Howzzat
Page 5
I was taken aback when I studied the horoscopes of these three men. All three of them—Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and Pete Sampras—had the planet Uranus in exaltation in their horoscopes. Uranus, as I’ve mentioned earlier, is all about breaking records. It gets exalted in Aries, Virgo and Scorpio. Rod and Roy had the planet in the powerful Aries, Sampras had it in the systematic Virgo and Federer had it in the ferocious Scorpio. Out of the three zodiac signs Uranus is most strongly exalted in Scorpio. Though all of them had an exalted Uranus, the most powerful was the one in Scorpio. So, clearly, the biggest records would belong to the one who had that. The 1981-born Federer was bound to overtake the 1971-born Pete Sampras and the 1936-born Roy Emerson or the 1938-born Rod Laver.
Pete Sampras had 14 Grand Slams. So how much farther could Federer go? Now, that depended on when the next player with ‘Uranus exalted’ or ‘Uranus in its own house’ appeared on the scene. After 1981, the year when another tennis maestro was born, with Uranus in a strong position, was in 2002 when the planet of innovation entered its own house. So, only someone born after 2002 could really beat Federer.
Well, that was just a year after which Federer started winning the Slams. What that meant was that Federer would create a record that would last at least till 2035, assuming that a 2002–2005-born broke his record when he was around 30. Now, that record (number of Grand Slams) would have to be much larger than 14. Could it be 16? Yes, definitely. In fact, looking at the fact that Federer had the best Uranus exaltation in Scorpio, he was sure to leave a great distance between himself and his rivals. And, the number could be as big as 18.
While studying Federer and the 1981 Uranus power, I also noticed another crucial fact. The year 1981 also had Planet-Y and Chiron in exaltation. That could mean these two planets, could add more Grand Slams to Federer’s kitty. So, could that be 20? Yes, quite possible! Federer could realistically think of 20 plus Grand Slams by the time he decided to hang up his boots! So, 20 was the magical number I ended up with for Federer.
What about Rafael Nadal then, who was hot on the heels of Federer? Well, Rafa too had Uranus in exaltation in Scorpio, but the exaltation was lesser compared to Federer. Obviously, it meant that Federer would still pip Nadal at the post! Sorry, all Nadal fans here, but Federer is destined to be the greatest—as of now. I can tell you that Derek was a happy man when I wrote[9] this. And so was I—since it meant a lot in terms of cricket. It only meant that Dhoni is not done yet after winning the 2007 T20 World Cup. Probably, he still had something up his sleeves.
There was a Queen on the tennis court who confirmed my findings. Serena Williams.
Serena leapfrogged over all her contemporaries. The only competitor she had was at her own home. She overtook her sister, Venus, in due course. Both Venus and Serena were born in the patch of 1980–81—the time when all the three planets—Uranus, Planet-Y and Chiron were in exaltation. It just added more weight to the possibility of a 1981-born cricket World Cup winner in 2011. Serena had no competitors and she was on the path to be the greatest woman tennis player ever, overtaking Steffi Graf. The signs were very clear. If she surpassed Graf, she would end up with more than 24 Grand Slams. If Serena could do 24, could Federer do 20 plus? Of course he could!
Now, if that was to happen, the 1981 phenomenon was becoming something large, something really extraordinary, from the perspective of cricket. If I equated ten Grand Slams in tennis with one World Cup in cricket, then probably the year 1981 could produce even two World Cup winners!
By the time the next cricket World Cup happened, in 2007, Federer had already made a clean sweep of an astonishing 10 Grand Slams. He was just 26 and had a long way to go.
All omens pointed towards a 1981-born winning the next cricket World Cup. In the 50-over World Cup held in 2007, Graeme Smith was the only captain born in 1981.
Would it be South Africa this time? No chances of India winning the World Cup at all?
I had mixed feelings when India came battered and bruised under Rahul Dravid. While that was really sorrowful, the sorrow turned into glee when the Ricky Ponting-led Australia won the World Cup once again that year. When I researched why Ponting had won the Cups back to back, I found that he had both Planet-X and Planet-Z in exaltation. Either planet had given him a World Cup. I also understood that the timelines of various sports need not run parallel to each other, that is a 1981-born did not need to win across different sports at the same time. But the sequence would certainly follow, that is a 1974-born would be followed by a 1981-born.
Well, that was the only time I was happy when Australia won the Cup. It only meant that there was still a chance for a 1981-born to win the World Cup.
In a dramatic turn of events, the senior cricketers decided to stay away from the T20 World Cup in 2007. Mahendra Singh Dhoni led a young Team India in the first ever T20 World Cup in September and the rest, as they say, is history. Meanwhile, Federer had just notched up his twelfth Grand Slam. I told everyone I knew that India would win the World Cup as the 1981-born MSD was leading the team. They ignored it. No one was focussing on cricket since Tendulkar was not playing in the event. Yet, Dhoni went ahead and created history. His first slice of history. By the end of 2007 the score was Federer-12, Dhoni-1.
Could 12 Grand Slams be equal to one T20 World Cup?
No. Not possible.
Dhoni had to win more. Many more. Federer had to win more too. Then Dhoni had to win some more or another 1981-born had to make his mark in cricket.
And that’s when I started to dream.
I could clearly see a 1981-born cricketer winning the next World Cup in 2011. Who knew, he might even be an Indian!
10.
The Most Magical Day in the Indian Cricket Fan’s life
February 2011. Mumbai.
‘Greenie, are you sure?’ asked Mallika.
‘Hundred per cent. If this doesn’t happen, I will stop predicting anything in the future,’ I said.
Mallika Vyas, the head of HR, seemed pretty pleased with my answer and gave me her trademark bright smile. ‘Okay, baba, I’m going with your words. Chalo!’ She arranged for the screening of all the knockout matches involving India on a giant screen in office.
Though I had been writing my predictions in DNA since the 2008 UEFA Euro, the article I wrote before the start of the cricket World Cup 2011 on the outcome of the Cup was very important. It held more emotional value for me than any other piece I had written earlier. As I said, I wrote this article before the start of the World Cup. I stayed up the whole night and completed writing it by 5 am and found that it was double the normal word count. Usually, I never wrote such long articles, but this time it was not a standard piece. I mailed it to my editor and went to sleep. I thought he would probably slice off what he felt was inappropriate.
The article didn’t see the light of the day for more than a week. I was worried. The World Cup had started by then. I waited for weekends, but the article was never published. Then I came to know that the article had been published, surprisingly, on a weekday. It was a half-page item without a single word struck off, published[10] on 21st March 2011, before the start of the quarter-finals. I was grateful.
While I was happy for myself that I had a huge column published in the paper, I was worried on two counts. Vijay Tagore, the Sports editor of DNA had probably taken a big risk for himself by backing a rookie astrologer. How on earth could someone predict such events and, besides, how could one publish them in a mainstream publication? I shuddered to think about the questions Vijay might have to answer if this prediction went wrong. I wanted the prediction to go right for me, for Tagore who had put his faith in me, and for the millions of fans of this country who had waited for 28 years for the Cup to come back home.
But I was very sure. I was excited about witnessing history. I wanted to be a part of this historic triumph when India won the World Cup. That was going to be my ‘I was also there’ moment.
The league matches featuring India hadn’t been easy. We l
ost against South Africa pretty badly. Who can forget the heart-wrenching tie against England, when the God of Cricket completed his 98th International century, but the team couldn’t cross the finishing line?
Did this Indian team have it in them to really win the next three high-pressure matches against powerful teams like Australia and Pakistan? Anyone would have been sceptical. That too, based supposedly on a science no one was sure of. Was that even a reliable science? Could one even call it a science, to begin with? Predicting that India would win the World Cup using astrology was super-ambitious and fantastic at best. How much sense did that make? Was I kidding?
But I trusted my research and gut feeling. I published my prediction on Facebook. I went all over my Facebook wall, writing about the semi-finals and the final.
Those knockout matches were very nerve-racking. My heart sank with every Indian wicket and was ecstatic with every run made. But this time there were more than patriotic reasons behind it. I remember, during the semi-finals, when I went into a pub in the High Street Phoenix Mall in Mumbai, drunk men voiced angrily that India could never win the World Cup. Besides, no host nation had won the World Cup before.
Ricky Ponting had been chosen to lead Australia and not Michael Clarke, who was Dhoni’s contemporary and shared 1981 as his birth year with him. This was great news for me. Ponting had already won the 2003 and the 2007 World Cups. There was no way he could better the legendary Clive Lloyd.
Why did I think so?
Ponting simply didn’t have the planets to achieve that. Yet, the strong squad of Australia was always going to be a threat. I just hoped Ponting wouldn’t be injured. If he was injured, then the mantle would pass on to the 1981-born Michael Clarke and India’s aspirations could be doomed. Clarke had a great horoscope. It was as good as Dhoni’s, if not better. So, I always kept an eye on Clarke. But, as luck would have it, Ricky remained the captain for the entire tournament and India’s chances only got better.
Graeme Smith was another 1981-born who was always a threat. In fact, any 1981-born would always remain a threat at any point of time. But when I studied the composition of the South African team carefully, I found that they were not really a threat after all. They had too many players born in 1984. The time was ripe for players born between 1978 and 1981 at this time. So I could safely assume that the South Africans wouldn’t be able to cross the hurdle this time either. Their team, under Graeme Smith, didn’t have the astrological power to push them through.
But in the final it was India’s MSD versus Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara. It was simple. In a battle between a 1977-born skipper and a 1981-born one, only the latter would win. Until Australia and South Africa were in the fray, I was always worried that their 1981-born skipper (Graeme Smith and Michael Clarke in case Ricky Ponting was injured) had a chance.
On the eve of the World Cup final legendary astrologer, Bejan Daruwala, too, predicted that India would win the 2011 World Cup. So did popular astrologers Ajay Bhambi, Premkumar Sharma and Anupam Kapil. Some reassurance! Yes, I did notice that though the final outcome prediction was the same, the astrological reasons they had given were very different from mine. But still, some reassurance.
On the day of the final match, I read somewhere that a few Sri Lankan astrologers had got together to perform a yagna for their team’s victory. I smiled. Could they change what was destined?
When Jayawardene made a century, I didn’t panic. No team had won the final when a member of the opposition team made a century. The past records still disagreed with me, but I held fast to my belief. Instead, I started wondering who the man-of-the-match would be from India. Would it be a batsman, since the bowlers couldn’t prevent the opponents from putting up a good score? If so, who would that batsman be who would win it for India?
And then two priceless wickets fell. The Nawab of Najafgarh and the living God of Cricket departed with almost nothing on board. The Indian crowd was in shock. But I was still calm, for I knew this was going to be our World Cup.
There was absolute mayhem on Facebook. Everyone asked me if I was still sure that India would win the match.
I posted on Facebook: It’s not over yet. The game is still on—and we will win it.
I was not overconfident, or confident without reason. It was not just patriotism. It had a basis. It was scientific. It was rational.
Kumar Sangakkara would never win a World Cup as a captain; a 1977-born could never do that, especially when he was against a 1981-born. Plain logic. Astrology is not about lengthy calculations, but about logic. It made sense.
There was mayhem in the crowd, but I was convinced Diwali would arrive prematurely. And with that six over long-on Mahendra Singh Dhoni made sure it did.
11.
How to Identify the World Cup-Winning Team?
‘Which is your favourite dinosaur?’
I looked up to the squeaky voice that had asked the question.
With his hands still holding on to the Gameboy, my seven-year-old had a part apologetic, part mischievous and part excited smile on his angelic face. After looking at the ‘now what was that’ expression on my face, he said, ‘Okay, you can tell me now or later—after you’ve finished your work.’
I took him in my arms and asked him to repeat the question, all the while trying hard to think of some names of dinosaurs.
This was one of those tricky questions that Neil loved jolting me with. Some others were like: ‘What will you do if you are invisible?’ or ‘Who is your favourite cartoon character?’
When I told him I didn’t have any favourites amongst dinasaurs and asked him to tell me about his, Neil went on to explain why Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex) was his favourite. By the time he finished explaining, I wondered if the traits he had listed was similar to the attributes I usually look for in a World Cup-winning team. The team that stands out like a T-Rex amongst all the others would most probably be the winning team.
An apex predator, T-Rex is estimated to have exerted the largest bite force among all terrestrial animals. Its power came from the extraordinary body shape with a massive skull balanced with a long, heavy tail and a huge body. All the three body parts were equally important and perfectly balanced. That was exactly what I looked for in a World Cup-winning team, be it football or cricket.
I identify the World Cup-winning team in four simple steps. It is just like locating a T-Rex amongst the teams: by looking at the skull, the body and the tail. The one which has all the three in the strongest positions qualifies and you eliminate the others. The skull here is the captain, the body is the team and the tail indicates the coach.
I know I have made it look very simple though it takes a lot of time, effort and excel sheets, but the steps are the same every time. After you have all the correct data in place, go ahead and follow these four steps and you have the World Cup winner!
Step 1: Check out the horoscopes of the team captains (or the skulls)
Predicting World Cups is the easiest amongst all the predictions, simply because it is usually a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. The captain who leads a World Cup-winning team is treated as nothing short of a reigning deity in his country. So, it follows that the horoscope of such a person will shoot fireworks when you look at it.
The first step is to the find which captain has the strongest horoscope amongst all. I know cricket is a team game, but no team will win unless they are led by a captain whose stars plan to dazzle, so we check the captain first and the team later. The captain’s horoscope is like the barometer for the condition of the team.
Now, what constitutes a good horoscope is the big question. If you use all the 12 planets for the 12 zodiac signs and arrange them in the order of importance, and know which planet is more important than the other, you will get a clear hierarchical arrangement of the planets from the one with the most positive influence to the one with the least positive influence. The horoscope with the highest number of planets in the best positions will be the best horoscope. Sometimes you may have th
e horoscopes of two or three captains, which stand out, and may be unable to decide which is the best. Well, that is a good start. Arriving at the top two or three captains (and therefore teams) isn’t bad at all.
Step 2: Check the army (or check the body)
Now that you have your whittled down the list of captains, move on to the other players of their teams. Look for players with an exceptional horoscope that stands out and screams at you, ‘I’m a World-Cup winner!’ These charts sparkle and you should be able to locate them.
Beware of the teams that look strong, but have a captain with a weak horoscope. It may happen that such a captain steps down for some reason at the last moment and another captain with a better horoscope takes his place. So look for all of those deputies and players with extraordinary charts.
Step 3: Check the coach (or the tail)
Now is the time to include the horoscopes of the other people who influence the team, like the coach. He is a very important person in cricket. If he has already achieved a lot of accolades in life commensurate with his horoscope, the team he coaches may not win that glory. If a coach has a fabulous horoscope, but hasn’t achieved the greatness he deserves, he is your man. And, if the captain too has a phenomenal horoscope, you have nailed it.
Step 4: Eliminate
Now you start eliminations. Eliminate the teams who have won earlier. I call it the Karmic Quota of success, which is explained elsewhere in the book. There is a preordained limit to the number of accolades you will win in your life. Yes, there is also a preordained set of problems and challenges we face in life. That should be comforting. There is a limit to everything we experience and that can be seen in the horoscope.