Skyline Drive: It’s Supposed to Be Fun

Hey, there are podcast listeners. It is Mango here and I've got something special, a little different for you today. It is a show called Skyline Drive that I made a couple of years ago with my friends. I'm actually working on season two right now. It's going to be out in June, so I thought this would be the perfect time to catch up on season one. The first season of Skyline Drive is a show about astrology, or

Warning. The following episode contains adult language, discussion of miracles, arranged marriages, Channing Tatum, and disclosure of at least one Bible approved stoning. Sensitive listeners take care.

So here's a confession I'm gonna make right at the top of the show. I don't believe in astrology, but astrology keeps happening to me now. Everyone says podcasting is the most visual medium, so I made you a slideshow to try to explain. This is the real skyline drive. It's in Delaware, and growing up when I couldn't sleep, it's one of the many places I would drive to look at the stars. This is the moon. It rules our emotions. This is mercury in retrograde. You know it

I'm a Libra, so I'm indecisive.

That's definitely true.

I'm a torus. Find it starts to be beautiful. It sucks that we can't see you starting New York because all the lights.

I know a few people who are kind of into it, and they like, ask, yo, do you see the horoscope today? And I'm like, nah, bro, not really, I'm not worried about what the horoscope says.

I know a lot of people don't believe in it, but why can't people just believe in things for fun, Like it doesn't.

Have to be backed up by anything.

But if you believe in fantasy football, why can't you believe in astrology.

A few months ago, my friends and I set out to make this show about astrology. We wanted to run around the city and have some wild adventures and understand why after so many millennia, people still look to the sky for answers. This is an astrologer I met in Queen's He promised me, you're gonna dig this show.

But I think if you do your own show, it'll become a super hit, no doubt about it.

This is a graph of how much I believed in astrology before our session. Not that much. This is a graph of how much I started believing thirty minutes later when something horrible he said came true.

That's why I asked. From the time it started a couple of years back till now, the situation doesn't look good.

This is me traveling halfway around the world to answer the biggest question my entire life. This is a shop in India where your fortune is waiting for you. It was written centuries ago and put on a shelf and the shopkeepers know which one to pull because it's coated by your thumbprint. And the time you're going to walk through that door, this is me walking through that door. I'm Munga's Particular from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This is Skyline Drive Chapter one. Leave your acts at home.

So I figured, you know, I do need to sown an astrologer. And there are a bunch of astrologers on the Upper West Side who have set off with these.

Wait till you're looking for an astrologer to sewn.

Oh yeah, well.

I need to check it off the list.

I've got a hundred, you know already, This reporting and starting off weirder than I thought. It's ten o'clock on a bright summer day, and I'm standing here with Aj Jacobs.

I am an author and a journalist and a pisces.

In addition to being a pisces or technically on the cusp of pisces and ares. AJ's a friend and he's one of my favorite writers. I've come to meet him in this neighborhood because in two thousand and seven he wrote a New York Times best called The Year of Living Biblically. The book was a phenomenon. It came out in multiple languages, There were magazine and TV pieces about it. It was such a big deal that at one point Marlon Wayne's was lined up to play Aj in the Network TV version.

The premise was that I would follow all the rules of the Bible as literally as possible. So that meant the famous ones like the Ten Commandments and love your neighbor, but also the lesser known ones like you cannot wear clothes made of two different kinds of fabrics. So I had to get rid of all of my polycotton blends.

Giving up polycotton blends is just one of the hardshifs Aja endured in the name of journalism. He also grew a massive beard, shoved of wild birds so he could steal its egg and say a prayer on it. And he followed seven hundred other biblical rules literally in an attempt to understand religion. And somewhere along the way, he decided that to fully appreciate the Bible.

You actually had to stone people who who committed these abominations. And the abominations included adulter a, breaking the Sabbath, but also astrology, witchcraft, divination, they're all sort of lumped together.

Just the fact that he decided to stone someone was a shock to me. I mean, Aj is one of the nicest people I know, but that's how committed he was.

I didn't want to go to jail for assault. I just wanted to check it off my list, you know, stone and astrologer check. So I walked by this astrologer on the street and just very subtly dropped the pebble so that it landed on her.

Shoe, kind of a drive by stoning, And I.

Was thinking she's probably not even gonna notice because I just kept walking. Oh she noticed, and she's like, what's going on? Why did you do that? And so I had to tell the truth. Because I was following the Bible. I thought maybe she'll think it's funny. She did not think it's funny.

She I was pissed.

She started yelling at me like, F you go to f and hell, I was rattled. Even if you're trying to stone someone in modern day using pebbles, people don't like it. Well that's a lesson.

That's a takeaway rule number one, don't stone an astrologer. It wasn't the advice I'd come for, but I wrote it down anyway. But the thing I really wanted to know. The reason I traveled all the way out here to meet with AJ was to ask him how to make the show, because doing the show on astrology it actually makes me nervous, like is there a way to talk about how accurate a fortune telling parrot could possibly be? Or is there a way to joke about whether an

I had that exact dilemma when I was writing The Year of Living Biblically, because I was coming in as an agnostic writing about religion. My big overall advice is go in with deep curiosity. Don't go in with an agenda that you're trying to disprove or prove astrology. You're just an explorer, So just go in like with no acts, leave your axes at home.

That I think I can do. After the break, we talked to an astrologer who doesn't believe in astrology. Take a subway ride to Queen's and hear this from my mom.

I felt like a josic though.

Chapter two, just for fun is the phone listening? Are you listening through the phone pattern?

AI?

The algorithm that is the pattern? Back in twenty twenty, one of my friends shot me a text linking to this video of Channing Tatum, the actor had uploaded it himself after using an astrology app called the Pattern, But when Channing's readings became a little too spot on, he freaked out, are you listening through my phone and then just regurgitating the stuff that I'm afraid of and the stuff you know what?

Pattern?

People?

You should just call me. I need answers right now, poor Channing. I don't know if he ever got his answers, but what I do know is that astrology is ubiquitous and lucrative. One venture capital investor told The New York Times that the app co star this Pattern competitor had the POTENTI to be a twenty four billion dollar business, claiming you could one day be as big as Spotify. But if astrology is as big an opportunity as everyone's saying, I'm wondering if my company should get in on the act.

Hey, only, why let me get this closet.

I brought you to this closet because I wanted to pitch you on an astrology app. Are you ready for it? Why is that? What do you think about astrology?

It's dumb?

Oh gosh, Well, maybe you're not the right person for it. But the reason I came to you is because you actually have a bank. You spend only my money. You seem to hoard all your money, and you keep all of Henry's money as well, which you charge him a small fee for. So I thought you might be the savviest person in this family. Is it okay if I pitch you an astrology app?

Okay?

So, so here's my case for it. These aren't your grandmother's horse ghosts, right, They're talking to you in this very fresh and fun way. They're up to the minute with NASA data. They look beautiful, and they have a chat feature where astrologers will chat with you live about your birth charts. Right. And then by twenty nineteen, right, like you could see, astrology are starting to take over

Oh? I know, I'm just speenning. Oh my running on a skateboard? Now on you?

Okay? Well, so Ruby, what type of business would you invest in? Bubble gum? Okay? Chapter three, Truth and Poetry. When you go out with the recorder in hand, it's interesting to see who will talk on tape. We found scientists at NASA who actually wouldn't talk about their interest in astrology to us because they were afraid of losing

My grandfather showed me a little half of a peanut that had the germ in it, and he said, that's going to become a plant. And it was just things like that that got me interested in the world, which is the same as being interested in science.

Jamie is a celebrated science.

Writer, and I'm Sagittarius, although you would not know it from looking at anything about my life. I've got some planet in Capricorn that explains why I'm not an impulsive adventurer.

She has a new book coming out called The Possibility of Life, and she's co editor of the annual Best American Science and Nature writing volumes. And whether it's chatting about our garden or the way we perceive constellations, her capacity for wonder is incredible and infectious. But perhaps what I love most about Jamie was how she clarified that science and astrology don't actually have to be at odds with one another, that we don't need science to disprove astrology.

Exactly scientifically, in terms of astronomy, astrology doesn't hold a lot of meaning because it's all very human centric. From the point of view of looking at the stars from Earth.

The stars are light years apart. They have no real relation to each other except in our minds. But that relationship, the one we make up while looking up at the stars, that means something, or it can mean something if you want it to. It's like a much more.

Eloquent, poetic personal fortune cookie. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I just think that it's for you to take from it what you need. And like, we don't think it's anti science to say a poem is true. I think that's where science gets defensive, is when people say that astrology is a science and has physical roots in the stars. It's like, oh no, it doesn't, but it's true the way a poem is true.

I can't tell you how much I love that. I mean, as someone who's a skeptic but also a romantic, this idea that astrology is true the same way a poem is true. That feels right to me. And it's something my friend Pete also said when I talked to him, Pete Steele is, well, it's complicated, so.

Like, even though I was in like a semi successful musician. I was like, I need to make money somehow, like right now, Like what other skills do I have?

Oh?

I do astrology.

He is a rock star, like a real rock star. He used to be in the Walkman, Oh, that massive seminal indie rock band. And yes, his backup career was professional astrology. When he was younger, he trained with this big famous guru. He was living in his guest house and that's where he learned to read star charts.

You would take him back to him and he would say like, no, it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Like you're wrong, you know, And then he kind of in very traditional style like yell at the apprentice sort of thing.

Kung Fu master right, a very.

Very karate kid kind of feeling right.

Sign.

But here's the other thing. Pete doesn't even believe in astrology. He's a rock star who does astrology for politicians and World Bank economists and all sorts of interesting folks, but he doesn't believe in it.

It's just art to me. And I don't mean that dismissively, like, but that's like my whole being, Like that's what I care about.

What he believes really is in a more vivid reality, a kind of embroidered view of the world. Pete and I both spent formative years in India, and we have a certain comfort in the magical.

If you read like one hundred Years of Solitude or something like that, world of like this kind of magical Columbia, you know, it's like that felt very similar in a lot of ways to how we were raised.

Magical explanations have been woven throughout my life, like why was my family's little community in India so well off a century ago? You could say it's because of luck or global economics. You could say it's because when the Civil War was happening in the US, England actually needed more sources of cotton to replace all the cotton that the US had been producing. And my family they just happened to be in the right place to manage mills

Oh that's funny, okay. Umish's aunt Shardaka, she came to see Amma because she'd heard that, you know, I was available.

I guess this story starts, of course, with two families dusting off their kid's horoscopes and heading them off to a trusted astrologer, not some low level quack.

So they matched it and it mashed perfectly.

The traditional Indian matching system is way more complicated than just saying is you a scorpio? A proper celestial marriage is supposed to be a union of souls, so the astrologers inspect all the vagaries of your chart and pressure test everything like your personalities, your feelings about class and status, even how a couple health will be affected by one another.

My patents want to make sure that the man and married did not ye let me, she asked the astrology, you know, how is his nature? So the Strolgia todama that Umish was a gentle creature, you know, never lost his temper.

So this part is one hundred percent crue. I've only ever heard my dad yell a handful of times, and most of that was when our dog Lupini would just race out of the house and he would run after her with this like slice of Kraft singles cheese, just waving it to try to tempt her back, and it always worked because she was super greedy.

But one fault he'd have is never come on time to the table to have dinner. And we thought it was a big joke, and that came true if we couldn't believe that estrology could be that powerful to tell a quok like that.

Wasn't there something else with the mother in law?

The mother law. Yes, they said that I would be best for a boy that did not have a mother. I really don't know. They said it was something to do with the stars, and if I had a mother in lot, it wouldn't go back so here Umish had lost his mother when he was under a year. I think we just about a year, so it was perfect.

This is something I think about a lot, how astrology accounts for everything. My dad had an ayah or a nanny, but he never had a mother. His life was a series of hostels and boarding schools, sometimes in cities hundreds of miles from his home. It makes me sad to think about. But if his mom had survived, my parents would never have been together. Astrology would have made sure

I wasn't ready. I was still studying and I was in my final year for Masters studying linguistics. I didn't want to give that up and didn't want to get married that fast. Yeah, so I felt like a Josico. I wasn't happy and things were really moving faster than I ever expected. So I said, I'm going to.

Follow this, so just to get the picture. A typical woman hoping for a match would be waiting, sitting by her parents, dressed in a sorry or something traditional, like making a big show of what a quiet and obedient wife they could be. And instead I had.

A miniskirton and I had lambretta.

I wrote that and came, oh, and she's also late, like my mom is the most punctual person I know. She gets at the airport three hours ahead of time, and that since I was a kid, so she's clearly trying to tank this thing.

And my hair I'd let it lose and curly wasn't done. But instead, you know, Mishusana said, oh, that's no problem. We love more than girls.

What type of woman do you think Amma was expecting to present.

She wanted them to know that I was absolutely sensitive and very loving, very kind and gentle with everyone, and animal lover.

But my Grandmam was also incredibly honest, so she was sure to tell my dad's family this.

I had no interest in cooking.

Anyway, despite my mom's lack of interest in the kitchen and her dramatic attempt to topple this whole affair, she somehow still won my dad's family over.

So Ama said, here's the deal. Let him write to you. If you don't like him, it's fine.

Here was a charming writer.

He was a charming writer.

So they wrote letters back and forth for a year, and when they finally met in person, you.

Know, he looked so vulnerable that I said, oh, this is great. I can handle him.

My parents don't have a perfect marriage, but there are lots of wonderful bits things that make me think those thirty two points mean something Like once when they were young, they visited Paris and they went to dinner at this fancy restaurant with a ballroom, and then orchestra started playing and no one was dancing crickets. So my dad just whisked my mom onto the dance floor, and then slowly

My cousin Nana. The girl that they looked for the horoscope matched with him.

Who's your cousin, Nana.

Nana from Manglo, Nal So there was a danger of his brother dying if the girl married None.

No, the astrologers have predicted that if the couple went through with the marriage, even though their horoscopes matched, it could lead to Nanu's brother's death. I mean, who wants that on their hands, even if it's putting your chances for love at risk.

So to this day, he stood a bachelor.

Really, Oh wow, what do you think about that?

It's a shame. Yeah, they could have found other girls, but he just was dejected. He said, normal girls, normal horoscopes.

That's heartbreaking.

It is really is. Yeah.

After chatting with my mom, two things occurred to me. First, the chasm between the way Americans and Indians used astrology that only felt wider, Like no app was going to tell you to quit your NBA to marry some guy in America or to break it off with this girl because it could bring bad luck or death to another family member, like the starkness of the way Indian astrology can be used to control lives. It felt so dark but also pretty intriguing, like it only made me want

I think you got to go all in. So you've got to hire an astrologer to help you with the show. Let's figure out when you should start. When should the air date be. Who should you hire to help you? Should it be a Virgo or a Capricorn? Like, go for it, because that's one way to test it to see does it work for you.

So I decided to find an Indian astrologer and solve both problems. I could lean into my Indian side and also have some fun with it. But what I didn't know was that that visit was going to change my life. Chapter five, We go to Queens. On April ninth, I headed to Queen's to be an astrologer. He's someone my friend and showrunner for the show, Mary recommended that I reach out to, and coincidentally, he happened to be an astrologer that my cousin Aditya had used hey.

Hey, how did you pay? Ah?

That is another rational type. He's kind of this white shoe lawyer. Master's from Cambridge, and he used this astrologer in a difficult time and apparently the predictions had proven accurate. So I've actually wanted to see him again. So I took a train to Jackson Heights to meet doctor Rakish Kamar and we entered his white wood frame office. From the outside, it's kind of nondescripts like this row house, but when you open the door, you immediately sense these

Looking at it. Charged me first nineteen seventy nine, twelve go four in the afternoon, Summit, New Jersey. You were born on a Tuesday. You have the sign cancerizing this.

I've got to say, I was a little surprised by how quickly doctor Kumar dives in. It seems like he's just staring at a bunch of numbers on his screen, but he's interpreting them, kind of like Neo from the Matrix, And I'm curious to hear my reading. But what I really want to do is ask doctor Kamar about the show. I thought it'd be fun if there were these auspicious dates for my podcast, or if you could predict something about how many people would listen. But first he had some questions for me.

So Ha's work been since January twenty twenty.

That's when I decided to quit my job.

Okay, so either you would have quick give a what the job would have quit you one of the things because the time the such because it impacts your converch through your work. Can you. It's so ironic. You come here today two days from now, April thirteenth onwards. Then after a new chapter of your life begins, another beginning of your life, which will be very good.

This is what I came for. I write down April thirteenth on my notebook and I circle it big. Four days from now. That's the date I'm going to get started on my show. Doctor Kamara continues with more work related things. He says foreign travelers in the cards, which is super exciting, and that I should wear an emerald to improve my communication skills, which is funny. I make a note to do an episode on gems and Veda

It's very profound. So you'll make it begin life. You'll be very successful in everything, because then it's shoulda.

I'm so excited about all this tape, getting a start date for the show, the talk of gems, this prediction that everything might go well. That I'm caught off guard by Doctor Kamar's next question, which comes out of nowhere.

Tell me something about your father, like what he did for work or still does.

He's a chemical engineer.

Okay, he's retired.

He's ill right now. Listening back, I don't know why I mentioned my dad was ill. Doctor Kamar hadn't asked, and maybe it's because I was trying to participate fully, like I thought I should let him know. Years ago my dad was diagnosed with cancer, but he actually sailed through that treatment and he's been cancer free for a

Because that's why I asked again. From the time it started a couple of years back till now, a situation doesn't look good for father. There is risk to father.

This thing about my dad. It was a throwaway line in the middle of an hour and a half interview. I don't even know how closely I was listening. By the time we hit stop on the recorder, I was thrilled. I had over an hour of material and I was cutting tape in my head as I was asking questions,

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