English - RK Narayan Malgudi Days - Short Story - The Astrologer.
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
British (England - Cockney, Estuary, East End) Indian (Hinglish)Transcript
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short stories by RK Narayanan, the famous cartoonist. He was famous for his cartoons and there was a regular on the times of India page. These excerpts are taken from his book the mall good deeds written by john Polidori, an astrologist Day punctually. At midday he opened his bag and spread out his professional equipment, which consisted of a dozen gordy shells, a square piece of cloth with obscure mystic charts, a notebook and a bundle of barbera writings. His forehead was resplendent with succotash and vermilion, and his eyes sparkled with a sharp abnormal gleam. It was really an outcome of a continual searching look for customers, but which is simple clients took to be prophetic light and felt comforted. The power of his eyes was considerably enhanced by the position placed as they were between the painted forehead and the dark whiskers would stream down his cheek, even a half of its eyes with sparkle in such a setting to crown the effect, he found a saffron colored turban around his head. This color scheme never failed. People were attracted to him as bees as attracted to cosmos or daily stocks. He sat under a bow offer, spreading tamarin tree which flanked apart, running through the town hall park. It was a remarkable place in many ways, a surging crowd was always moving up and down this narrow road. Morning. Tonight, a variety of trades and occupations were represented all along this way. Medicine sellers, sellers of stolen hardware and junk magicians and above all, an auctioneer of cheap cloth who created laughed in all day to attract the whole town next to him in voice of foreignness, came a vendor of fried groundnuts who gave his wear a fancy name each day, calling it Bombay ice cream one day, and on the next day, Delhi Almond, and on the third Rogers, Delicacy and so on and so forth, and people flocked to him. A considerable portion of this crowd dallied before the astrologers do. The astrologers transacted his business by the light of a flare, with crackled and smoked up and above the ground nut heap. Nearby. Half the enchantment of the place was due to the fact that it did not have the benefit of municipal lighting. The place was lit up by the sharp lights. One of the two had hissing gas lights. Some had naked flares stuck on the poles. Someone lit up by the old cycle lamps, and one or two like the astrologers, managed without lights of their own. It was bewildering criss cross of light rays and moving shadows to be an astrologer when he began life. This suited the astrologer very well, but the simple reason that he had not in the least intended to be an astrologer when he began life, and he knew no more of what was going to happen to others than he knew what was going to happen to him himself Next time. Next minute he was a much stranger to the stars as were his innocent customers. Yet he said things which pleased and astonished everyone. That was more a matter of study practice, and should guess work all the same. It was as much as honest man's labor as any other, and he deserved the wages he carried home at the end of the day he had left his village without any previous thought or plan. If he had continued there, he would have carried on the work of his forefathers, tilling the land, living, marrying and returning in his cornfield and ancestral home. But that was not to be. He had to leave home without telling anyone, and he could not rest till he left it behind. A couple of 100 miles to a Villager. It is a great deal as if an ocean flowed between. He had a working analysis of mankind's troubles, marriage money, and the tangles of human ties. Long practice had sharpened his perception. Within five minutes he understood what was wrong. He charged three pies a question, and never opened his mouth till the other had spoken for at least 10 minutes, which actually provided him enough stuff for a dozen answers and advices