One prophecy that gives me goosebumps even today

By Sunil Saxena
India is a land of mystics, godmen, astrologers, palmists, face readers, palm leaf readers and many more. You see them sitting under trees, on pavements, under tin sheds and in marketplaces.

The smarter of them have graduated to the television screen and built large audiences. Those who are tech-savvy push their unique skills on the net.

This prophecy dates back to the twentieth century. In 1975, television had just arrived in India and there was no Internet when I learnt of a face reader who lived in my city.

He was a government employee working for the state electricity board. There was nothing to suggest that he had supernatural powers and could tell you what tomorrow had in store for you.

He was like any average middle-class Indian working for the government.

He looked at me keenly, then closed his eyes, and with eyes closed told me that I will one day be seen on a big screen. Nothing could be more amusing, more far-fetched, than this prophecy.

I was a small-town boy, and there was no way I could visualize myself becoming an actor.

But he was certain. He saw me on the screen and reiterated this vision several times.

The screen at that time meant the 70 mm silver screen. Television was quite new to India then and was available in a few Indian cities only.

It was therefore hard for me to imagine of any screen other than the film screen.

I shrugged off the man’s prediction as nothing but fantasy at best or trickery at worst. Over the years, I forgot about it.

Four decades later came Covid, and with it came Zoom, MS Teams and Google Meet. The world changed.

I was either on Zoom or MS Teams every day, talking for hours. My students could see me on their computer or mobile screens in different parts of India. Some of my webinars were watched across the world.

It hit me then that the nondescript face reader in 1975 did not see me on the film screen or the television screen. The screen where he saw me was in all probability a computer screen or a mobile phone screen.

But how could he? There was no home computer in India in 1975, and Zoom did not exist.

Once the Covid was over, I decided to visit the face reader again. But I was told that he had passed away.

I don’t know what he saw. But he did see something.

Something that was destined to happen in the future — yet, with his powers, he saw it at least four decades earlier.

That prophecy gives me goosebumps even today.

This article was first published on Medium.com.

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