What sign?

Are you one of those people whose day is incomplete without checking the daily predictions page?

Are you one of those people whose first thought (or maybe 2nd or 3rd) on meeting a new person is to find out his/her ‘Sun’ sign?

Are you one of those people who thinks that Linda Goodman is God’s biggest gift to earth?

Are you one of those, who can start and carry on a conversation with a stranger purely on the subject of sun-signs etc?

If you are any of the above, I envy you my dear friend. I have tried to develop an interest, but have never been able to do so!

What is a sun-sign? As per my guru (Wikipedia), it is the position of the sun on a person’s birthday. This sun-sign or zodiac sign supposedly is the magic key to one’s character. It tells you all about the person, both the obvious ones and the not so obvious ones.

For a long time, I was embarrassed when somebody asks for my zodiac sign, since I had no clue what that meant ! Then finally, an autograph book that came as a free gift had the pages with months and dates along with the associated zodiac signs, opened my eyes to grand new world of zodiac symbols. I was pleased. I could now tell anyone who asked me for my sun-sign. ‘Libra’ - no doubts, no squirming, no bewildered expressions, no ‘I dont actually remember’ etc !

Then fate intervened and I went to Hyderabad to visit some of my cousins. These cousins were considered the child prodigies (not children anymore of course !) in my family. What they spoke about, was always the ‘in-thing’. I would often end up with a bad inferiority complex after hearing them talk for 10 min. They knew everything ! They could discuss in length about anything and everything for hours together and all I could do was to put on my intelligent-but-quiet look and pretend that I found the subject boring !Every year, during the summer holidays, my cousins’ interest would be different. I would have worked hard the whole year to make myself interesting and learning about what interested them the previous year, but they always managed to stay ahead of me!

This particular year, the interest had moved on to Zodiac signs. My cousin was looking at me differently. She had, in the past few months, mastered the book on sun-signs by Linda Goodman and viewed everybody as her test subjects. In her eyes, I probably looked like a guinea pig too !

‘What is your sun-sign?’ she asked.

‘Libra’, I said proudly.

‘Oh, diplomatic, peace-makers. Very balanced in life’ - she said.

Well, that sounded nothing like me ! But the judgment had been passed. I had no option, other than to be diplomatic. I had reduced from a cousin to a mere statistic.

One more victory to Linda Goodman, according to my cousin. Every action I did, every word I said, was made to fit into dear Linda’s mould of me. All the time, I spent there after that, all I heard was how Libras are, how Virgos are etc.

It was considered fashionable to ‘discuss’ about sun-signs in every social occasion. My other cousins, rose to the challenge and managed to learn just enough to understand what the knowledgeable ones have to say on the subject.

Me? I never went anywhere near it. I found and still find the idea of generalizing traits based on birthdays ridiculous! To me, such books are based on statistics. They probably make interesting reads, but applying the reverse methodology, i.e., forcing traits on people based on statistics seems not so good an idea to me !

In school, one of my friends once asked me (when I was glaring angrily at her !), whether I was a Scorpio and I simply said I was only human !!

To me sun-signs/moon-signs/earth signs etc are just for fun. The daily predictions page is my idea of a not too bad joke. I read it and forget it the next minute. Sun-signs are good to strike up conversations with strangers (assuming they are not like me!!)

If someone can actually prove that sun-signs and character analysis are related and that predictions on a person’s future are possible, I have some practical applications in mind:

a. Learn the sun-sign of the girl/boy who you find attractive. Go ahead and propose only if the sun-signs are compatible.

b. Check the sun-sign of money-borrowers to ensure they return the money as promised.

c. Win horse races, by placing your bet on the most compatible (!!??!!) horse (Do horses have sun-signs too?)

d. Select compatible and winning team members for the Indian cricket team. Match dates should be decided based on weekly, daily predictions for the captain’s sun sign.

The possibilities are endless !!