Voyages Sans Frontières

A hotel lobby in Kathmandu, calm after firecracking, light-strewn Diwali. An astrologer and a traveller seeking insight pore over calculations of latitude and longitude. A day and a blackout later, they’re back. The astrologer hands over a scroll and walks her through her life . . .

Descending from the roof of the world into the Kathmandu Valley, with Everest’s northern face and the Potala Palace still vivid on my retinas, and wondering what to do next – how to possibly follow that – I decided to obtain a rough guide to my life. I wanted my span-of-life horoscope. While hardly a disciple of astrology, I was curious and imbued with a heady feeling of ‘well, why not?’ I was also terrified about its potential revelations, particularly the health and happiness of loved ones.

The fast-track-to-enlightenment mecca of Thamel was duly scouted. Sandalwood incense commingled with petrol fumes, caustic after the rarefied Himalayan air. A profusion of spiritual paraphernalia presented itself: intricate and musty thangka paintings, stringed reams of prayer flags, meditation mantra CDs. And everywhere trekking equipment for hire; yeti T-shirts, third eye T-shirts, route-branded expedition T-shirts for sale. But, apparently, no back-room astrologer.

Mentioning this quest to my Nepali guide opened up wide vistas of conversation. We discussed palm reading, ebooks and fortune telling. He recommended his family astrologer, the Newar university lecturer who did his daughter’s horoscope. After an introduction - and with just one night before my flight out of Nepal - he set to work.

That night there was a power cut, and back-up generators clanked in protest. I looked out at nocturnal Kathmandu, with its pockets of black, and deeper darknesses, fretting about the deadline and the almost stranger straining his eyes on my behalf.

True to his determined word, he returned to the hotel at dawn, this poised Brahmin in robes of white, and thoughtfully talked through my span of life. A yellow paper scroll written in red, with pictures of Ganesh and his fellow deities, swirling planetary and zodiac and lunar charts, in a red-ribbon-tied silken pouch. I clutched the horoscope on the mad taxi dash to the airport; it weighed heavy in my hands.

Revisiting the horoscope, parts have turned out to be true. Several, too true. Not only did this horoscope subtly alter my life; it somehow predicted it. An uncanny treasure from a different world, but about me and revealing new worlds to me.