People suffer from many superstitions. One of the popular superstitions is the perception of arstrologers towards astrology. Whether astrology is science or not may be a debatable issue. It is true that astrologers don’t base their perceptions on the study of stars. Nor do they care much for the movement of the planets and their effect on man’s life. They are like Shastri of the story. All their predictions are based on hearsay and conjecture. They are not based on any scientific or rational study of stars.

The attitude of Shastri in the story is self-explanatory. He is merely a parrot. He utters what the narrator asks him to say. Shastri replies that ‘a girl’ is the cause of Ranga’s unhappiness. The narrator asks Shastri if there is any chance of their negotiations for Ratna bearing fruit. The astrologer replies “definitely”.

Sometimes astrologers are tutored by their clients. They move their lips and count on their fingers just to impress unsuspecting persons. Shastri exactly does so to impress Ranga. The poor fellow doesn’t know that Shastri has repeated what he has been tutored. He only knows that whatever the astrologer says is “absolutely true”.