I never believed in occult pursuits, except during my college days when an interest in palmistry provided the odd chance of holding lovely feminine hands. But when women who were nothing to write home about forced me to hold their hands and unfold their future, my stint with Cheiro and Co was over.Years rolled by till Ramakant appeared, introduced by my colleague at Air HQ, Kanad Rishi Bhatnagar, sometime in 1970. ``He is an astrologer,'' my friend said, ``but no fees, of course.'' That put me at ease. I drew my planet position diagram with date and time of birth and presented it to Ramakant. He gazed at it, calculated on his fingertips, mumbled something and after two or three routine observations fired his first salvo.``Sir, during your schooling, did you fail in the fourth or fifth standard?'' I was shocked. I had always thought of myself as a brilliant student and my teachers somehow agreed with me. So I replied with some heat, ``I got a double promotion in the third standard, and you suggest.'' ``That settles it,'' said Ramakant. ``Your Ketu in the fourth house indicated a gadbad in your schooling around that year. And for an astrologer failure or double promotion mean the same a gadbad!Then followed an Allan Donald delivery. ``Do you have trouble with your name, Sir? I mean is it often wrongly spelt or pronounced?'' I was clean bowled. I always had problems with my name, but how could Ramakant have known? Although I have the simplest possible surname amongst the Tatyas, it was generally misspelt in Air Force routine orders, circulars and notices as Nane, Nena, Neen and Naine. Even the official Air Force List of 1964 printed it as Nane. My representations brought forth no correction in the next edition. Another effort resulted in a promise of correction. Yet, in the fresh edition I saw that my name now read Neue! In my case, not only the Air Force List, but even the parchment signed by Rashtrapatiji has my middle name wrongly written in Devanagari as Shrudhar, instead of Shreedhar .I narrated all this to Ramakant. He was delighted. ``Take it easy, Sir. It will always be like this. It's your Ketu in the 4th house that's doing mischief and you can do nothing about it.''My wife, too, has had a taste of my Ketu's exploits. Once, while she lay in her berth in a train, the conductor asked: ``Aap lete hain?'' She was puzzled. ``Jee, hum lete hain, yeh hamari berth hai.'' This time, looking at his chart the conductor asked in English, ``Are you Mrs Lete?'' The penny finally dropped, and Mrs Nene took it with good grace. Showing her ticket, she said, ``Hum Mrs Nene hain, lekin abhi hum lete hain.'' Everyone roared with laughter. Do planets have a sense of humour? I must ask Ramakant.After I retired, I settled at Nasik. I thought my woes were over. I was in my native state and Marathi-speaking persons would have no problems with my simple surname. But Ketu had different ideas and now he added phonetic humour. Most of my country cousins pronounced `n' as in `Anna' and with two `n's in Nene, three inflections resulted: toned-normal, normal-toned and toned-toned. The original normal-normal inflection is almost forgotten. With occasional nasal overtones, they really made a sur-shringar of poor Nene.Last week, strolling in the evening, my wife noted some activity in a neighbouring bungalow, which had been long unoccupied. Curious, we approached the gate. An elderly gentleman was coming out. Seeing us, he folded his hands and said, ``I am the new occupant here. My name is Keshav Tumsare. They call me Ketu. Where do you live, Sir?'' I had almost fainted. Composing myself, I gulped and replied, ``Just nearby. Yours is the fourth house from mine.'' Ketu in the fourth house! In person! What's in store for me now? Oh Ramakant, where are you?
