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Vedic Astrology – Brazilian Stars on an Indian Night

 They say that when the stars align in your favour, there isn’t anything you can’t do, there’s nothing you can’t achieve.

I was 17 when I first found out about Vedic Astrology or as my step-sister called it, Vedic Kundli. I grew up in Brazil where the weather was hot and the tempers hotter. We weren’t known for our calm heads, us Brazilians, and that’s how she first found me – cussing out the players on television.

Vedika. 12 years old, wide-eyed with flowing black hair and so tiny that I’d often lift her up and fly her around by the seat of her pants while she squealed in giddy laughter. Our longest-standing argument was about which was better – football or cricket.

My dad had just remarried. He worked plumbing in a big IT firm up North in the city. He stopped by the third floor ladies’ restroom to refit a broken pipe. He opened the door, heard a startled shriek and the rest, as they say, is history.

Padmini, a widow, was from the deep South in India, a small town in rural Kerala where big city lights were as foreign as online kundali matching was here. But when her firm’s project had sent her on-site to Brazil, nobody had expected her to fall in love with a born and bred native.

And when it became clear to Padmini’s family that no amount of persuasion could pull her away from my pops, I learnt about something called an online horoscope generator. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for two people to fall in love. Something called a horoscope had to ‘match’. Match what?

You got me.

Once Vedika had gotten over her initial horror of having an uncouth step-brother who cussed at the television on the daily, she educated me. “Horoscope matching for marriage is very important, Gabiel,” she intoned seriously, delightfully mispronouncing my name and stealing my heart. “You know about online kundali matching?”

“No, what is that?” I frowned at her seriously and she giggled.

“We do it here because mummy say our astrologer is in India. We put your papa’s birthday and my mummy’s birthday together and it creates chart with all planet positions.”

I frowned again, for real this time. “And what does that tell us?”

“It show whether my mummy and your papa can get married or no. All planets must be matching-matching.”

I was nonplussed. “What if they are not err… matching-matching?”

She looked most serious. “Achchama say it is bad sign.”

Achchama, or Vedika’s grandmother, never did come to terms with her daughter marrying my pops, even when the planets turned up fine on the online horoscope generator. We even sent her something called a Vedic numerology PDF which had both their charts together so that she could show it to her astrologer.

Nothing convinced her, however.

Who knew the alignment of planets in far-away solar systems decided the fate of us puny humans here on humble little Earth?

The end result of it all though? I gained a beautiful little sister to call my own, a mother who’s more of a friend than anyone I’ve ever had and a pops who laughs again. Mom’s death hit him hard.

But Padmini made him smile and in the process, brought my pops back to me.

And if a side effect means that I now have free vedic astrology predictions for life thanks to a precocious sibling, I’ll gladly take it.

As they say, no pain, no gain. And seven years later, my cup still runneth over.


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