When I wrote yesterday’s diary entry, I also remembered a joke about gurus and their predictions but it is difficult to translate it into English. I will try my best anyway. A pregnant woman comes to her guru and asks ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ The guru looked at her and then answered with these Hindi words ‘Ladka na ladki.’
It is even difficult to write the Hindi pronunciation in English. ‘Ladka’ means boy. ‘Na’ can mean not, no and neither nor. ‘Ladki’ means girl. And now it depends on how you say the sentence and it can have three different meanings: ‘Boy, not girl.’, ‘Boy not, girl!’ and ‘Neither boy, nor girl.’
You see how clever this guru put his answer! No matter how the parents understood it and no matter what will happen, his sentence will be right. Of course he will predict the future! And of course each of these gurus has 360 degree vision, can walk over water, materialize gold and ashes depending on the wealth of their disciples and make statues bleed.
This reminds me of a coin-flip trick kids would sometimes try to play, when they would say “Heads I win, tails you lose!”