02.399