After it seemed like all kinds of off-beat stories had been done and dusted in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, my then editor had pulled a rabbit out of the hat by suggesting I speak to astrologers, tarot-card readers, numerologists and the like to predict the outcome. Almost everyone I called was either iffy or built in so many qualifiers to their predictions that they could score irrespective of who won. I was wondering if the story was a no-go when I called the astrologer Bejan Daruwala.
He was his gregarious self and chortled away asking how I was doing. “Modi is unstoppable. He has the stars with him for popularity and drive. He will make a clean sweep,” he had said. Today, the massive mandate that brought Narendra Modi to the prime ministerial chair came back to mind when news came of the passing of Daruwala at an Ahmedabad hospital due to pneumonia.
The nonagenarian was in the ICU, on a ventilator. All the life-support systems and the prayers of his huge following could not, unfortunately help, as doctors said things were not looking too good. “Knowing Bejan, he would have chuckled at the irony of how this was happening to him. After all, with Ganesha’s grace, he would be able to scan the Universe, read planets, and make a fortune with astonishing predictions based on Vedic and Western astrology, tarot cards, IChing, the Hebrew Kabbalah, palmistry, and what have you,” says senior journalist and close friend of the deceased Mark Manuel. Pointing out how he will miss him forever, Manuel said: “I was watching the 6 pm news on TV.
My heart sank at the rising death toll of coronavirus rampaging across the country. That's when the call came from Ahmedabad, telling me about the one death that I didn’t want to hear about,” and added, “At 90, given his failing health over the last decade, and his recent hospitalisation with pneumonia, I should've been prepared. But you’re never prepared for death. And in Bejan’s case, I expected a miracle. Like so many times before. Waiting to hear his booming “Shree Ganeshaya Namah!” on the phone. Which was his way of telling me he was back! After cheating death again. I thought it'd be the same this time too. Now my heart's broken.” Columnist and actor-activist Dolly Thakore also condoled the demise of Daruwala, who used to be her neighbour in Mumbai.
“I would rib him about the astrology since I never believed in it. Though he never gave up trying to give me astrological advice which I resolutely ignored, it never came in the way we related to each other as friends. He was gregarious, charming and had one heck of a sense of humour. He could tell jokes and entertain like few. Conversations with him were so entertaining that I would often visit his place and in a few minutes, all the world's worries would simply float away.” According to her, what made him special was his ability to laugh at himself and guffaw at his own resort to hocus-pocus. “But people come with such high expectations and you don't want them to leave crestfallen.”
She also points out how well-read Daruwala was. “Unlike other astrologers, he could bring in Shakespeare or Tagore into his conversation and find a way of linking it all to astrology and the planets.” Manuel agrees there wouldn't be one dull moment around Daruwala, who he remembers as “the bawdy Parsi astrologer, who wrote our daily horoscopes in the city tabloid I worked for.” But this was before he became quite the sought-after sensation for predicting the Indira Gandhi's assassination and the Bhopal gas tragedy. He was 5 feet tall and weighed 200 pounds. “He would not lose any opportunity to talk about his days as Ahmedabad’s 100-metre sprint champion and of when he played cricket and hockey for the varsity,” he says, adding, “Of course, there was nothing athletic about Bejan. But his girth matched his mirth.”
The last time Manuel met Daruwala, the astrologer was wheelchairbound and needed an attendant to help him. “I asked him quietly about death. And whether he knew when his time would come. Bejan rudely dismissed me. With the choicest bad words. Then when I was leaving, he solemnly handed me a sealed envelope. I asked him what it was. “Your forecast for next year,” he said ominously, “just in case we never meet again.” So, Bejan Daruwala knew after all!
