Thieves Get a "Leg Up"

Telling fortunes is a past-time that spans continents and the ages. People have told fortunes based on a deck of cards, flaws in a ball of crystal, the places where the stars go in the sky and many other things. Lots of people believe in the results of these things. We have all heard of sacrificing animals and reading the entrails. We have heard of swirling tea leaves in a cup, casting sticks, casting coins, and some of this reading audience has even used the Ouija Board. Even stranger, some people even listen to the weatherman, which is one thing I have managed to largely avoid.

"Have you considered Life Insurance?"

Less heard about are people that believe that if they were to somehow steal the Tarot cards, that they would be able to use them the same way as “Madame Punchy” does in the booth next to a circus tent. There is usually a fear in primitive minds that if you steal the crystal ball from an old Gypsy woman, the last thing you will be able to do is USE the crystal ball before you get eaten by her pet werewolf. As with many things, things are not quite that simple in India. Alas for a poor, 80 year old fortune teller in southern India, Yanadi Kondaiah, who based his fortune telling on his “mystical leg.” To be more precise, it was his mystical right leg that was responsible for his great spiritual prowess. He “claims his right leg possessed a rare mystic power which makes his predictions come true. The locals believe in his powers to cure spiritual and physical ailments.” That is one heck of a leg to have, if you ask me.

What kid growing up in the 70's did not have one of these?

His ability to tell the future so impressed a group of twenty-something’s in his village that they decided to go after the mystical instrument itself.

They drugged the poor old codger and removed his right leg with a sickle saw, evidently with the “thought they could make use of the magical powers allegedly possessed by the right leg.” Of course, until they actually catch these guys with the mystical right leg and get them to confess, we will not know exactly what they intended to do with it.

If you were going to try and get a leg to “talk,” how exactly would one go about that? Using some kind of incantation, perhaps?

‘Leg, oh Leg, that is on my plate, spill the beans and tell my fate’?

Maybe they set up a giant Ouija Board on the floor; all place their hands on it and see if it will scoot around to make sentences? It is all quite beyond me.

Never-the-less, our poor soothsayer, according to our source here, “is said to be recovering in hospital, although he is far from happy about what happened to him.” He is not happy? Thank you Captain Obvious, these thieves stole not only his lucrative living but also his ability to perambulate. I imagine that I would not be happy either. At least, as a closing thought, he did not tell people that his magical abilities came from his “Mystical Head.”