Sorting Out Sid (11 page)

‘Good, GOOD,’ said Sid, still shivering. Realizing it wasn’t exactly the most appropriate response, he blabbered further, ‘I mean … sure … whatever you say … anytime you’re ready, I’m ready … I’m game, I’m…’ He had to force himself to stop, swallowing the rest of his words.

‘We’ll be doing a Tarot reading session for you,’ Cynthia said in her mellifluous voice, with the exotic accent of the
well-travelled gypsy woman. Sid noticed her eyes for the first time. They were a misty, pale blue and possessed a strange combination of depth and lightness that gave them an otherworldly effect. Or maybe it’s just cataract, thought Sid.

‘Tarot reading, huh?’ He nodded. ‘Sure, sure … the cards … where’s your parrot?’

Cynthia gave him an ethereal smile. ‘There is no parrot. Here, shuffle these.’

She was holding out a pack of large, green, gilt-edged cards to him. Again, Sid got the impression that she had conjured them up from nowhere. A tad reluctantly, he took the cards into his own hands and started shuffling them. Unwittingly, he went into Card-Party Sid mode, and started shuffling them the way he did when there were many people around, expertly whirring them between his fingers. Of course, he wasn’t used to cards this size, with the result that he sent the cards flying in all directions. After a few moments of scrambling around and under the table, Sid retrieved them all. He noticed Cynthia still smiling beatifically at him. He resumed shuffling, this time more sedately, and quickly held out the shuffled pack to her.

She shook her head slowly and said, ‘Cut the pack and take out five cards.’ He started to do so and noted that she was holding her own pack
–
one that was yellow in colour. She shuffled her cards, saying, ‘Then, choose any five numbers between one and twenty-nine.’

He quickly took five cards out of his own pack, lay them face up on the table and thought hard of the five numbers. After a few moments of staring at each other politely, Cynthia said, ‘You’re supposed to tell me the five numbers.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ he said quickly and added, ‘I thought it was a trick and you were going to guess.’

Her mouth twitched with the first sign of displeasure that she had shown him yet. She clearly did not appreciate being likened to some sort of a party entertainer. Her long fingers were still poised over her set of cards.

Sid meekly called out, ‘Two, five, seven, nineteen and twenty-eight.’

She silently mouthed the numbers as she picked out the corresponding cards from her pack. She lay her five cards next to the ones he had put out on the table and studied them carefully. Sid looked at them curiously, able to make nothing of them whatsoever. There were some words and symbols that looked mysterious to him while others looked like everyday common objects. One card had a jug on it with the word ‘Water’, another had a woman and said ‘Friend, Wife, Soulmate’. One with a picture of Buddha said ‘Siddhartha’
–
this one gave him the creeps, a card with his name! But he told himself not to get carried away. There was also one card with three people dancing around what looked like a fire and had the number ‘Three’. Another card with a picture of some dude who apparently went by the handle Archangel Michael. The cards with the pictures and numbers were fascinating. What the hell did they mean?

It seemed to Sid an inordinately long time before Cynthia spoke.

‘Well, this is unusual,’ she muttered, appearing to be in a trance-like state. ‘How very unfortunate!’

Sid froze. Huh? Just ‘unusual’ would have been okay, but ‘unfortunate’? What was unfortunate? He swallowed once, cleared his throat and said, ‘Er … sorry?’

She looked up from the cards right into his face and said, ‘Would you like to hear the good news first or the bad news?’

Sid was always very clear about this. He had been asked this question a number of times by people at work, and his answer was always the same
–
save the best for last.

‘The bad news first, please,’ he told Cynthia and squared his shoulders, steeling himself for the worst.

Cynthia’s watery blue eyes were filled with compassion as she said, ‘Very soon, you are going to die.’

Sid stared at her blankly for about five seconds. He swallowed hard twice, and somehow managed to say, ‘Okay … and the good?’

‘Sid, I don’t think you understood me fully. I just told you that you’re going to die.’

‘I heard you, I heard you,’ replied Sid, even more nervous and agitated now. He pulled at his collar. He felt as if his shirt was choking him, and he noted that he was sweating. ‘Is it hot in here?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. So yes, I heard you when you … what do you mean I’m going to
die
?’ He suddenly felt very annoyed. ‘We’re all going to die, right? What is “very soon” anyway?’

‘The cards say you’re going to die at the age of thirty-seven.’

‘Ah!’ said Sid, trying to digest this new information.

‘How old are you now, Sid?’ Cynthia’s voice was very kind and soft.

It took Sid a while to answer, and he whispered, ‘Thirty-six.’ After a few seconds, he added, ‘And five months.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Cynthia, eyes widening with horror. ‘That gives us rather limited time, doesn’t it?’

‘You could say that, I suppose. Seven months is all I’ve got? Ha ha ha ha!’ Sid didn’t quite know why he was laughing. He was still trying to wrap his mind around what he had just heard.

‘Okay, now listen, young man.’ Cynthia’s voice became sterner. ‘I know this is a shock for you, but it is important to me that we don’t lose more time. And that you understand the seriousness of the situation you’re in.’ He listened to her, dumbstruck. ‘What the cards indicate is that you’re headed for a sudden and irreversible demise.’ What kind of demise is reversible, he thought. ‘But there is also the good news, and that’s the reason you have come to me today
–
fate has brought you here. There is a chance that you do not actually have to suffer an untimely death. So once we find the answer to why your destiny is like this, we can make some conscious choices that will help change it.’

‘You can change destiny?’ Sid whispered. He couldn’t believe he was having such a conversation. Just this afternoon, a short while before Aditi’s call, he had been debating with himself whether to get the cheese burst pizza from Dominos’ or the thin crust from Pizza Hut. How was it now that he was on the verge of death, and talking about changing his destiny?

‘
You
can change your destiny,’ said Cynthia, ‘with the right choices. Now, let me focus on what the Oracle cards are telling me.’

Sid slumped back in his chair, his head spinning. He would never live to see forty? He had always been under the impression that he hadn’t even done half of the things that he wanted to in life. And now, this lady was telling him that it would be all over in seven months. Wow, that was one birthday party he wouldn’t be looking forward to, he thought bitterly.

Cynthia took in a breath sharply, and he looked up. Her eyes were closed, face even paler than before. He swallowed his panic and waited for her to speak. After a minute, she opened her eyes and spoke slowly, ‘I just had a vision. I know the problem.’

Sid didn’t speak, but continued to gaze mutely at her, and she said, ‘You, Sid, have been married to the same soul for the last three hundred years.’

Sid felt a small twinge of hope at these words. ‘You mean, Mandira and I are like … soulmates? Destined to be together?’

Cynthia gazed at him for a moment. ‘Well, in a way, except that in every single lifetime when you have chosen her as your mate, you have committed suicide at the age of thirty-seven. And so is it destined to be this time too, unless you choose to do something about the relationship.’

‘Okay … look … see,’ said Sid desperately, ‘of course … Mandira and I have our problems … we do, but killing myself? I’ve never even thought about it.’

‘Oh, really?’ asked Cynthia, her blue eyes now uncomfortably penetrating. ‘You haven’t ever thought about it? Never been so angry that you thought you might bang your car into a tree? Never thought of perhaps jumping off your balcony? Never…’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Sid, giving in to the urge to grip his head in his hands. He was breathing heavily as his mind raced. Yes, he did get angry while driving sometimes
–
who didn’t though? And sure, he did live on the eighth floor
–
and once he had been in a black mood after a particularly bad fight with Mandira. As he stood smoking on his balcony, he looked down and the thought had briefly flashed across his mind
that it would serve her right to see his body splattered on the ground.

Cynthia was right. He was suicidal. He just hadn’t known it until she pointed it out. He looked up hopelessly at her. ‘What am I going to do?’ he whispered.

Cynthia said to him gently, ‘Sid, there is only one thing to do. You have to fix your relationship, or end it. I’ve now seen a few of your previous lives and they all follow the same pattern. It is clear to me that before you and this person met … about … oh … three hundred and twelve years ago, you were a very successful individual in every life you had lived. But after you got involved with this soul, everything changed. There was one lifetime when you were a tribal prince and you married her, much against the wishes of your family. The marriage brought down the whole clan and you ended up poisoning yourself. In another lifetime, you were a wealthy merchant and the same thing happened
–
you hanged yourself from a tree. You know, you’ve been quite creative about the ways you’ve killed yourself
–
it’s been different every time around; you’ve shot yourself, stabbed yourself in the heart, jumped off a cliff, and once even cut off your own…’

‘Okay, listen, Cynthia,’ Sid cut in desperately, ‘this is really a little … um, overwhelming for me. I need to think about what I’m going to do. I don’t think there is any point now in carrying on further with this session.’

‘I wasn’t going to get into anything else in this session anyway, Sid,’ said Cynthia soothingly. ‘The other cards are all irrelevant, they are about what’s going to happen in the next few months before you…’ Her voice dropped low, prompting Sid to stare at her. She went on, ‘I think the most important issue for you at this point in time is to think how you’re going
to save yourself. We can pick up the other sessions at another time
–
assuming of course that there
is
another time.’

Sid felt his heart sink. He got up slowly from his chair and she suddenly said, ‘You know what you should do? You get your wife to come and visit me. I’m here till the fifteenth only and then back only after four months from my South-east Asia sojourn. I could do the Tarot reading for her and then give you some insight into what you could do.’

‘I’ll try,’ Sid said. He had his doubts about Mandira listening to anything he said. Cynthia seemed to misinterpret the uncertainty in his voice as a lack of appreciation of the importance of her suggestion. She narrowed her eyes and said, ‘I’ll just tell you one more thing, Sid. This card, here?’ She indicated the card with the number three on it and the three people dancing around the fire, and said, ‘This card says three. You see? Three is a good number sometimes, but not always.’ She was giving him a very meaningful look. Sid nodded, but he was only pretending to understand.

The number discussion reminded Sid … he had to pay her. Eight thousand bucks to be told that you’re going to die
–
wow! But then again, how did money matter any more, he told himself and counted out a bundle of five-hundred-rupee notes and placed them on the table, murmuring a half-hearted, ‘Thanks, Cynthia.’

She inclined her head gracefully and said, ‘I appreciate your not asking for credit.’ She didn’t have to elaborate. This time he knew exactly what she meant. He turned to leave, but turned back and said, pointing to the cards on the table, ‘Just curious … what does that card with the water on it mean?’

Cynthia gave him the most pained and expressive look of the whole evening. Sid swallowed hard again and said, ‘Okay, never mind.’

He practically ran out the door, aware of her blue-eyed gaze following him. He made his way to the car and got in. He quickly turned the key in the ignition and zoomed out of the bush where he had parked. He honked loudly in the ear of the sleeping guard who woke up and cursed Sid as he drove away.

Just the previous weekend, Sid had taken an entire season’s membership at the club.

So much for my swimming, he thought bitterly.

10

End of the Road

‘B
eta, usse pyaar ki zaroorat hai. Aur woh pyaar sirf aur sirf tum hi de sakte ho.’ The words reverberated in Sid’s head as he sat at the wheel of his parked car. He had had to get away from the advice and gentle chastising of his in-laws. They had arrived two days ago and the lecturing had gone on non-stop. He didn’t see any reason for listening to it tonight when Mandira hadn’t even bothered to come home from work on time. After all, they were
her
parents
–
he had only acquired them through marriage. Sure, he had been close to them. In fact, sometimes Sid felt closer to them than to his own parents. But for now, he couldn’t help but feel resentful about having to be the one to bear the brunt of their advice.