THERE lived an astrologer named Pandit Ramakant in a village near Benares. He was not only an astrologer but also an amateur astronomer.

He believed implicitly that mankind’s future could be told by the positions of the stars and planets in the night sky. Every evening, he would go for a long walk, his eyes lifted to the heavens. And every evening his wife would issue a warning

“Watch where you are going.” She would say “Keep your eyes on the road.”

One evening, Ramakant was out on his usual walk. When he looked up at the sky, he saw something unusual. The constellation of the seven sages (Saptarishi) seemed to have changed shape.

“Now what does this portened?” thought Ramakant worriedly. “The stars seem to have shifted in some way, is the world going to end?”

He was so engrossed in watching the saptarishi that he failed to notice a big ditch filled with water. He fell headlong into it. For a second he did think the world had ended!

“Ahhh!” he screamed. “God help me! The pralaya (great flood) has arrived!”

Hearing his frantic cries, a few villagers came running. They pulled him out of the ditch. He stood there, shivering and dripping with mud.

“Oye, Panditji” sniggered one of the villagers, “you are a great one at reading the future in the stars above, but you cannot see what is right at your feet below!”

His wife, who had just come on the scene, remarked tartly, “Of what use is his astrology if he couldn’t foreteji , what was in his own stars tonight?”