Candid, vivacious and all but seventy was what Bejan Daruwalla seemed to be when we spoke to him. When asked how he got interested in astrology in the first place, this staunch devotee of Lord Ganesha fervently replied, "I always wanted to impress the girls when I was young by telling them about their future. And then I learnt that I had it in me".

"I curse myself when some of my bad predictions come true", he confessed, referring to the quake, " and when my good predictions come true, I jump…this fat man actually jumps", he said, sending the crowd into splits as he jumped in his chair with gusto.

Sharp, intuitive and with psychic powers developed through many years of experience, this kig among Indian astrologers uses principles of palmistry, Indian and Western astrology, Tarot, Runes and I-Ching to foretell the future awaiting us. One prediction Bejan Daruwalla made on this particular occasion was that Jyoti Basu would make it ‘big’ in July this year and that the BJP would continue to rule as long as ‘it keeps its mouth shut and doesn’t antagonize the Muslims and Christians’, he said, referring to a pictorial representation in his latest book, 2001- Millennium Yearbook. He, however, remained taciturn about his predictions for the coming West Bengal Vidhan Sabha elections.

A man of principles just like his father, he admits that women aren’t the only ones who play ‘games’. "Men, too, know to play games!" This man, who simply "loves to love", stated with total conviction, "Definitely hard work can change a person’s fate even if the stars have a different story to tell. After all, there is no substitute for hard work"