of molestrologers and new year resolutions – part 1

Believe it or not, I got molested last week by a 72 year old astrologer.  Yes, you read that right.

Me, a heavily pregnant woman the size of a small planet, about to deliver any second now, poked in the crotch by an old rambling man with one arm debilitated in an accident and one leg in the proverbial grave.

Let me back up a bit.

Mister’s mom and I had heard fascinating things about K. Santhanam, a well-known palmist and astrologer who lives at 92, Pocket D, Mayur Vihar Phase 2, Delhi – 110091. (I decided to add his complete address here, just in case you feel compelled to send him hate mail after reading this shit.)

So anyway. Mom and I decided to consult this guy because we were curious about what he would have to say about my future. And yes, I believe in this mumbo jumbo when I feel like it.

He started by telling us how he was an accomplished astrologer-cum-face reader-cum-palmist-cum-something else who had even been consulted by an ex-president of India in this very house.

He talks too much, I whatsapped Mister.

Then he went on to talk about how he was an engineer at a senior post, and how he had sent a woman employee home because he had predicted, just by looking at her face, that she was going to deliver a baby boy the same day. Then he told me how she called at 4 pm to say she had just delivered. A baby boy.

30 min and he hasn’t talked about my horoscope yet, I whatsapped Mister again.

Then he got to the point. He told me three things:

1. I had a “motherly” streak in my personality and I shouldn’t let it go.
2.  My “gonads” (I think he meant ovaries) were not functioning properly because of lack of sexual activity. This was the root cause of all my health problems.
3. Having my baby and breastfeeding would “fix” my health for good.

All this while, he kept gesturing at his groin to indicate “gonads” and at his chest area to indicate breastfeeding. He also said something about my beautiful face and lips and I found this odd, but did not think too much about it because he was a senile old man (and also because I’m not easily embarrassed about my body).

He told me nothing of significance about my career or relationship or anything else, and quite honestly, I refrained from asking because he had taken 45 minutes to give me the aforementioned load of crap about my gonads. I was actually relieved when he moved to mom’s horoscope.

His observations about mom were very regular in nature; he said that she was an open person. He asked her to do pujas in the nearby temple, then indicated that there was one going on right now and that his wife was going there.

I (stupidly) asked ma to accompany his wife – but in my defense, his grown-up granddaughter was in the house and I had no reason to feel threatened. At this time, he was looking at my palm.

As soon as ma left,  he started talking about my “gonads” again, then put his hand on my thigh and slid it up to my crotch. When I objected, he told me he was trying to show me the acupressure points that would help me fix my health problems. As he spoke, his hand was still on my thigh.

I slapped his hand away, got up, and instead of going ninja on him, I mumbled something about his behavior being completely inappropriate, gathered my belongings and left.

Has something like this ever happened to you? How would you react if you were in this situation? Do you think I under-reacted?

(On a lighter note, what do you think about the term molestrologer? Giggles came up with it!)

Here’s what happened next.