Narrator, who sounds a lot like Jeff Goldblum: The following show includes stories of sound baths, ketamine, Pittsburgh, improv comedy, dating, and a snake curse. If any of that offends you, if you’re faint of heart, simply switch this off and fire up one of my many fine movies instead. Might I suggest Jurassic Park? Rrrarrh ahh-haha harr. Yes.
Mangesh: So I’m guessing you figured this out, but that… that wasn’t Jeff Goldblum.
George: Hi. I'm George Aivaliotis, and I'm a comedian, actor, uh, nightmare. LA multihyphenate.
Mangesh: George is smart and funny—and pulls off a great Jeff Goldblum, not just because he sounds like him, but he’s also wiry and handsome, with dark features, in a young Goldblum way. Like most comedians, George is also pretty neurotic. And one of the ways he channels his neuroses is by tracking everything.
George: I write anything down that resonates with me. Like, my notes on my phone are like a compulsive compendium. Like, if I read a book, I transcribe every passage that matters to me. I do believe in, like, building your own meaning.
Mangesh: His notes are meticulous, and endless—lists of every book he’s read, recipes he’s tried, quotes, stats, down to minute details from conversations. So, while I could keep trying to paint a picture of George’s personality, instead, I’m going to let him read the results of just a few of the Buzzfeed quizzes he’s taken.
George, in a dizzying montage: Yeah, I am C-3PO: Because I'm neurotic. And a people pleaser. Sex and the City, I'm a Charlotte, a romantic, annoyingly moral. Um, literary character, you are Holden Caulfield. Highly intelligent and sensitive, but also very cynical. If you don't get it together, you might have an emotional breakdown.
Mangesh: Can you even imagine keeping track of every online personality quiz you’ve ever taken?
George, continuing: Harry Potter. I'm a Hufflepuff. I am loyal, honest, and kind. Dogs. I'm a Shiba Inu. I sometimes get accused of being aloof, but I'm just picky. Parks and Rec, Rob Lowe's character. Your positivity can be off putting, but it's a good influence on all your pessimistic friends.
Mangesh: He’s got more! He can keep going! Maybe I should just cut to…
George: Um, Muppets. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.
Cip of the Muppets: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, here at Muppet Labs, where the future is being made today.
George: You're smart, inventive, and stylish. (laughs.)
Mangesh: George sees bits of himself in each of these quizzes. Like: he does love science—what can be proven, backed up. But in LA, in the scene he’s in, every person he meets is obsessed with crystals and psychics and human potential and stars.
George: I would say that 90% of the dates I've been on in LA, that will come up. Like, “Oh, you're a Gemini. Ugh. Aren't you guys crazy?”
Mangesh: It’s just been one dating disaster after another.
George: Like on our third date she said, “I wonder what you'd be like if you moved through the world with confidence. My ex was really confident. He was often on cocaine, but it was incredible how he would walk in a room and just charm everyone.”
Mangesh: Or the woman who read his stars and insisted:
George: “You have the same chart as Obama, which is interesting, because you're not very presidential.”
Mangesh: So anytime he falls for a girl, the astrology thing always seems to be a roadblock.
George: Truly, every time a friend would ask, I'd be like, it's wonderful. She's wonderful. Except for this one thing. She really, really believes in astrology.
Mangesh: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Mangesh Hattikudur. Welcome to Skyline Drive.
Chapter One. Easy Target
Back when I started working on this show, and asked people what they thought about astrology, everyone immediately wanted to talk about dating.
Man 1: When astrology shows up in a date, it can kind of feel like a slowdown in traffic. Like, should I be looking for ways around this, or is this gonna be quick, or are we just gonna be sitting here for hours talking about astrology.
Man 2: I think if you take it seriously, then I'm kind of putting you in the, uh, Marianne Williamson anti-vaxxer camp just a little bit.
Woman 1: You're talking to some random person and they're like, because I'm a Sagittarius, I am a bitch. And it's like, I don't know if that's why you're a bitch, actually. I too am a bitch and I'm not a Sagittarius.
Mangesh: And truthfully, I’m guessing a lot of you were waiting for our big dating episode. It’s not that we didn’t do the interviews.
Woman 2: I only care about astrology when it relates to love.
Man 3: I mean, I've been on dates where people ask my sign, and the problem, and maybe this is why I am not so into astrology, is that I think I'm the most universally reviled sign, which is Gemini.
Woman 2: I use it more for the signs I shouldn't date, which is like, Sagittarius, not great. Gemini? No way. Never, a dealbreaker.
Man 3: We get a lot of, uh, haters. And now here I am identifying as a we, even though I just said a second ago I don't believe in it. But nonetheless, there's a lot of Gemini haters out there who will say, oh, so you're a duplicitous liar. And I'm like, look, I don't even want to try to defend myself against that because it doesn't make any sense in the first place.
Woman 2 I asked him what his star sign was and he said, Aquarius. And I sent, like, the ghost face emoji. And he was like, what's the problem?
Mangesh: But as I listened to more and more stories of how my friends were interacting with astrology, I realized that I wasn’t doing a good job of articulating part of what I wanted from this show. Like, I was trying to get at how astrology is just this ambient presence in Indian life; this ever present hum that exists in the background. So I asked my friend Namrata about it.
Namrata: In India, the relationship with astrology is like, it's like smoking. Like you might not smoke, but you're gonna get secondhand astrology anyway.
Mangesh: Namrata’s parents are diplomats, and whether they were posted in Russia, or Canada, or Poland, or wherever, she was always teaching new friends about Indian culture: from how to from celebrate Diwali to why a cup of chai pairs so nicely with a chili cheese toast. Her family’s whole story is interesting to me. Her parents met as students training to join the foreign service.
Namrata: And so they were doing all of their training together. And the way that my mom tells the story is, she might kill me a little bit, but it's such a cute story.
Mangesh: When her dad met her mom and witnessed her brilliance in classes, he just couldn’t get her out of his head. So with each posting, he would conveniently figure out a way to be close by.
Namrata: Like in the neighboring province or whatever, but show up where she was on the weekends. So I think he chased her all around India until she married him. He's stubborn. A Taurus! And that worked out for him.
Mangesh: Her parents are from very different backgrounds.
Namrata: My mother comes from a Punjabi Sikh family from New Delhi. My father is from a Hindu family. And so, you know, no one would ever arrange their marriage, because they're from different religions, different languages, different parts of India.
Mangesh: Often when you’re getting an arranged marriage, families are looking for matches from the same community, so there’s little chance these two would have ever been paired up. But once they fell in love, they just ignored astrology. They’d found their partner, and they didn’t need it. But as much as Namrata has kind of avoided astrology for most of her life, or at least not actively interacted with it, as a newly single person, she’s found the topic unavoidable.
Namrata: I can stretch a metaphor to death. it did feel like when you'd go to a party and you, like, you're not a smoker, but you would stand outside just so you could like be part of the conversation and kinda like, hang out and have this moment. And like, now it'll be like, oh my gosh, like Mercury is in retrograde again. And everyone's like, I'm telling you, and then you can start chatting about the weird shit that's happening in your life.
Mangesh: In America, astrology tends to be easy shorthand for young romantics. And it’s often a crude sorting system.
Namrata: People will just volunteer it for no reason. It'll just be like, here's how tall I am, and I'm a Scorpio, and you're like, wow, that- that's all I need to know?
Mangesh: It’s this persistent stereotype that trails you around, allowing people to judge you based on which 30 days you were born. And everyone born in that period is treated like they’re exactly the same. But it’s funny how even Namrata gets dragged into this line of thinking.
Namrata: I don't think I I'm going into it being like, so-and-so is a Libra, and so of course it's never going to work. I don't actually know what that would mean, but I will also do the thing where I'll be like, oh yeah, of course, another Aquarius. For some reason, I keep dating them. I don't know, I don’t know what that is. I'm trying, Mangesh, why are you asking these questions?
Mangesh: I guess maybe we should have just done a dating episode. But instead I kept coming back to… trees. Well, people who have to marry trees.
Let me explain. In India, there’s an astrological sign called a manglik. The word literally means Mars-cursed, that is, you have Mars occupying your house of love and marriage. And that curse will supposedly cause a spouse to die early. Being a manglik is treated with incredible seriousness. In some cultures, mangliks are only allowed to marry other mangliks.
Luckily, there’s a workaround. Since the curse only affects your first marriage, a manglik will often have a first marriage to, like, a clay pot. Which you can break afterwards to transfer the curse away. Or some people marry, like I mentioned, a tree.
Clip of The Giving Tree readaloud: Once there was a tree, and she loved that little boy. He would climb up her trunk and swing from a branch and eat apples.
Mangesh: This is way more intense than The Giving Tree, though. There’s a full ceremony and everything.
This is obviously highly controversial, because what does it mean that in a very modern and progressive country, individuals end up having to undergo these weddings to satisfy a superstition? And because it mostly affects women (or is perceived to), the whole thing is seen as anti-feminist.
Take Aishwarya Rai, for example. Rai is one of India’s most famous celebs—a Bollywood star, former Miss World.
Aishwarya Rai, acting in Bride and Prejudice: I’m not good enough for your mother. And you think i'd want to leave my family for you after you ruined my sister's life?
Mangesh: She’s a manglik… and there are media reports that she actually married two trees before she could marry another Indian star.
Her father-in-law, the Bollywood legend Amitabh Bacchan, has actually scolded the press, saying: “Where is the tree? Show me the tree.” You know, denying the rumors. But it’s hard to know what the truth is. Rai’s family comes from a culture steeped in animist Hindu tradition, but as one of India’s most watched celebrities, she’s also under intense pressure as a feminist, and as a role model for Indian values.
So, if a tree gets married in the forest, who really knows, right?
Anyway, that’s the kind of astrology I wanted to explore in this series. The strange and fantastic places the stars can take you if you believe in it. But that’s not exactly what happened either. Astrology just kept happening to me. It didn’t matter whether I believed or not.
Chapter Two. You’re A Good Snake
There’s no question that George is a romantic, but as he and I talked about dating and love, our conversations just kept getting pulled towards this question of belief.
George: I was a skeptic from like grade school.
Mangesh: George just can’t stop questioning things. It’s been something innate, since his childhood in Pittsburgh, when he was dragged to his family’s Greek Orthodox church every week.
George: I was like, this old man in the sky's telling us how to dress. Why does he care what we wear? That's really weird. He sees through our clothes? Doesn't make any sense. My dad would be like, just put on the suit.
Mangesh: He always felt like kind of a black sheep, he told me. He was bullied for being a quote space cadet poet artist. Even at art school, the competitive nature made him feel like an outcast. And now that he has all these wonderful friends who he really identifies with… except when it comes to new age beliefs… maybe it’s just that he just doesn’t want to feel left out again.
George: You know, I really wish I believed in this stuff because you and your friends, the spiritual friends are so much happier. And they have really open hearts too, as a result, because they really trust the universe.
Mangesh: Which is something I can relate to. My parents had such deep convictions about spirituality. And as a kid, I just assumed that the things my parents believed would one day make sense to me. Like, on my 18th birthday or whatever, I’d just have this understanding that would snap into place. And until then, I’d just keep going through the motions.
But despite claiming he believes in nothing, George has seemingly tried everything! Part of it’s curiosity, but also, he seems particularly amenable whenever a cute girl is involved.
George, in a dizzying montage: Like we went to a sound bath. I've had friends do tarot readings. And then she was like, have you done your human design chart? She's really in touch with this language or this like psychic thing, and it's called the Akashic record. She just did a cold read on me.
Mangesh: George has engaged with countless experiments in belief. He just can’t get off the experience treadmill. So, when another date told him maybe he should try ketamine to counter his depression because it had helped her, of course he tried it.
George: I found this therapist and she was like, yeah, ketamine is not what I'd recommend for your, what, what you're going through. You have really negative stories about yourself and a lot of trauma and you need to sever the ties with those beliefs. And for that I'd recommend 5-MEO-DMT, or the poison of the Sonoran desert toad.
Mangesh: I mean, to many people, inhaling desert toad poison to heal yourself might also seem like a new agey belief, but because it was presented to George in a “scientific way,” he was much more comfortable with it. And as the experience grew more intense, George was drawn into this recent memory.
George: My friend and I were on a hike and this garter snake slid across the hiking path really fast. And she jumped back like, oh my God, really scared, like deathly scared. And I was like, immediately, I saw it was a garter snake. And I thought, oh, it's harmless. And then while I was tripping, I thought, why do I hurt myself with words and self-hate and this, this depression? I’m so cruel to myself. I wouldn't even hurt a snake. And I don't even like snakes. I feel nothing for them. And I started laughing while I was tripping and this phrase popped up, which was, you're a good snake.
I kept saying, you're a good snake. You're allowed to be here. You're a good snake. You're allowed to be here.
Mangesh: All this talk of snakes and shaman, and belief and skepticism, it makes me think of this story my mom told me when I interviewed her for this show.
Mangesh: Um, tell me a little bit about pregnancies and birth. Like, you guys had a hard time having me was there anything that indicated that you would have a child or wouldn't have a child?
Mom Hattikudur: No, they didn't read that far. They didn't, at least they didn't tell us.
Mangesh: One of the things I don’t often talk about is the miracle of my own birth. For a number of years, my parents had one miscarriage after another. They couldn’t carry a baby to term. I think my mom ended up in the hospital two or three times, and they had five or six miscarriages. And then, when my mom was pregnant with me, my grandfather tried something different. Here’s my mom telling the story.
Mom Hattikudur: He went to the temple in Goa, and he lit a lamp and had the priest light the lamp every day for you in your honor before you were born.
Mangesh: They prayed. They kept the flame going continuously for nine months, and when I was finally born, my parents named me Mangesh, after that temple in Goa. And so that’s one story. The other part is the science part. It’s less magical, but equally miraculous. The pregnancy was so high risk that the doctor put my mom on intense bed rest.
Mom H: I was in bed for nine months. Seven months, he said, I could take a little easier. I could sit up, but not walk too much.
Mangesh: But why were you high risk?
Mom H: Because they said that my own body wouldn't allow the fetus to grow. So they had to fool it. And that’s what they did.
Mangesh: The way my mom explains it, they had to trick her body with thyroid pills and barbiturates, and only once they heard my heartbeat, they let her get up to start taking baths. But only baths.
Mom H: No showers. No standing up at all.
Mangesh: Wow.
Mom H: So you’re precious, Mangesh.
Mangesh: These are stories I know; stories I’ve always known. But as I chatted with my mom, another story cropped up. Another possible reason for the miscarriages… and one I definitely hadn’t heard before.
Mom H: Once I got married to Umesh, they said the curse was on the Hattikudur family. And it came on to me because I was bringing the progeny in.
Mangesh: What's the curse of the Hattikudur family?
Mom H: It's something to do with the snakes.
Mangesh: What?! You haven't told me about this ever before.
Mom H: Every time I got pregnant, I’d see the snake chasing me everywhere.
Mangesh: During every miscarriage, where they’d often lose the child right before the three month mark, my mom would have these horrible nightmares about snakes.
Mom H: I grew up in the country with lots of land around.
Mangesh: My mom’s dad was a chief of forestry, so often they were posted on the edges of jungles, where there was no shortage of snakes. They would come into the house to escape the heat and hide in the rolled-up carpets, and when the staff would unroll the carpets in the evening to set the home up for big dinners and events, the snakes would try to slither out.
Mom H: And then one servant would call another and the gardener would come and three and four would come with this big staffs and big sticks and just hack it to death.
Mangesh: My mom, like George, finds real solace in nature. She can identify most flowers and trees. And she’s crazy about animals. so, of course she couldn’t stomach the way these snakes were being treated.
Mom H: The poor poor little thing. So I always thought that my psyche had worked on it because I was little and felt sorry, because I'm an animal lover. That I felt sorry for the snake.
Mangesh: So, my mom assumed these dreams were just psychological. But when my dad’s family was like, oh no, we actually have this long-standing snake curse in our family because we killed some snakes clearing our land generations ago, or whatever the story was—and believe me, I know how crazy this sounds—they clarified: your nightmares are probably coming from that.
That’s when my dad’s sister, Indakka, stepped in to help.
Mom H: Indakka took us to a guy, a holy man.
Mangesh: He performed a ceremony for them, but also…
Mom H: He gave me a mantra to sing. [mantra starts playing softly] and every day I had to recite it, and so had Umesh. And slowly the fear of the snakes kind of abated. And then I saw Shanta Durga in my dreams.
Mangesh: Shanta Durga is one of our family’s patron deities, a goddess of light and wisdom and, oddly enough, fertility.
Mom H: But she had four arms. That's how they depict her, her energy.
Mangesh: As many times as I’ve been to the Shantadurga temple, which is also in Goa, or stared at illustrations of Shanta Durga on family altars, sure, I’ve noticed the goddess’s four arms, but also, she has like three giant hooded cobras sitting at her feet just facing you. So before my mom said this, if you gave me a pop quiz and asked me how many snakes Shanta Durga was holding, I’m not sure I’d have known the answer. But the answer is two. Two of her hands are in these mudras, or poses that indicate divine protection and granting your wishes, and her other two hands hold these tiny cobras. So, when Shanta Durga came to my mom in a dream, and my mom noticed the snakes in her hands…
Mom H: I said: “et tu Brute? I'm going to lose all faith in you.” She said, “no, no.” She said, “I can protect you as well as the snakes, and the two shall never meet.”
Mangesh: And then my mom—the lit major, the MBA, the modern woman who had stayed on bed rest for the full term of my pregnancy, with a little bit of sitting up at seven months—finally had me.
Mangesh: But it's so crazy, right. Because it's not like our family is steeped in superstitions. And so why do we put faith in, in things like a curse of a serpent?
Mom H: I think anything works when you're desperate. It doesn't cost you very much, right, to go ahead and do whatever they tell you to do. And you feel like you're giving it your best. That's the main thing. Yeah.
Mangesh: Is that your feeling about astrology?
Mom H: Yes. I think so.
Mangesh: I keep mulling my mom’s words over in my head. How anything works when you’re desperate, how it doesn’t cost you very much to do whatever they tell you to do. How you want to feel like you’re giving it your best. And I guess that’s true. Whether you’re trying to find love, or unpack trauma, or have a child when you think you can’t, there can be comfort in the trying, and beauty in the wanting to believe even when it defies reason.
Chapter Three. This Is Always Going To Be A Theme In Your Life
So trust me, we all get the irony of this, but today George is about to talk to an astrologer to find out:
George: Will I ever believe in anything? Or will I remain a hardened skeptic, alone in the universe?
Mangesh: I’m excited to hear what Janelle thinks about how philosophical his mind is and whether his skepticism shows up in his birth chart. And because George is so open and witty, I can’t wait to hear him react in real time.
But something has changed since the last time George and I spoke. When he logs on to the video call, I can see that his foot is in a cast. He’s stuck on a couch, reaching awkwardly to grab things from a table nearby, and he’s subdued and clearly a little distracted.
George: I broke my foot last week, and my whole next six to eight weeks is completely different now.
Mangesh: This isn’t the same George I met earlier, and I’m worried. I mean, what was I thinking? Bringing a total skeptic who stops dating people when he finds out they believe in astrology… to an astrologer? Why did I think this would work? From the moment I hit record, it doesn’t go well.
Janelle: Okay. Can you guys hear me? Are we all good? ?
Mangesh: Like, during the taping Janelle keeps asking if George is still there.
Janelle: All right. Uh, did I lose you?
George: No, no.
Janelle: Okay. Okay. Any questions about that?
George: No.
Mangesh: But Janelle proceeds, unfazed:
Janelle, in a dizzying montage: Career is a big part of your life and your focus. And this Mars says, I really want to achieve something. You have Saturn in the house of publishing, television, radio, film. Your Jupiter is king of the castle and Jupiter as a planet is all about faith. It's all about the things that expand our mind and our sense of belief. You're still coming out of this dark phase where you're supposed to be hopefully dreaming about what you wanted next for yourself. Saturn in the ninth house says I have a lot of fear around these things, talking about faith and belief and religion.
Uh, did I lose you again?
Mangesh: For all the readings we’ve done so far, no one is as deeply unresponsive as George is. In fact, he barely says anything. For someone trained in improv, he is NOT yes-anding the situation in the slightest.
George, in a dizzying but monosyllabic montage: Umm. Actually now I forget. Wow. Mm-hmm. Um. Hmm. Sure, Yeah. Romance. What's going on? No. Uh-huh. No. Hmm. That’s a lot to think about.
Mangesh: I don’t know what’s happening! She’s explaining all these things he said he wanted to know about!
Janelle: All right, so are there questions in particular that I can help you with regarding this? How else can I help you?
George: I don't know. What, what would be an example of a question?
Mangesh: Finally, there’s one moment where he starts to open up a little. Janelle is pushing George on his skepticism, and he tells her he just can’t believe in anything he can’t quantify.
George: That skepticism continues with all things unmeasurable.
Mangesh: And Janelle assures him that that’s also a part of who he is.
Janelle: That's the point of Gemini energy. Discernment is always gonna be your friend. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but I do think this is always gonna be a theme in your life. Enjoy the process of discovery versus feeling like skepticism means I can't learn and everything's gonna be wrong. It's just like, how will you know unless you ask?
George: That's cool.
Mangesh: So, not entirely a success. That is, until I actually talk to George again.
Chapter Four. How Is This Working?
Mangesh: I’ve been waiting to catch up with George, to find out why he was so distant during his reading. Why he wasn’t engaged. When I email him to find a time, he says he’s busy with work. He has a big audition, and he’s apologetic, but it takes us a little while to connect.
Mangesh: How, how'd your audition go?
George: Oh, good. I just got a callback, so.
Mangesh: Oh, terrific. So, tell me what, what do you think about the reading?
George: It was really interesting.
Mangesh: “interesting” isn’t the word I was expecting him to use.
George: You know, out the gate, it was so accurate. I was like, this is a dead ringer for my life, but how is this working? You know, part of me was like, there's no way this isn't a trick.
Mangesh: But I, I was surprised because like, I couldn't tell how you were responding.
George: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Even if something was really on the nose, I'd be like, Mmmm, there's something suspicious about that. You know, like when she said like something really big- what was the language of like the new moon? And that something big happened for you in May 2019. It was like, Yeah. Yeah. The biggest career thing for that that's ever happened was May 2019.
Mangesh: George is playing it cool, but I’m kinda blown away. In the summer of 2019, George was named a “new face” of comedy by the prestigious Just For Laughs festival. And it’s the kind of thing that makes Hollywood notice and launches careers.
Mangesh: Yeah, it's huge.
George: It was for me a huge deal. It was like the first time I got a big thumbs up from, you know, the gods of comedy. Her opening was so dead on for my life, like, sort of the family of origin and breaking out of like doing your own thing. Like my grandfather drove me past a photographer's art studio and it was this dilapidated, very depressing building in Pittsburgh.
Mangesh: Mm-hmm.
George: And he goes [imitating his grandfather, in a Greek accent] “That's going to be you. This will be your life.” But like, as much as I'm a skeptic, I feel like I'm such a Gemini.
Mangesh: I’m fascinated by George’s push/pull, so I ask him a little more about it.
George: I have trouble when people say, you know, you deserve this. And I'm like, oh, we are a random organism spinning on a rock. I don't know that humans deserve anything other than like the basic biological package of like, love, community, shelter, water, sunlight. Like, you deserve that for sure. But like, did I deserve the part on that show? Come on.
Mangesh: During the reading, what I assumed was this dismissive, unengaged behavior, where George was looking down and mumbling one-word responses… was in fact him taking detailed notes on everything Janelle was saying.
George: I wrote down a lot of what she said, like, “Choose people who are limitless with your growth, who are joyous of your discovery. Your belief system is changing. You're gonna attract new people.” I have all my notes highly categorized, so I have like, it'll be like therapy, recipes, comedy, I didn't even think about this. I put the astrology reading into therapy.
Mangesh: I’m relieved that he got something from the experience. A phone full of notes, it turns out. But as we wrap up, I ask about his foot. He sounded so despondent about it the last time we chatted, I’m curious how he’s doing. But instead of telling me how he broke it while camping, he tells me how it immediately led to some funny-slash-disappointing experiences.
George: After I got back from the ER with my broken foot, my friend was like, I'm gonna cook you the most delicious dinner, steak, quinoa salad. It's gonna fine, don't worry.
Mangesh: He gets promised this delicious campfire meal, but then when they’re about to start prepping they realize…
George: All of our food was gone. A bear was next to our campsite and it was raiding the garbage. The bear had eaten everything.
Mangesh: Ha.
George: And I was like, I just immediately started laughing because I was like, that's perfect.
Mangesh: Horrible experiences are gold for George.
George: The worse the experience, the better the story. Like I was just joking that I had a really wonderful date, and I was telling my friend, I'm sorry, I have nothing to tell you other than we laughed, we made dinner, we had great sex. You don't need any details. But like, the other date that week that was really weird and twisty and strange, we're gonna talk about that for two hours.
Mangesh: So, of course, it’s perfect that a bear ate his meal. But when he’s skeptical about love:
George: I was like, George, you have to be okay with the fact that you might never find that. It is like hitting the lottery to get it.
Mangesh: Or his career:
George: I have to be okay with not getting that in the same way that I’m okay with maybe never being in a Taika Waititi movie. Or Wes Anderson. I would love that. I would love that. And I think I’d do well, but they may never happen.
Mangesh: I wonder if those stories are just to entertain others, too. Because George is a performer. A really good performer. But he actually believes in love! It’s why he goes on dates. And he believes in his talent. It’s why he keeps putting himself out there. And as much as he doesn’t want to tell himself he’s a believer, all of his actions betray his incredible faith. There is so much hope in his tone.
George: Do you remember Apple Jacks? [an old Apple Jacks commercial plays]
Mangesh: Yeah.
George: The commercials in the nineties, it was always a couple kids eating Apple Jacks. And the dad, usually the dad, would come in, and they'd take a bite and they'd be like, “It doesn't even taste like apples.” And the kids would say, “We eat what we like.” And I love that.
Mangesh: What George is seeking, I realize now, it isn’t a reason to believe, so much as another reminder to be nicer to himself. It’s okay to eat what he likes, to build his own meanings, to be present. He just needs another reminder that…
George: You're a good snake.
Mangesh: He’s a good snake.
George: You're allowed to be here.
Mangesh: He’s allowed to be here.
George: You're a good snake.
Mangesh: He’s a good snake.
George: You're allowed to be here.
Mangesh: He’s allowed to be here.
Chapter Five: It Doesn’t Cost You Much
I’m thinking about my mom’s comment about why she chanted those mantras to get rid of the snake curse.
Mom H: I think anything works when you're desperate. It doesn't cost you very much, right?
Mangesh: There’s actually a study that illustrates this effect. In the 1980s an Australian psychologist, Graham Tyson, determined that the same people who don’t believe in astrology in low stress situations, suddenly are very open to it in high stress situations. Kind of like agnostics on a plane when the turbulence hits.
But I think that hints to something true about a lot of us: how there’s a reluctance to admit that you might believe. Like, I saw this Pew study about India—where astrology is clearly infused in the culture—and it showed that while only 44% of Indians admit to believing in astrology, 83% use astrology to plan important events.
But I guess that’s what I admire about George. Like, he says he doesn’t believe, but he keeps trying; keeps putting himself out there. And our actions often reveal way more about ourselves than our stated beliefs.
On this show, over and over, I’ve said I’m a skeptic. That I don’t believe in astrology. And that’s true, but unlike George, I’ve been reluctant to test my faith. I mean, sure, I pressed a banana to my palm on Wednesdays, but I treated that as a comedy bit. And yeah, I got some readings, but even as I witnessed this miracle of astrology—this eerily accurate prediction of how my dad would fall ill and struggle to make it through the year…
Dr. Kumar: Uh, situation doesn't look good for father. There is risk to father.
Mangesh: I burrowed myself in disbelief. I stayed aloof. I taped other people getting readings.
Mangesh, in a dizzying montage: So tell me how you feel, how was the reading? Thank you so much for doing that. Uh, what, what'd you think about it? Coming into this, what were you even thinking? Was there anything you heard that was surprising, that, that you weren't expecting to hear that registered? Would you suggest this experience for someone else?
Mangesh: I tried to see if astrology could work for them. Tried to keep myself busy, tried to keep myself distracted from processing my own grief. And I’ve kept trying to push the story away from myself. But it’s so clear that I can’t. [mantra starts playing]
Every episode starts light, and ends with some bittersweet moment, not because I intend to, but because that’s where everything always leads me.
There’s this thing I’ve tried not to think too much about. Like, this supposed answer to all my problems. A holy astrological grail of sorts. And I’ve been so angry at astrology in a way, for being so right about my dad, that I haven’t wanted to lean into it. I first heard it from a friend right after college. Then, my cousin mentioned it… then Pete, the astrologer from the Walkmen… and even Dr. Kumar.
Dr. Kumar: The future of every man born on earth is written already.
Mangesh: There are these little shops in India. They’re hard to locate, and it’s hard to find an authentic one, Pete tells me.
Pete: There's all sorts of scam artists, right. Like there are all these fake ones. Veranasi is really sketchy place to get them.
Mangesh: These shops hold all the secrets of your life. Your past… and present… and future…
Pete: The day that you show up, everything will change thereafter.
Mangesh: Because as the legend goes, your fortune was etched onto a petrified leaf hundreds of years ago, in tiny script, and then bound in a collection of fortunes And if you give your thumbprint, and tell them the day you were born, it’s just waiting for you on a shelf… waiting for you to discover it…
Dr. Kumar: Thin, thin palm leaves, like one inch by ten inch or something. So if your leaf is found, they know everything about you. Your name is Mangesh. Your father's name is this. Your mother's name is this. You have so many brothers, sisters you're not married yet. And you’re now 42 years of age, now that you've come to hear your future. Even for you to know your future is predetermined. And guess what? No matter what race, religion you're from, Hindu, Muslim or Christian, your father’s name, your mother’s name, husband’s name, wife’s name. What greater validation do you want than that?
Mangesh: But as much as I’ve tried to ignore it, somehow I can’t get the idea of these little shops in India out of my head. Because… I don’t know what I’m doing. What I’m supposed to be doing. And what if, written on those scrolls, is an answer I need? As improbable as it sounds, I’d love to know who’s the person I’m meant to be. Especially in this moment when I feel so unmoored.
And going to India, where I can hear my mother tongue again, and feel the love and warmth of my dad’s family that also feels like a good thing.
And honestly, if I can dwell in this tiny sense of hope… if I can ask enough people, and actually find these ancient leaves… maybe they’ll stop me from spinning. Maybe they’ll offer some direction. And maybe they’ll tell me what happens next.
[Music: Motor Sales, “Kick it Off”]
Thank you so much for listening to Skyline Drive, a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. The show is hosted and written by me, Mangesh Hattikudur. But I could not make this show without my incredible team.
Mary Phillips-Sandy is our Supervising Producer, and even though she refused to drink Mango Frooti and dance to Bollywood songs with the rest of us, she’s still incredible.
Mitra Bonshahi is our wonderful producer who’s been taking recording equipment to every single party she goes to this month.
Mark Lotto is our incredible story editor, and might be the only person I know in Brooklyn who loves parathas and coffee in the morning more than me.
This episode was also produced and mixed by the insanely talented Anna Rubanova, who worked overtime on this episode because I was so behind on it… I really can’t thank you enough Anna! You’re incredible.
The gorgeous scoring and theme song comes from Botany. Special thanks to my pals Himanshu Suri for hyping this show, and Pete and Jay from Motor Sales for their beautiful beautiful music.
Thank you to Namrata Tripathi who runs the most remarkable children’s imprint, it’s called Kokila Books. Seriously, go check out their work, my children love it.
Additional production and research support from the wonderful Dhruv Shiva Rao, Lizzie Jacobs my long suffering wife, Suman Bakshi, Arjun Bakshi– anyone named Bakshi, really.
The show is Executive Produced from iHeart by my good pals Nikki Ettore and Katrina Norvell.
Also, thank you to my partners at Kaleidoscope: Oz, Kate, Costas, and Vahini. You know how much I love you all!
Special thanks to Ally, Nathan, Conal, Will and Bob at iHeart for getting behind this show.
And as always, a big thank you to my Amma and my dad, Lalita and Umesh, who I thank my lucky stars for.
Oh, and George Aivaliotis, an incredible comedian and person! He was so kind to share his story with us. If you haven’t checked out his impressions, go do that now… including my favorite, this one: Your College Boyfriend who Took One Shakespeare Class.
George, doing an impression of a college boyfriend who took one Shakespeare class: So long as man can breathe, and eyes can see, so long lives this. And this gives life to thee. Uh huh. Yooo, you’re different, you’re different, I like you. I like you. You’re not like other girls. Yeah. You got something different.
I mean, all of you out there are different! Thank you so much for lending us your ears.