Fortune-tellers are met with in every village and town of India. They wander from place to place and earn their livelihood. They do not know anything of palmistry or astrology but experience teaches ‘hem how to defraud their ignorant and superstitious customers. A fortune-teller puts on a queer dress like that of a learned Brahmana.
I met a fortune-teller some days back. He read my palm and told me a lot of things about my past and future. I was greatly surprised when he told me correctly about my parentage, the history of my life and related some important incidents of my life.
As I was a complete stranger to him I was puzzled to think how he came by all this information. He made several predictions. Some of them had already come out to be true. The time for the fulfilment of others had not yet come. I felt naturally interested in what he said.
He knitted his eyebrows and looked with concentrated attention into the lines of my palm. He kept looking at them with a fixed gaze for a pretty long time. He then raised his eyes and asked me whether one of my relatives had broken his right arm a couple of months back.
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I had to confess that it was so. My curiosity was whetted. I wanted to know more from him. He went on reading my palm all the more attentively. He told me, to my great surprise, when I had lost my father, when my younger sister had died and when a near relative of mine had been dismissed from service on charges of embezzlement and misappropriation.
I was very much impressed and wanted to know something about my future. He told me that I would get a decent job in the near future and that I would get an offer of marriage from a millionaire. He further told me that there were indications in my palm that I would rise to a very lofty position in life. I felt very elated by these prophecies.
I related to my mother all that the fortune-teller had told me. She disappointed me saying that all he had said was humbug and nonsense and was not to be believed. She advised me to work hard. It was only by dint of hard work that a man could rise. I took my mother’s advice and began to work in right earnest, to achieve success and greatness.