Informed by Astrology

Some thirty years ago a number of scientists banded together and signed a petition stating that astrology was dangerous and useless, and that it should be chased out of our thoughts and beliefs of how the world worked and our place in it. More recently, a professor fumed against the daily horoscope column in a student-run university newspaper, charging that academia was no place for such nonsense. To the professor I wrote back a furious message, that astrology was so much more than Sun sign columns, that if he only took a little time to look into it more deeply, he might learn about himself and others than he could have imagined, and even discover why he was being so defensive!

Many people don't know that I study and practice astrology, and have done so for over fifteen years. When I was first getting into it, and naively mentioned my interest to a couple of so-called friends, they mocked me. How could I, pursuing scientific research, do such a thing? I felt embarrassed and confused, and never told anyone else about it for a long while. Then only to maybe two or three people who I sensed would not look askance, and they were all women. All the time, I questioned my sanity, because I was obsessed with astrology, and at the same time, also swore by science and logic. I was a person divided, not having a coherent set of beliefs about the world and how I belonged to it. The conflict tore me apart, and I barely made it through my doctorate thesis. But the damage was done, my self-esteem shattered, and the promise of a career in scientific research forever laid to rest. More than anything else, I was overwhelmed with shame and guilt. I had let down my family and myself, betraying the cause for which I had traveled so far and worked so hard at building a new life.

There were no role models that I could turn to for hope and guidance. All the astrologers that I knew of had come to astrology by way of the arts, humanities or social sciences - not one of them had an advanced education in the mathematical or life sciences. There was much in common between psychology and astrology, and I regretted that I had not studied psychology formally, for it would have made my incursion into astrology understandable. Still, in studying astrology I taught myself enough psychology to understand the correspondence between the two, and in time, understood that just because I was competent in science did not mean I had to choke my unscientific interests. Or that because I journeyed into the deepest recesses of astrological ideas and knowledge, I had to suspend my judgment and common sense.

I saw astrology as a bridge between the inner and outer lives, a Jung-meets-Einstein kind of happening, a potent combination of intuition and reason, faith and skepticism. I realized that I was in a perfect position to bring a scientific temper - data, hypothesis, logic, repeatability - to the practice of astrology, even as I journeyed inward in synchrony with the planets, their myths and metaphors. I learned to separate the quacks from the serious astrologers, to check all claims against data, to work by starting with a small set of axioms and logically inferring all else, to be aware of the constant dance between fact and meaning, reality and perception.

Now, I quell the voice that still questions whether my life can be informed by both science and astrology with a plain retort: I was born and raised in India, and my psyche was bathed in the healing power of the myths and symbols of astrology long before I was consciously aware of it. It is who I am, I had better believe it.

Top Ten Tennis

I have been watching a whole lot of tennis lately. Most recently, the US Open, and a couple of months before that, Wimbledon. I have watched a whole lot of tennis for many years, and before that listened to a whole lot of tennis match commentary on the radio. It's an obsession. Because when that racket kisses the ball with sweet timing and the feet are perfectly positioned and the shoulder and arm are follow through in a lovely arc, and the ball catapults over the net, and, kicking up a puff of chalk, shoots past a fully extended racket, I see perfection and I know all is well with the world.

Many top players in tennis deliver such divine moments of grace and poetry every once in a while. Federer does it a lot more than once in a while. And every single time it happens, I know I am lucky to have seen him do it. I forget all my troubles, I push away all the little worries that nag me, I dismiss hunger and thirst and sit there begging for more. Federer is, to me, the greatest tennis player that ever lived, and I have seen Sampras and Agassi and McEnroe and Borg and Becker and Edberg and now Nadal and Djokovic and Blake and Roddick.

In his grand march toward the US Open title, Federer beat Roddick in straight sets. Roddick, that poor man who works so hard, who should get a A for effort, was made to look like an apprentice. Djokovic looked like he was going to win the first set but didn't, then he looked like he was going to win the second set, but didn't. And then the next thing you know Federer has 12 grand slam titles and 2.4 million dollars and a brand new Lexus sports car and the world at his feet. And Djokovic is left holding a silver plate.

I would like to pay homage to all the greats who have given me countless hours of great joy, wonderful glimpses of striving and achievement, and priceless moments of divine perfection.
To the top 10 ever!

1. Roger Federer
2. John McEnroe
3. Bjorn Borg
4. Boris Becker
5. Andre Agassi
6. Pete Sampras
7. Stefan Edberg
   
8. Marat Safin
9. Partick Rafter
   
10. Pat Cash

Food for Thought

I like reading about food. Not the recipe book kind, but accounts of food and drink written in a broader setting. Such as a character in a novel (Perry Mason always had steak with lavish amounts of butter during his courtroom lunch breaks) , or in passing (hardship travelers eating whatever they can lay their hands on), or in a thematic takeoff (exploring a character's state of mind through the food she eats), or in any other setting where the description of food is unusual or unexpected. When reading such accounts, sometimes I want to experience what the characters are experiencing, taste what they are tasting. At other times, I am totally turned off, never wanting to smell or taste that kind of food again. At times, I am both attracted and repelled, and sometimes, just plain nauseated.

In his collection of travel essays, The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, Eric Hansen writes of Cooking with Madame Zoya. During the second world war, Zoya is a nurse in a Moscow army hospital which is captured by the Germans, and she is taken to a prisoner of war camp near Munich. After the war she moves to the US, gets married, and moves to an apartment on West 139th street in Manhattan. Hansen develops an unusual friendship with the elderly Madame Zoya, and visits her every month.

She teaches him to how make Russian dishes, and they drink vodka in preparation and to see the food on its way. "...pieces of prepared salted hairink", "...blini...served them with melted butter, sour cream, caviar and a light sprinkling of fresh chives", "...coulibiac (salmon baked with dill, chopped hard-boiled eggs, parsley and kasha in a flaky pastry dough), kotletki and bitotehki (chicken and meat cutlets), baklazhannia ikra (puree of eggplant), and vareneki and pelmini (two types of Russian ravioli)", "...pashka, which is a type of type of moist cheesecake with fruit, eggs and vanilla". I have never had Russian food like this before, and when I read this, I started looking for nearby Russian restaurants.

Reports of delectable foreign food is exciting, that of outlandish domestic food is intriguing. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002 is still my most favorite in the "Best American" series, fronted by Burkhard Bilger's Braised Shank of Free-Range Possum. Mr. Bilger travels the south in search of old-world delicacies such as the free-range possum of the title ("...that feral, faintly glandular presence rising through the sauce", turtle soup ("...a mixture of brine and fern and slumbering beast"), frog legs ("Tender and buttery, with a subtle, amphibian chew") and other intriguing meats. I keep going back to this essay for its outrageous charm, although I am not sure I want to follow in Mr. Bilger's footsteps.

A bit of bite adds a lot of zest. Here's Paul Theroux writing in My Other Life. "...And in addition zere are fresh lobsters zis ivneen. Zay are not on ze meenue." "'Not real lobsters,' Lady Max said, shivering as though insulted by the word. 'They're just these pathetic little discolored crayfish from Scotland." Later, in the same book. "'Wine then. A red - cabernet.'... I poured him a Beaujolais, defying him to object." Following which, another character. "Then Burgess became preoccupied - finished his whiskey, spooned chopped banana, murmured the word 'sambals', and he did not look up as his hand moved crabwise towards his wine glass and his fingers found its stem and hoisted it."

And sometimes, the food - the eating and vomiting of it - can be insidiously gut-wrenching. As in James Hall writing about The Vomiting Game. (Appearing in The Road Within, a collection of travelers' tales.) "The blade emerged when I arrived. My lips touched hot, pungent goat hair. A jet of blood shot out.... I closed my eyes and tasted hot, salty liquid." Then, a few minutes later, "...the sensation propelled me forward, over the ditch. A rush came, then another huge one. Goat's blood poured out of me. Above the women ululated in celebration. The pitch of the people's shouting rose sharply in reaction. I let go again. Blood and medicine. More cheers."

Yesterday, I saw that deer family again. The two little polka-dotted innocents looked delicious. And I imagined how they must appear to a hungry lion.

Good enough to eat?