Kottayam, Feb 23, 2010:
Five pairs of eyes are focussed on the board, less than a square foot in size, in the light of a single wick burning in a clay lamp. Across from these anxious souls sits a young man busy moving what appears to be beads on the board whilst scribbling frantically on a letter pad. After a few minutes, he sits back to revise the notes and begins to speak...and surprise! surprise! his jargon is almost entirely the all too familiar cricketing terms.
The ancient science of bead reading is coming back with a vengeance today after being totally recast into a cricket mould. Ajith Kumar Vallerpadam, the pioneer behind this rejuvenation belongs to an ancient family of astrologers in north central Kerala. "We've enjoyed thousands of years of good life exploiting the fear and greed of productive people by mumbling incomprehensible mumbo jumbo. Lately with education and encroachment of the so called western science, those of us who had made a career out of the true Indian "sastras" were beginning to feel the pinch. Luckily I chanced upon a way to combine two of India's greatest addictions, astrology and cricket. ", smiles Ajith.
It wouldn't be amiss to call him the Ashutosh Gowarikar of astrology. With dime a dozen astrologers crowding all the TV channels and every family having at least one retired uncle pursuing this "science" as a hobby, reinventing themselves was an imperative for families like the Vallerpadams.
Recasting bead astrology seems a no-brainer in hindsight. But as Ajith's relative and another practictioner Vikram Govindan Poonthuvilayadal notes, "It has been inside knowledge amongst our families that the whole Cowri based astrology evolved out of a simple tic-tac-toe like children's game in the past. It was the easiest way to mint money. Now it has lost most of its ground with women asserting themselves a little too much and divorces becoming all too common. People are not so easily buying into our "8 out of 10 matching" etc. Add to that the new fads of Vaastu, power stones etc which are so clearly superstitions. For the current revival, we did a reverse engineering sort of... by taking a popular sports paradigm and synergising it with an ancient prediction science."
If Vikram sounds like an MBA, it is because he is. After graduating from IIM-Z and finding himself without much prospects owing to the global recession, Vikram decided to go back to his roots. "It has always been about serving the people...for the right price", he beams.
The "New" Old Sastra
Sure enough the board does resemble a cricket stadium. Since photography was prohibited, we can only present to you a schematic diagram. The board has a miniature fence around it. At the center is the pitch with two rectangular wooden pegs at either end of it. The rest of the board has markings at different points eerily similar to fielding positions. The most important part of the prediction system are the beads from which the system gets its name. A total of 11 beads form the complete set. 8 of them are the "manchadi" seeds found commonly in Kerala. These are colored differently and represent Budha (Mercury), Shukra (Venus) , Chovva (Mars), Vyazham (Jupiter) and Shani (Saturn) along with other ancient celestial bodies of Rahu, Ketu and Gulika. A slightly bigger rudraksha bead represents the Sun. Moon and earth are cast in sandal wood beads of different sizes.
Ajith explains, "Blind fatalism has been the biggest drawback of all forms of astrology so far. Of course, after we have instilled fear or greed in the client, we used to further the monetary exploitation by suggesting "remedies" which used to work rather smoothly to our advantage till very recently. But off late, more and more people have started recognizing the simplicity of the con. But in "bead sastra", the client is also an important player. So it is very different. It is not out and out fatalistic. The individual participates. And since the whole procedure proceeds in a lingo very understandable to the client, there is an added confidence that was not there in the arcane mumblings that we used in earlier forms of our craft."
User-friendly to the core
The procedure of "bead sastra" is indeed fascinating in its simplicity. The chief practitioner, titled appropriately as the Ompyre drops ten of the eleven beads softly from his hand onto the "pitch". The beads bounce of the two wooden pegs called Vikadas or hit the fence which is called Bhavantari. It is perfectly fine if a few beads bounce over the Bhavantari. Once these beads are settled, the Ompyre moves them to the nearest marked positions on the board to each of them. This activity clearly resembles setting the field in cricket.
The genius of pioneers like Ajith and Vikram lies in renaming the positions after those on a cricket field. Thus the beads end up in 'silly mid on', 'gully', 'third man', 'deep extra cover' and so on. After the field has been thus set, the client who has been holding the "earth" bead is allowed to reorient the wooden pegs in any direction he or she wishes. Then after a small prayer, he or she drops the "earth" bead into the center of the pitch. The bouncing and trajectory of this bead is what forms the scientific core behind the prediction system. It is no longer all based on the Ompyre. The client is an active participant. "We live in the 21st century," says Ajith, "it is clear that human action has an effect on our lives. Our system completely acknowledges and incorporates this scientific truth."
A typical reading before interpretation can sound like a cricket commentary ball by ball. "Caught by Rahu on the Long on" or "Bhavantari through the mid off" form the basis of very elaborate and personalized predictions which the ever growing clientele swear are not just easy to understand but are also astonishingly accurate.
The "earth" bead is dropped only once for consultation in specific matters like investments and marriage. For marriages, the trajectories taken by the earth bead of the prospective bride and groom on their individual boards are compared for matching. Several such consultations are performed each morning by Ajith and Vikram who charge close to $100 for each. In the afternoons, these young men are busy training new Ompyres in this sastra.
Despite the relative newness of this reinvented science, clients have been pouring in from far and wide. The system has been quickly adapted to an online version that allows clients to consult remotely at the click of their mouse to drop the bead.
For more elaborate consultations like preparing the birth chart of a new born baby, a 5 day ritual is undertaken where the Sun bead is bounced instead by the Ompyre himself several times. This extremely strenuous activity comes at a hefty fee of $10000, but no price can ever be high for the highly accurate, scientific and above all customer friendly prediction system.
For SuppressIndia News Channel, Arun Surendran
Alonosospeak :-)
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