THE PARROT'S CHOICE

             On the roadside pavement of Bhubaneswar city, near the AG Square, I used to see a  middle-aged  palmist a few years ago, very often , under a tree  sitting on a mat. His ochre-dhoti and shirt, the scattered books of occult knowledge and above all his parrot attracted a good number of curious people to him. Simple believers very often consulted him to know about their future, love life, job prospects, promotion in service and court cases etc. giving a hefty amount as consulting fee. He would carefully observe their palms ,close his eyes for sometime, chant some incantations and utter some gibberish not intelligible to anybody, then prophesy about their future. And I had seen a smile of contentment on the faces of many. 

            Anyway, the most important thing about him was his use of the pet parrot to look into the future of  a consulting person. Right from the word go  the parrot mechanically performed its function. It would come out of its cage at its master's command .and stand before a stack of cards ,neatly piled up one above the other. Then the bird would choose one card at random out of the stack, pull it out with its beak and would hold it out before  its master. In turn, the palmist  would offer nuts to the parrot coaxing it to go into the cage once again. Then the palmist read out the content of the card and made his customers happy. 

( Writer - Dr. Pradeep Kumar Nayak )