Yamuna and Palm Reading

Today was even hotter than yesterday. The day went by very slowly, but much happened. I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo and the book filled most of my day.  

At five in the afternoon it was time for the Sunday sightseeing tour again. This time we didn't go to see a temple. We walked to the river Yamuna and took part in a puja, an offer ceremony for the river. I'm afraid I didn't understand the deeper meaning very well, but surprise surprise, Krishna has something to do with it. When he was a child, he used to swim in the river and the ceremony is a way of remembering that. I'm guessing a little here, to be honest. Well, whatever it was, it definitely was very beautiful. The setting Sun on the background, flowers and petals flying in the air and floating in the river, incense and of course music. Altogether, it left an impression on me and for the first time I really saw the colorful India I had heard so much about back home.

There was just one thing that took some magic away. The river Yamuna itself. If you take a look at the sunset pictures in my Dropbox folder and zoom in, you will directly see what I mean. The amount of trash swimming in the river is appalling. What made me feel even worse, was that a lot of children were swimming in the Delhi sewage water what Yamuna practically is. Some religious monks also drank a sip of the water. I told you about the river earlier, so I'm not going to repeat the sad story now.

The second experience came as a total surprise. After I had gotten back from the river, my roommate introduced me to an Indian man, who read my roomie's palm last week. He had told me about it a couple of times and he was quite excited about some things the Indian man had told him. I didn't believe any of it, but I'm much less sceptical now. Some of the things the man said about my character and about the way my life has so far been, were spot on. Of course he also said things that absolutely didn't fit, but I can only think of three things where he clearly missed, when there were at least five or six things that fitted more or less perfectly. I'm not going into details.

There were two things besides the accuracy that gave the man credibility. First of all, he told me that he doesn't take any money for reading people's palms and he even added that all the readers who do it for the money don't know anything. Second, the guy has a double Master's degree in English and geology. He's a teacher (yeah, I know that doesn't give him much credibility ;-) ), but the point is, he seemed in many ways legit. He learned and still learns the palm reading from his master, who has known him since he was a small boy, but has only taught him his secrets the past nine years.

It took about 15 minutes and during that time he not only looked at my hands, but my face and eyes as well. I'm pretty sure that knowing many people well, reflecting on different personal characteristics and having extremely good social skills will do most of the trick. I have no idea, but as you can see, the guy did make me think at least.