If you ever ply the road between Mogra and Gurap, you are likely to come across a very small village called “Bhastara”. My brother and I had stopped there at a roadside tea stall before getting on the highway to Durgapur.

As the tea-stall guy was heating our tea, an ad stuck on a nearby tree caught my attention. Curious what is being sold in this distant village, I walked up to the tree and saw this.

The ad is for an astrologer. Not too surprising. My opinions on astrology aside (which are not particularly upbeat, to be sure), it is not uncommon to see a lot of astrologers / soothsayers / so-called-diviners preying on ignorant, poor people. In fact, my parents had taken me to somebody who had given me a stone to wear on my body to mend my wayward ways. What “wayward” ways, you ask? Well, apparently, my parents thought that my life had started skidding down fast since I had scored not-so-good marks in … get this … Science that year! The irony is beyond being rich.

Coming back to the ad, the line in the middle says – “Gold Medalist in Astrology”. I just have one question. Okay, two, really.

One: Who the heck is giving gold medals in astrology these days? Has it already become an Olympic sport?

Two: What is a gold medalist doing in this far flung village of Bhastara?

Well, the tea was getting cold. And we had a few folks to visit in Durgapur. I had no time to go around and ask the people nearby!!