He is perhaps attracting the maximum attention at the CII trade fair. But astrologer M A Shehzad Khan from Pakistan, who has been predicting the future of many, may not have foreseen that some day, Indians would be thronging him with their problems.

Even as he reads palms and doles out predictions like an expert, his nationality becomes as much a source of curiosity for visitors as the fact that he is a Muslim palmist and astrologer. Isn’t this practice not prohibited as per the tenets of his religion, we ask?

“The punchline of my trade, as you read, is ‘God Knows Better.’ These are all man-made restrictions. I faced opposition in my country when I started practicing astrology. People beseeched me in the name of Quran but they could not justify that it is is prohibited as per the scripture,” says Khan, who is also a practicing lawyer at the Punjab Bar Council in Lahore.

This is his second visit to India and Khan is happy with the response he is receiving. “It is overwhelming. I know that people are coming to me out of curiosity but it is encouraging nevertheless,” smiles Khan, who claims to have predicted the results of the last Assembly elections held in his country.

While he dwells on the cold vibes being shared between the two nations across the border, he finds commenting on the Kashmir issue ‘dangerous’.

“I have to go back and live there. I do not want to attract any unwanted attention from the government,” he says.

... contd.