Periods, Pyaar And Patriarchy

Chapter Twenty-one

"This card has also appeared in reverse, which is interesting. If it were upright, I would read it as anxiety and fear- something that you probably must have faced after whatever happened. However, this one in reverse means desperation- it pushed you to the brink of desperation. You reached a point where you couldn't take it anymore- whatever you had within was killing you and you reached out. You found a way to reach out for help. And then we have Death in an upright position; it fits perfectly with the reading." Ritika says, holding out the death card.

Shruti feels a little shiver run in her spine at the accuracy of the statements.

"Death as scary as it sounds isn't a card to be afraid of. It's' rather a positive card- it doesn't signify people dying or something. It refers to the end of cycles and the beginning of something new, something different. You could call it metamorphosis. Whatever the Four Wands was talking about, it pushed you to change. And you have. Wonderfully, might I add." Ritika says, her eyes soft as she looks at Shruti.

Shruti can feel her emotions rising to the surface. Like her sister, she wasn't one to believe in messages from the universe and things as such. But this afternoon, felt so unreal and unexplainable.

Ritika upturns the three other cards that she had pulled out earlier to describe Shruti's present- where she currently was in life.

The first card she pulls out has seven golden goblets suspended in the air, each of which has a different entity in it. One has a head, the other has wealth, and so on. This comes up in an upright position. The second card she pulls out has a man hanging upside down from a tree. His right foot is bound to the tree whereas his left one is free. This card, however, does not appear to be scary. The look on the person's face seems content- almost as though he were in a position out of choice. The third card is in an upright position as well and has a man wearing a cloak and holding a lamp. He has a staff with him as well, his beard is white and on the bottom is written 'The Hermit'.

Ritika stares at the cards for a while before she picks up the one with seven golden goblets. "This is the seven of cups, which we have in an upright position. You clearly have a lot of dreams as the card shows- each of the cups has a different thing in it. And thus, you have a lot of thoughts and dreams that you haven't been able to map out clearly. Your ideas are not clear, your imagination is running wild and your judgment still is cloudy. To clarify this, we have the hanged man. This one talks about indecision." Ritika pauses to take a breath.

Pulling up the Hanged Man card, she starts, "This state of indecision is, however, not something bad. This is a state you need to be in right now- you don't have a clear picture yet. That is why you're currently feeling very much not in control- you need to let the puzzle pieces fall to their places and then make your decision. There is time and you are not running out of it."

Picking up the third card, 'The Hermit', she says, "As I said, this is a place in your life where you require deep contemplation. You need to be able to go within yourself and look for what is it that you want. Maybe these days you've been distancing yourself from the world and staying away from actively participating in it. The cards tell me that this is not something you should try to run away from. Rather, let the silence come and it will bring clarity with it."

"Damn," Shruti whispers, biting her tongue.

"And now for the last set- your future. Again, what lies ahead depends on you. You can choose to change it anytime you want; none of this is set in stone." Ritika says.

"Think of it like permutations and combinations. Or for that matter, probability in mathematics." Javed interjects, "There are a hundred, thousand possibilities for your future. This is just one."