Shun the 'four-chin' tellers

How would 2018 turnout for us?     I don't know. Besides hunting for branded warm clothing, exchange greeting cards, calendars and diaries January is also the month for forecasting the year's unseen future. At a more personal level, the biggest question to the countless many right now is: 'How would the year standout for me?'
Bangladesh became the happy hunting grounds for palm readers and astrologers a long time ago. People go to them willingly or unwillingly; happily or annoyingly; secretly or in public. Of late, the curiosity to know the future has apparently shot up at an alarming level.
Not even a week into the New Year and a number of my relatives and colleagues have already become impatient to know - what good astrology has in store for them.  
News papers and magazines regularly publish special supplements and issues with all the zodiac signs with symbols of love, money and success. Youngsters to grandparents are often found absorbed in them. Though busy throughout the year, but palmists too, look dreadfully engaged in predicting and foretelling yearly events while suggesting a long list of troubleshooting tips. Moreover, January is perhaps the only month when horoscope books sell more than sex and scandals. It is Projapoti Prokashoni's Rashichakra (yearly horoscope) in Bengali that bags the month's un-endorsed bestseller award.
However, the year being the last year for the ruling party in power - 2018 has a special political significance too.  
And on the question of trust, It's rather astonishing to follow that how we have learned to put blind faith on a practice which still isn't established science. Many among our reasonably educated ones have surrendered their fates to fortune tellers. Ministers and politicians reportedly making decisions based on the words of their palm readers aren't new. Last week this writer came across a youngster who had accepted a Facebook invitation, only after having it consulted with his family astrologer. A certain professor, operating from an office some 100 meters away from my home become a mentor-cum-boss to a group of locals and the nearby university students. This blind trust is ever increasing with the innumerable astrology and palm reading websites.
After having selected two most viewed YouTube videos under the banner 'Horoscope 2018' this writer ended up being baffled and annoyed. Have his countrymen decided to allow astrologers to determine their future lately?
 Keeping religions and the rest of the globe aside, the local astrology industry has cast its spell only for the worse. If movements of heavenly bodies could truly predict a human being's future then what's the need for having faith in one's abilities?
Let's dig deeper and see what's making the many of us seeking guidance from fortune tellers. Besides curiosity it's also for preventive measures to counter potential unseen threats which draw one to the palmist. The astrologer rather deceptively designs a list of impending threats  for his clients and in order to counter them suggests wearing various types of stones, restrict movements , report the progress regularly, love and spend as per horoscope rulings to even alter eating and sleeping habits. Since life is ever changing and no situation is permanent, so sooner or later, some good automatically turns up. The client ends up believing to be the magic of the fortune teller. They start believing in the miracles of those lifeless heavenly objects called stones.
This is actually happening because we tend not to face hardships of any scale; we seem to fight it, avoid it and even attempt to tackle it with deterrents and techniques. This writer has met many men and women horoscope followers who can be easily defined as people of conflicting beliefs. They are semi religious, semi-depended on astrologers and mainly indecisive in nature. It's not their fault; it's the astrologers who have ominously preyed on them - successfully turning them into their 'loyal and permanent clients'.
In many respects this dependence is born out of a psychological dilemma. I guess it is mounting curiosity, insecurity, lack of self-confidence and most importantly fear that are driving many by the droves to the doorsteps of who gambles with the unseen.
An amazing truth in almost all foretelling is that they are always inconclusive and never guaranteed. This writer never got a satisfactory explanation from anyone in this regard. Moreover, my readers will surely agree: if a palmist or a fortune teller could practically change anyone's destiny, she he would have first changed his or her own. Furthermore, they would have surely attempted to change the course of heavenly bodies- the moon, galaxies, planets etc.
In recent years fortunes telling related stone dealers have become pretty clever.
Get inside one of the elevators of the Bashundhara city shopping mall. Look at the small monitor located right on top of the door. It relentlessly keeps displaying adverts of brand consumer goods. One of the adverts is of a gemstone shop located at a corner of the 4th or 5th level. Out of sheer curiosity, this writer went inside to checkout last week. The experience is unforgettable. Not only was there a massive display of various types of known to unknown stones in different shapes , but  a stone expert, a middle-aged bald astrologer was seen busy explaining puzzling technical issues about Jupiter, Neptune and Venus to a few vulnerable looking clients ,they were two women clad in Burqa and a gloomy looking young man. Their marketing and selling technique was remarkably innovative. This is the first time where I saw the impacts of stones, functioning of the universe, Quranic verses and palmistry all being blended to ensure bright and prosperous future of clients. The brightly illumined interior and clients in waiting hinted that the shop's business was booming. The ambience inside was very convincing indeed.
However, the point here is: apart from fomenting extremism, Quranic verses are also being misinterpreted to shape and implement effective marketing strategies.
First, this writer could never figure out, how could a stone's inherent characteristics battle and wipe out the external negative impacts of conflicting or co-existing galaxies? And second, not only the Quran almost all religious teachings clearly prohibit the practice of fortune telling.
Making predictions based on astrological or any similar calculations, palm lines, zodiac signs, trickery, half-truths and pure assumptions are deceitful. One is surely welcome to study and conduct research works on the nature and functioning of the universal elements, but to surrender one's destiny at the hands of a fortune-teller is suicidal. Leading a life based on foretelling of an astrologer markedly indicates -that's it's him and not you who is in control of your life.
A supposed Hindu Brahmin astrologer living in Sadarghat used to practice unchallenged authority over the family members from my mother's side. So much so, that he even didn't hesitate to label my maternal grandmother as a 'goddess incarnate'. He said that she was born a human in this world for mistreating one of her subjects in her previous life. I could never understand how a goddess could be unfair in her divine affairs. The satanic figure to me was popularly known as Jyotish mama (astrologer uncle).
Apart from his allotted two visits per year he was summoned whenever my elders were - failing to foresee their collective or individual destiny. Clad in white dhoti-kurta he always arrived in the early morning. After a huge sumptuous meal and back-to-back farting he would sit with the seniors in private and begin flattering in a classical style and complemented them with peculiar counteractive measures for tackling ill-luck. Our session came after the seniors were done. His yellowish, dirty and stained magnifying glass had scrutinised endless love, life and success lines. He read our palms in front of the seniors, so that they knew how to deal with our problems 'on behalf of us.'
He was once required to help me fight 'the existing Saturn's negative influence circling within my orbit'. As a remedy to end the crisis he suggested to slaughter a rooster at midnight of a particular day. His instruction was however not carried out, the Saturn shifted after a while and nothing had actually happened to this writer. Crisis comes crisis goes. He was also believed to be equipped with supernatural Tantric powers for making concoctions out of weird ingredients.
Having heard of it, a distant uncle had travelled all the way from London in the hope to procure an aphrodisiac-like concoction from him, don't know if it worked but that uncle had developed chronic ulcer as a side effect after having it consumed a few times.
 He was also in charge for preparing individual Koshti (probably a 10 metre long rolled paper chalking out the details of a human being's life and deeds since the day he/she is born)it's actually based on the date and time of birth and the positioning of moon , stars , galaxies  etc�Nothing matched with whatever he wrote in it. My brother has one and it's rotting somewhere inside my grand ma's old steel almirah. He was reported to have been sick at the time of my birth and also god didn't want me to have one either.
His biggest victim of deceitfulness is probably my brother. I am glad that there wasn't another one to replace the astrologer after his death. The reason for mentioning him in details is because, like most astrologers, he completely failed to deter his foretold crisis. To add more, he couldn't even alter or guarantee a promising future for his only son, let alone others.
The bottom line is, don't be too curious and worried of the unseen and the invisibles of 2018. Whatever happens face it with adamant faith in your capabilities. And don't be misled or misguided by horoscopes. If you are a believer in the one and almighty then take life as a test other than evading it. Remember that first verse of Sura 29, Sura Al-Ankabut, it says: Do people think they will be left alone after saying 'We believe' without being put to the test? We tested those who went before them�Trials and tribulations are meant to make one stronger.
Look into the lives of our prophets and messengers, in the face of unimaginable hardship they never bent or sought refuge to astrologers or fortune tellers. They uncompromisingly believed in their unseen destiny, faced reality and never lost hope. Abraham, Moses, Jesus to Prophet Muhammad and name any - none were given the divine power to foretell the future. Had they been endowed with that power there would have been no sufferings and tests. All of them vehemently opposed and struggled against foretelling of the unseen, since that one unique ability rests in the hands of God only. In their mission to preach belief, they accepted life as it was offered to them. That life was difficult beyond description.
Don't be jubilant or depressed on what this year's horoscope has predicted for you. The' four chin teller' cannot bring your fortune to you.  It is we who have made astrologers, palmists or fortune tellers' the key figures in today's society. It's we who stubbornly rely on them, and it is also we who repeatedly prove them wrong.
Not good or bad, 2018 will be exactly what you make of it. Wish all a very warm happy New Year.

The writer is Assistant Editor,
The Daily Observer