(UPDATE: Bejan Daruwalla has passed away at the age of 89 in an Ahmedabad hospital).
Bejan Daruwalla -- a man whose astrological predictions have been avidly followed by thousands -- is at present battling the deadly COVID-19 virus in an Ahmedabad hospital.
A Facebook post by one Mark Manuel who says that he was given the details by Daruwalla's son Nastur adds that the astrologer is fighting for his life and has been put under ventilator support in the ICU.
Over the last few days wishes and prayers for his speedy recovery has flooded social media platforms. A practicing Zoroastrian, Daruwalla was also a self proclaimed Ganesha devotee. As as Manuel's post says, support has poured in from all quarters.
"He’s a practicing Zoroastrian, he goes to the agiary, and he ties the Parsi sadra and kusti. So there will be the prayers of his faith. But all his life, and God bless he will be 90 in July, Bejan got his assurance and strength from Lord Ganesh. So Ahmedabad will invoke the mercy of Ganpati, the ultimate God of Blessings and Remover of Obstacles, to be at Bejan’s side. A Catholic priest came and blessed him yesterday. Muslims are calling out to Allah with duas for Bejan in their namaz at home," Manuel adds in his Facebook post.
Daruwalla's astrological skills are well known.
He had predicted several Prime Ministerial victories including that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Morarji Desai and more recently, Narendra Modi. He had also predicted the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi's accident and the Bhopal gas tragedy, amongst others.
But astrology is not a simple science, and as he told Rediff in a 2001 interview, intuition is key. "I combine everything. But the final trigger is intuition. For example, I could see the face of V P Singh and not Rajiv Gandhi. So I said that V P Singh would become the prime minister. A lot of things go together in it," he had said.
According to Manuel's Facebook post Daruwalla's health had been failing since he turned 80. He had suffered a stroke about a year ago, and had been in Ahmedabad’s Apollo Hospital for a month. Upon recovery , Daruwalla had said that he almost died, "but fairies looked after me".
"I hope they are with him today…" wrote Manuel.
