Jakarta Post on Ubud Writers Festival

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Carnival Lights Up Ubud Fest

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The jyotish astrological analysis of Robin Williams' death

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I took a look at Robin Williams birthchart through the jyotish system of astrology today (note this is NOT the same system as the horoscope people read in the newspapers, which is sun sign based astrology.) There is really nothing surprising about his suicide once you see the chart. Williams has a formation that’s common for celebrities: His Moon is with Rahu, in lagna, or ascendant. Rahu signifies great fame, glamor, and also electrical lights and methods of communications. Rahu also signifies alcohol and drugs. Together with Moon, it often signifies mental illness as well. Rahu matures, or shows its full strength, at age 42. Actress Catherina Zeta Jones, who came out saying she had bipolar manic-depression at 42, is one of many other celebrities who manifest this.  When Rahu is placed in the First House, Ketu falls in the Seventh House, the house of marriage and relationship (Rahu and Ketu are always 7 houses away from each other). Ketu is a signifier for detachment ...
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REVIEW: Bitter Gourds Short Story Collection

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THE BITTER TRUTH Sushma Joshi, February 2002, Kathmandu Post The stories are small, but with a spicy aftertaste that could be from nowhere else but the subcontinent. Talat Abbasi's Bitter Gourd and Other Stories is a collection of nugget sized, delectable tales laid out, in typical desi fashion, amongst the detritus of social stratification, family ennui, economic marginalization and diaspora. Gently dousing her stories with a generous portion of irony and satire, the Karachi born writer brings to the fore the small hypocrisies and the mundane corruptions of everyday life in Pakistan. Whether dealing with a birdman or a poor relation, a rich widow or an immigrant mother, Ms. Abbasi touches the mythic heart that ticks besides all these caricatures. The ghostly narrative influence of Virginia Woolf, with a pinch of Victorian lit thrown in for good measure, is discernable, although most of the voices are centered around the "how kind, how kind" echoes of South Asia...
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The Prediction, by Sushma Joshi

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Read my story "The Prediction," about an astrologer's prediction about the last days of the Rana regime of Nepal.This story is to be published in the journal Himalaya in November 2013, published out of Yale University. This story is based on a small snippet of an anecdote told to me by my father--who does not believe in astrology, but was goaded into sharing this historical story with me after I pestered him with miraculous stories of astrological predictions which had come true, in my own experience. Our family of Joshis ("Jyotish" means astrologer) were astrologers in the Royal Court of Nepal. This tradition was discontinued in my grandfather's generation. The young astrologer in this story, however, is not from our family. He is thought to have come from outside Kathmandu. The astrologer was a pleasant young man, with worn down cloth shoes and a dust-coloured set of clothes. Mohan Shamsher was surprised. He had expected someone older, someone mor...
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