MYSORE: Astrologers foretelling the future of people with the aid of a parrot in a gilded cage is a familiar sight in Southern India. But now though, there seems to have been a ‘change of guard’ with trained rats taking over from the domesticated birds.It is a group of ‘star gazers’ from Gundlupet taluk who has been at the vanguardof this tectonic shift. The novel method of employing rodents to foretell the future has attracted droves of people to the astrologers’ camp at the Malle Mahadeshwara (MM) Hills. As huge numbers of devotees turn up during the Diwali festivities, the astrologers, who painted the rats with brown, black and white stripes, have used them to further their business.The rodents brought from farms in neighbouring Tamil Nadu are raised by the astrologer family . Wearing a white dothi or donning saffron clothes, the astrologer with holy ash or vermillion smeared on his forehead request the rat to pick a suitable card out of the 27 fortune cards.Guruswamy, an astrologer who keeps a four-year old-rat, said they charge Rs 30 per person during the temple festival and Rs 80 during the off-season . He said around 10 astrologers had set up camp at the MM Hills with rats in tow and the group was pretty hopeful of doing good business on account of the plethora of festivals in the region. According to Guruswamy, people used to parrot astrology will easily make the switch as rat is regarded as the mythical vehicle of Lord Ganesha.
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