Signless

** The words in bold are contest prompt. 

“Where Should I begin? The signs of my birth were absent. I came, plonk! and the nurse was surprised. It is possible that her mind was briefly distracted into attention by this entity shaped like a peanut. At once she must've thought about weakness. Something so magical for the parents; so dull to her that her mind was almost at once back to some boy or the other, and nail polish, or the evening. Also, nobody cares about things that have no signs (except signs themselves which seldom have signs, and if they do, to propose that these signs had signs too would be any reasonable rights to speculate. A sign of a sign is utter confusion: Imagine a road with an infinite regression of signs? where will they end? Or rather, where will they begin? These questions are worth asking.)”

Somehow, my mother failed to ask all these worthy questions. She did something that was done from the beginning of time, in a bid, to not leave me ‘Signless’.

'Signless' —Is that even a word per se? I wonder what use it is to be concerned about everyday language when it becomes part of our lived realities?

Uh oh!! Before I plunge further into pursuing on how organic any language is—which is worth my time than my state of signless-ness—let me recount the details of my mother's mission, to which she sought my ever-dependable father's help.

She visited the most famous astrologer. These were the days before the internet. Getting a person's natal chart drawn took effort, and it was done only by a practiced guru.

My mother believed that the one she met was a true astrologer than the one I read about in 'An Astrologer's day', though, she claimed that he had similar paraphernalia, but a better collection of Palmyra texts.

According to her, he made a believable effort of reading these leaves and consulting other complicated charts which were cross-referenced to assess my personality, psychological patterns, and life path.

Of course, to do all this, he required the precise location of my birth which my mother provided gladly; the precise date of my birth as per the Hindu calendar and that too was done without any hassle. You see, there are ways to convert Gregorian calendar days to that of the Hindu calendar, and finally, he asked for the precise time of birth. This is where my mother faltered as I came plonk! with no signs.

My parents and the quite-possibly-distracted nurse failed to note down the exact time of my birth.

She knew it was in the morning, certainly after 8.30 as my father left her at the maternity ward of the stinking government hospital, which was the only accessible medical care available, to have his breakfast.

He vowed that it was not after 9 am, as he ate his breakfast with military precision and spent only 15 minutes at that.

He dutifully calculated the to and fro time to the food stall at the street corner and since he chose the readily available Idlis than to wait for the oily, tasty, crispy, roasted ghee Dosas, he took exactly 22 minutes to finish his breakfast and come back.

Now, this put the astrologer in a new dilemma, for the charts changed in a matter of seconds. A person's life path could turn out to be that of a king or a beggar or even a thief within an instant.

He requested my parents to remember the precise time and get back to him, for he cannot prepare my birth-chart without this essential detail or makeup something which could very-well affect his calculations. After all, he had a reputation to uphold.

And there went another chance to not to be ‘Signless’!!