What’s on the cards?

Muslims generally do not put much faith in astrology and the foretelling of the future, but I went and got my tyres changed just in case.

“How long have you been driving with these tyres?” asked the tyre man sadly when I stopped at a petrol station. “Why, what’s wrong? I said, worried. “They are all cracked and could have burst any time,” he said.

“See,” he said, pointing between the treads with his thick glove-covered finger. I couldn’t see any cracks, but I nodded wisely, not wanting to look like an utter idiot.

“Didn’t you notice anything when driving with these tyres?” he asked again persistently most probably to humiliate me. “These are dated 2007 and the treads are uneven,” he said.

“Show me the year of manufacture,” I asked. “That means 2007,” he said, pointing to a row of figures. “I wondered why the steering wheel was pulling towards one side,” I told him.

The reason I was at a tyre shop was because my car registration had nearly expired, but most importantly the weekly astrologer said that the full moon had passed out my house of Jupiter and things would get a lot better. “But beware of your stomach and of accidents,” she warned.

I don’t put much faith in astrology, always wondering how could someone foretell what’s going to happen in the future just by looking at the stars or from the waxing and waning of the Moon. I had laughed when a wandering astrologer came to my house back in India and told me that I had a bright future. “Look,” he said, a little miffed when I laughed. He said something to a very quiet and wise-looking parrot in the cage he was carrying and the bird walked to one side and picked out a very grimy-looking card.

The man looked at the card and read from it. “You will travel to a foreign land,” he said.

“Tell the parrot that’s a no-brainer,” I said. In my neighbourhood, most of the guys had gone to the States for studies or to the Gulf states for work.

But I digress. The reason why I was at the tyre shop was because when the astrologer warned me to watch out, the same day a senior police officer said the same thing. “During summer we see a lot of accidents due to faulty tyres,” he warned.

That day I drove slowly, irritating those behind me on the highway and watched fearfully at the torn strips of tyres lying on the fast lanes. But when the tyre man told me what it would cost to change all four, I whistled and asked whether changing two would do for now. “Can’t you do the rotation thing, where you bring the front tyres back and put the good ones in the front? I asked, but he smiled at me as if I was out of my mind. “Why do you want to push your luck,” he said.

Proudly showing off my brand-new tyres I got my car computer checked and then rushed to the insurance agent. “You should give me a good price as I drive very carefully”, I told him.

Instead of jumping up with joy at my good record, he asked me grumpily where I had parked my car, as he had to get out of his air-conditioned office. We both went out and he went around my car with a frown on his face.

When we came back he showed me a figure, 7,000, on a paper. “What’s this?” I asked. “This is the amount we will pay if your car has an accident,” he said.

The next day the astrologer seemed happy. “All the planets are aligned, except Jupiter which has moved away,” she said. “The Sun has joined your ruler Mercury and you will have a smooth ride,” she said.