horo-(in-)scope

Like every new year" never before " offers for zodiacal predictions are flooding my inbox.At this time of the year, astrology books sell hotter than hot cakes and threaten to unseat the latest Chetan Bhagat from the top of the best-seller chart. Some might find this surprising considering that we are in the digitalised 21st century of spaceships and supercomputers. So where in this supposedly hi-tech mindspace does hocus-pocus like astrology fit in? Nonetheless, the ongoing debate about whether or not the distant stars and planets can rule our destinies seems to gain in volume and intensity with each passing season. Is astrology mere mumbo-jumbo, or is it? as its adherents claim? more jumbo than mumbo in terms of its cosmic credentials?Except for one thing, i've long been a sceptic with regards to star-gazing. The reason for my skepticism goes back to the time when i was part of the "Horizon " e-magazine . The magazine had decided to publish a astrological column for the annual issue.None of the editors took astrology seriously. The way we looked at it, it was harmless fun, rather like speculating about life on Mars or if UFOs did or did not exist. As long as you didn't begin to see little green men peering up at you from your morning bowl of cornflakes, or resign yourself to the fact that you'd never get that office promotion so long as Saturn remained in your ninth house, everything was fine.We decided that horoscopes should be  generally cheerful and upbeat, the zodiacal equivalent of a vitamin tonic. If your prediction of the week was good, it gave you the confidence to succeed in whatever you were doing. If the prediction was not so good, working hard could help to overcome negative influences, so buck up and put in extra effort. Either way, you won.The only catch was 

we did not have a REAL astrologer.

So what would we do without the annual forecast that our readers eagerly awaited? (We had publicized it in our last issue and there was a lot of buzz)

Simple: Make it up. 

We divided the zodiac signs between us. I was given Pisces, Leo and Sagittarius. And we made up the predictions for what lay in the year ahead, remembering to keep the general tone positive and throwing in a lot of trines (as in: Your Jupiter will be in trine with Mars) for the sake of authenticity. No one knew what a trine was. But it sounded like a powerful ju-ju, an astrological version of ajinomoto. So we liberally sprinkled our cooked-up predictions with generous dollops of trines.After that do-it-yourself foray into horoscopy.

We recived a lot of positive response and the readers wanted us to make it a regular feature.

The team exchanged amusing glances at the thought.We had to come up with a way to get out of it graciously.So the subsequent monthly issue's editors note read something like this :

Dear Readers,

blah blah.....blah...some more blah

We loved your feedback but our astrologer based on the accuracy of his predictions has been offered a "exclusive" job with a country's elite and has entered a "exclusive"contract

whereby we would have to pay royalty every time we used his name or his whereabouts .So unfortunately we cannot continue with this feature ..

blah blah

Team Horizon.

PS:I know team this was supposed to be out little secret but trust me the readers of this blog are completely trustworthy and they promised me to take this secret with them to the grave .

 Miss you Horizon!!

:)