My Father and Astrology

Pragnya Mishra is an M.Phil. in Anthropology from Utkal University. She also has a post graduation diploma in Rural Management from Xavier Insitute of Management (XIM), Bhubaneswar.

Pragnya currently lives in South Africa with her family. Her three children, a daughter and twin boys, attend school in Johannesburg.

Pragnya is active on social media and is highly respected by her friends and well-wishers.

It was the late nineteen sixties. My father, Shri R.K. Mishra, was about start his Jeep when Madhu babu entered inside the premises.

Madhu babu was a famous astrologer of that area. He was a tantric as well as a family friend.

“Where are you heading, Raju babu?”, he asked my father.

“I am in a hurry. If you have any work with me, please wait at the office. I will be back by lunch,” my father answered.

My father was a bachelor at that time. His marriage had been arranged with a lady who would eventually became my mother. My father was very enthusiastic about the match.

"Go, but remember one thing. You will marry that same girl but after two years. Not now,” Madhu babu replied.

My father didn’t give much importance to his words. He had some 100 wedding invitation cards to distribute within a limited amount of time. He wanted to finish doing it as soon as possible.

My father came back from Bhubaneswar in the evening, tired and exhausted. There was a telegram in his name lying on his office table. It was from my Aja (my mother’s father).

My father opened the telegram gingerly only to discover that the wedding had been called off.

Aja had given some valid reasons for this big step. My mother is my Aja’s only daughter. She was born and brought up in the capital city of Odisha, Bhubaneswar, whereas my father was from a village and lived in a joint family. So Aja was concerned that his daughter won’t be able to adjust in a village and handling a joint family would be a tough task for her. My father had tried to assure him that she would only stay with him in the city and not in the village.

From a father’s point of view, Aja was not wrong but my father felt that he could have said all this in the beginning itself.

My father went into complete shock. More than his cancellation of his marriage, it was Madhu babu’s accurate prediction which surprised him.

Now it was time for Madhu Babu to satisfy my father's curiosity. He went to Madhu Babu’s house.

“I knew that. I knew that you would come. But let me tell you that I haven’t seen your horoscope. I just predicted it looking at your face!“

“So you know the face reading as well?“, asked my father.

“Frankly speaking, I can only see the near future because I could not achieve the face reading knowledge entirely,“ Madhu babu said. “I was actually doing 21 day Smasana puja (in the graveyard) but I couldn’t complete it. Within a week, I left that puja because I saw very scary images and got scared. I wish I could complete the whole 21 days puja,“ explained Madhu Babu with a sigh.

“But don’t you worry, Raju babu. You will marry the same girl after two years,“ he assured my father.

Two years after this incident, another famous astrologer visited my Nana’s house with a marriage proposal. The moment he saw my mother, he refused and said “No, he is not the right person for this lady.“

My Nani immediately rushed to the cupboard and brought out my father's photograph.

Pragnya Mishra's grandmother (nani)

When the astrologer saw the photograph, he said, “He is the one. Do it without any hesitation.“

That triggered my Nani to request my Nana to reconsider my father's proposal. Even my mother was adamant that she wanted marry the same man whom she had seen just once, that too, just a glimpse.

Thus my father got married to my mother two years later, as Madhu babu had predicted.

Pragnya Mishra's parents

My father went on to become an expert in astrology because of Madhu Babu.

My father's horoscope was also written by Madhu babu. It was like a blue print of my father's entire life. Madhu Babu didn’t write anything happening about my father after the age of 69.

My father died exactly at the age of 69.