Before I knew my own name, before my eyes could truly see, before my fingers learned to hold a pen and write down my thoughts, before everything, I was assigned a number. It wasn’t a soft and gentle whisper, but a clear and determined proclamation uttered by my grandmother, a woman whose wisdom had been hardened by time and sharpened by the constellations she endlessly traced in her mind.
“You are an eight,” she told me, voice resonating with ancient certainty. She said it with the kind of seriousness usually reserved for important things, like prayers and family secrets. “Saturn rules you, and Saturn asks much of those born beneath it. You will bear burdens, yes, but you will also carry power, dignity, and fierce ambition.”
South Asians have always had an intimate love affair with the cosmos. The night sky is not just something we look up at but something we converse with, something we entangle our lives within. Our weddings, our festivals, our births; each moment is delicately aligned with celestial movements, believing profoundly that the stars can guide us better than we could ever guide ourselves. Our lives become intricately intertwined with their dance, the heavens above a grand stage where our stories are choreographed long before we arrive.
My grandmother particularly adored numbers, especially the powerful gravity of numerology. She would sit cross-legged reading hands, counting birth dates on her weathered fingers, deciphering destinies in hushed, excited, eager tones. The number eight fascinated her endlessly — an infinity loop stood upright, symbolising strength, resilience, and a cycle of karmic return. I always questioned her belief, but absorbed it, letting her words carve out pathways inside my bones.
She said eight was not just any number. It carried a weight, a responsibility to rise, to persevere, and to lead. So, even as a child, I felt myself becoming serious, ambitious, meticulous, exactly as she had promised I would. When other kids laughed carelessly, I planned. I meticulously crafted visions of my future like someone working diligently on a precious tapestry. I walked with a careful purpose, stood with shoulders squared, and spoke as if the world was listening; according to Saturn, it always was.
But as I grew older, I began to see how numbers, like stars, could both guide and trap us. How these cosmic declarations, spoken in earnest by someone who loved me deeply, had become walls as much as they were pathways. I wondered, was I truly ambitious? Or was ambition a script I’d been handed, lines memorised and dutifully delivered? Would I have loved differently, dreamed softer dreams, chosen gentler paths if I’d been told I was a two (nurturing and kind) or a three (playful and joyous)?
Numbers, I realised, weren’t just whispers from the universe — they were self-fulfilling prophecies. They were stories we told ourselves until we believed them, until our lives became their echoes. I saw it all around me, family and friends locked inside narratives given by birth dates and star signs, living lives that fit neatly into the expectations handed down like heirlooms.
And still, I felt Saturn at my shoulder, the heavy gravity of the number eight pulling at my choices, shaping my decisions, coloring my perceptions. It was not something I could easily escape, for how do you step away from something you’ve known longer than you’ve known yourself?
But perhaps the point isn’t to escape. Perhaps the answer lies in holding the prophecy gently in my palms, feeling its weight, and deciding consciously what parts I choose to fulfill and what parts I let slip through my fingers like sand. If Saturn demands that I bear burdens, let me choose which ones. If it requires strength, let me define what strength truly means. If it dictates ambition, let me pick my dreams carefully and kindly.
In the end, the stars above us are both mirrors and windows — reflecting who we are and showing us who we might become. And though my grandmother’s prophecy condemned me, the beautiful truth remains: numbers may guide us, but ultimately, we choose how to dance beneath their light.
