A Fortuneteller Told Me

-
I will be in Oxford in July 2012 to talk about my writings on the Nepali diaspora in Thailand and Myanmar. I traveled around those two countries last year as an Asia Fellow, with support from the Asian Scholarship Foundation.


(Here's the Asia Fellows from 2010-2011. I am on the far left. If I look fat, its because I was eating too much Thai food!)

My aim is to write a book like Tiziano Terzani's "The Fortune-teller Told Me".  All my friends who like to mock my fascination with astrology, fortune-telling and prophesizing the future--please read this book! It is possible to be a journalist for a publication as serious as Der Speigel, do excellent reportage and still weave these fascinating tidbids into your book, as Terzani did.

If you have a literature related group in Oxford or London and want me to come and read from my book(s), contact me at: sansarmagazine@gmail.com. I haven't been in the UK since 1995--I'm looking forward to this visit...

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW: Bitter Gourds Short Story Collection

-
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...
Read more

The jyotish astrological analysis of Robin Williams' death

-
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 ...
Read more

JYOTISH, THE SCIENCE OF LIGHT

-
ECS Magazine, July 2017 My family’s surname is “Joshi,” derived from jyotishi, or astrologers. According to family lore, they fled the Mughal invasion and came to Nepal via Nainital, where they became court astrologers to the Shah monarchy. By my grandfather’s time, nobody on our side of the family knew anything about astrology, nor did they show any interest to pursue this arcane and antediluvian subject. My father, who has a BA in science, and my mother, who has a Masters degree in Nepali literature, both profess a steadfast disbelief towards the subject. There were, however, enough relatives around to provide glimpses of a more interesting family history. I remember in particular one elderly relative in his eighties who did read charts, and who was treated with great respect not just because of his ability to read the future but also because he was rumored to be short-tempered. He was known to walk back and forth in his wooden balcony in the middle of old Kathmandu, and hurl...
Read more