Painting

The astrologer has always been a part of rural India, roaming the villages and offering to tell people’s fortunes. Parrots are a decorative element in much of India’s art and craft.
In Swain’s story (a series of nine modules), the astrologer releases a caged parrot and teaches it how to select cards that add up to telling a person’s fortune, rather like Chinese fortune cookies. The parrot is teasing the viewer, in a series of different ways. Finally, the astrologer, his customer, and the parrot gather together. The parrot picks out a set of cards that tell the customer's future. The cards together read 'tumara aasha puran heba', meaning “your hopes will be fulfilled”. The pictures convey the message that education is liberating and can help in earning a good livelihood.

A humorous subtext is the lighthearted mocking of popular forms of astrological predictions which are reassuring clichés that insecure people seek.