It was my friend Usha who introduced me to the new arrival in our locality. The astrologer was old, looked wise and he wore a saffron robe. He sat on a charpoy under a banyan tree, sheaves of paper stacked under his folded legs. A well fed green parrot cackled inside a rusted cage. Women of different shapes and sizes, huddled together close to him on a coir mat battling the summer heat.