Sunita menon

One hand swiftly deals the tarot cards, the other busies itself with a slim laptop. In a magical room, replete with Ganesha figures, flickering diyas, tinkling chimes and mesmeric chanting, the bewitching Sunita Menon dips into the past and the future, as she unravels affairs of the heart and the mart. VIVEK KAMATH keeps an appointment with a modern-day soothsayer

The name is Menon, as in phenomenon. Sunita Menon's name is scrawled in a child-like hand across a dark wooden plate mounted on a pine door. You ring the bell and wait. The door opens and you enter, barefoot, into a magical world.

You sit there in silence as piped chants reverberate around you. They emanate from a wall-mounted chrome Nakamichi 3-CD changer. You wonder if, at some point, your chair will swivel into the wall and you will speed through a tunnel into the robe-clad presence of Menon.

To the tinkling of chimes, the door opens yet again and in walks a comely, caramel complexioned young woman in black jeans and a New York Yankees' black T-shirt. She is followed by a man bearing a slim HP laptop…also black. In that instant, you forget all other questions you want to ask of this seer and merely check if she is free to go out for coffee. You don't know quite yet if Menon is soup for the soul but boy, she is serious candy for the eye!

Thirty-nine-year-old Menon is warm but matter-of-fact about the exotica that almost envelops her. "They are all gifts of goodwill. The Balaji was gifted by Ekta (Kapoor), the Panchmukhi Hanuman was given to me by a baba in Allahabad for my protection. This evil eye is from Turkey…," she trails off. Surprisingly, there is no charm, bracelet or any other spiritual accessory on her person.

The seer's tech tools and process orientation has propelled her to prosperity, a TV show, a celebrity clientele featuring the likes of tele-queen, Ekta Kapoor and filmmaker, Karan Johar. (Both coincidentally start their movie and serial titles with the letter k.) "There are no coincidences," Menon insists. "Everything happens for a reason. I used to be a stewardess. It was a great job. I was young, free and travelling all over the world. One day, I went to meet a friend who was ailing in Dublin. During my stay, I visited a seer who told me I would some day do what she was doing. It was spooky. But she had said a few other things too, not very pleasant, and they all came true. So I returned to her and that is where this journey began."