"Will my business grow, oh wise one? Will I get married? Will people read the drivel I am writing?"

Agony aunts to astrologer apes

"The wise one" is busy peering through his rheumy eyes at a little bowl of finely chopped caviar placed in front of him. He-of-the-accurate-predictions is Chin Lung Lee the Chiahuahua, who, it is rumoured, has the talent to predict anything that is written in the stars. Bottle-blond socialites and air-headed fashionistas have all been clicking their Louboutins in Chin Lung Lee's direction. In front of me, is Mrs Five Times Married. Poor darling has a serious problem ufffd she wants to know whether her sixteenth chin tuck will come off well. Just behind her, and about to genuflect in front of The Hallowed One's embroidered cushion, is Ms Once-I-Was-Sizzling-On-Screen.

"Oh, Chin Lung Lee!" she sobs into her dainty embroidered hanky "Will my sizzle ever come back again?" He
disdainfully looks away ufffd the deliberate rebuttal and its implied negation ufffd apparent to the shattered siren which screeches into a swoon of sublime despair.

On the bylanes of Basavangudi, and just behind the dilapidated home of a has-been human astrologer lies the new pink stucco (three storey with five bedrooms, attached bathrooms, and specially-carved wardrobes) home of Manja the Rabbit. Already a star for going against the grain and having the guts to predict a Netherlands win while everybody else had foreseen Spain, Manja is relied on to give hope to even the most hopeless. South Indian maamis in their big bindis and silk Kanjeevarams, offer Manja delicacies like grass pakodas and carrot murukkus, before they dare to bare their deepest, darkest fears, "Will their software son in Seattle marry a white woman?" or "Ayyo! When will that second daughter realise her responsibilities and settle down ufffd she's not even learning the recipe for curd rice properly!"

In Bellary, they have Gali the ever-ready Gaboon who jets around in his own private Gulfstream, from palatial estate to palatial estate who grins at mine owners and advises them on whether their pickings will be as monumental as the previous month's. Sources indicate that currently he is very busy, ministering to the probable fate of a couple of baboons from his home region.

Meanwhile they say, the original master of the animal predictors, Paul the Octopus, is being asked just one more question by the irate German populace before he retires, "Paul, will you taste better in a soup or an entr ufffde?"

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