Role Play -Blossoming of our talents !

Many of us have heard the story of the postman who got the first prize of rs 1 crore in lottery .A reporter went to take his interview and asked " Please tell me what you are going to do with the prize money ."
The postman said " Well , distributing letters all day long was difficult. I used to go all over the place on my old bicycle and it was a very tiring job . Now I do not have to do all that .

" Then ? "
" Now I am going to buy a Mercedes car , and keep a driver ."
" Which all places are you going to visit ? "
" I will be distributing letters to the same area , to the same customers !"

We all think that this is funny . It is not . We keep thinking of the postman as doing his duty for earning his daily bread while he is thinking of his duty as his life role . On the stage of life he is enacting a role and everything he gets he sees as a prop to fulfil his role in a better or bigger fashion.

We too are playing out our life roles in different ways . Ask yourself , what will you do if you are given say 10 crore rupees . You are likely to come out with answers like " I will buy a flat /penthouse / farmhouse / Palace ! "
" I will take a family tour all over the world !"
" I will climb Mount Everest / Andes Mountain / Kalsubai / or Duke's Nose ."
" I will date Mallika Sherawat / Priyanka Chopra / Rakhi Sawant !"( You will be disappoined , not with the date , but they do not come so cheap and not to all and sundry , anyways )
" I will divorce my wife and run away from my secretary ! "
So many answers will come out . After all those are exhausted , think again , " What will you do ?" A true answer here will take you to your role in life .

This answer also will explain to you as to why Mehboob Khan did not stop making pictures after the legendary success of Mother India , or why Raj Kapoor kept taking more and more loan in his final years , or why Richard Branson keeps taking life risk after life risk , or why Jane Goodal leaving her cosy life in the USA went to live with the Gorillas in the jungles of Africa .

Some people come to know it early in life , some people come to know about it late in life , many of us never know it and most never even look for it . One of the ways of realising our role in life is our horoscope .


Life role is not a one time achievement . It is not something that you find and achieve . Even to know it you have to be ready . When your readiness increases so shall it slowly and steadily reveal itself to you .

We know of Mahatma Gandhi only as the great freedom fighter and father of nation and we are blissfully unaware of the THIRTY YEARS he spent looking for himself in South Africa . He was offerred a number of roles viz husband of Kasturba , Bania from Gujarat , England educated lawyer in South Africa , Father of Haridas Gandhi and so on and so forth . The role of his choosing emerged much later . Dada , a vagabond youngster from Naigaon who used to tease passerbys by mimicking their mannerisms , realised his role much later in life as Dada Kondke ,
a dashing cinema hero known for his dhishum dhishum roles found that he was a much better comedian and also discovered a new style of dancing - Master Bhagwan , an athlete who used to run very fast and did hardly anything else revealed his talent as the best fighting cricket captain of India Kapil Dev , when bullets were raining all around and hand grenades were making mincemeat of people , one person , otherwise ordinary , realised his life purpose and took five bullets in his body to keep the terrorist engaged - Tukaram Ombale . Many many examples can be given from day to day life .

When I was learning astrology in the initial stages , as I look back , everyone has used astrology as a prop to do better what they were doing before . Just like the postman . For example I was into training and development, I have developed new techniques for training and development using astrology , a colleague used to take tuitions for standard 4 th students , now she take astrology tuitions , one person used to make money by making fool of people , he now makes money by making fool of people using astrological terminology , one housewife used to be confused about her role as housewife , now she is as confused about her role as an astrologer . You get the point ?

If you go to an astrologer and ask him this question as to how you can know your life role you will get variety of answers . See your tenth lord , see the tenth from tenth , see the tenth lord in Navamsha , see the navansha location of your tenth lord , see the sub lord of the tenth house and its location , see the arudha of tenth house , see the lagna lord / lagna nakshatra lord / lagna sublord , see the fixed star near to lagna or tenth house . All these answers are perfectly useless ! The reason is the variety of choices available .This variety itself is beyond the imagination of any astrologer living or dead . For example just take three options as teaching , language and foreign . We are taking just one combination of one activity , one place and one commodity .These three give us six combinations . Teaching a foreign language , teaching a language in foreign place , teaching language to foreign people and so on . This is on the background of constantly changing scientific and commercial business environment . For example how many astrologers would have predicted a career for a person twentyfive years ago in the following areas - computers , event management , show business and call centers ? Today these careers are available in plenty and so many many people are employed in the same .

In a typical day we go through a number of life roles . We get up as husband , take child to school as father , go to station as commuter , get to the office as clerk , go to the panwala as consumer , with supplier as landlord , with customer as slave , with boss as yes man , with subordinates as no man , with temporary workers as boss , and come back to wife as lame sheep .Inside all these roles lies our real role unknown to us . Astrology can help us realise this role .

If we begin to understand the variety of our roles separate from ourselves , we will be in a position to play these roles better . Just the way an actor gets into the role and plays it . We keep confusing ourselves with our roles and creating chaos , confusion and frustration . Basic understanding of your horoscope will help you in this .

Forget the ascendant at the moment. This is the most difficult subjects to tackle so we will take it the last .



A circus is in town. the circus has a very successful grand clown who makes people laugh their guts out . The circus show is going on . The circus tent is full of people . Children have occupied all the front rows . Everyone is laughing heartily and fully concentrated on the clown's act . Just then another clown comes into the ring and whispers in the ears of grand crown " The tent is on fire . Big fire . In another five minutes the fire will reach here . " and he runs away .

What would you now do if you are the grand clown ?

Think with your heart and write down your answer before you read further .

The grand clown is a role that a human being is playing at that moment of time . In this role his job is to make people laugh with his comic acts . Now an emergency has come up . Should he come out of his chosen role as Grand Clown ? Should he try to go to the fire and try to douse the flame ? Should he tell people that the tent is on fire and they should leave as fast as possible ? Should he himself just run away ? What would you do ? Tell the true answer to yourself and then read on .


There is no one correct answer to this question. Different people in the role of different people will behave differently . Do not believe this ? During the 26/11 , each policeman behaved differently though all of them were in the same role . Some policemen ran away , some policemen went searching for the terrorists , some policemen ran away and then having second thoughts came back to fight , some policemen scurried for cover even with carbines in their hands while some policemen charged at the terrorists with just wooden battens . So many different patterns emerged out of the same situation . Is it any different from the pattern emerging out of the clown episode ?



What is your role ?
What is the aim of your role ?
What are the borderlines of your role ? The limits at which your role ends .
What do you need to do in your role to achieve the aim of the role ?


Our peoblems arise when one of the following happens .

We outlive our role .
We stretch our role to extremes .
We continue with our role when the role itself has vanished .
We are not ready for our role , not well equipped or well educated .
We have not mentally accepted our role .




Everyday since morning to evening we keep changing our roles going from one role into another , juggling these roles . Se the roles a typical working housewife plays during a typical day
Alarm clock
Break fast cook
Tiffin cook
laundryman ,
Ironing lady
cleaning woman
money lender
bus commuter
Train commuter
office worker
food consumer
shopper
vegetable buyer
bargainer
cook
teacher
supervisor
friend



Tower game


In this game played at Abhijit Training Academy , we had four groups of three adults each . Each group was given three roles to play . Manager , Supervisor and worker . The Manager was to decide what to do , the supervisor was to decide and tell how to do and the worker was to do . te task was to erect a tower from newspapers ,and sticking tape . The manager and supervisors were not to do any menial work while the worker was to only carry out the orders and only ask questions where he was not able to decide what to do . The participants who took part in the game were already sucessful in their eartly roles as teacher , trainer , stock broker , housewife , engineer etc . As the game progressed very interesting pattern emerged . Some managers were not interested in managing . They were interested in just standing around and watching .This despite the fact that they knew that they would be totally responsible for the outcome of the exercise . Some managers began to work like workers though this was against the rules . Some supervisors began to teach the managers how they should do their tasks . Why was this happening ?

The participants were not able to keep away their day to day roles even for a few minutes . They were so stuck to their roles . The roles had become their second nature . Teachers in real life remained teachers in the game too . Managers in real life remained managers in the game . Workers in real life remained though they realised it was not taking them anywhere . They knew that they were going to lose the game but they were so synchronised with their real life roles that they could not tear themselves away . Herein lay the story of their success and their failure .

At one of the programs of Shake hands and Know , I shook hands with a person and told him that he was an administrative officer . He flatly denied that and said " You are wrong . I am a police officer . " After a few minutes however he scurried back to me and said " You are right . I work in the police department . But all the tasks I do are administrative in nature . " His primary role has been that of administrator as felt from the palm . Administrator was his core role while police officer was his more role .

In another programs , I shook hands and felt that the person had strong martial qualities . This would make him soldier , watchman , or union leader . The man claimed that he was a mere meek clerk in a nationalised bank . HIs friends however supplied the missing information that he was a non office holder de facto union leader who had faced a number of volatile and life threatening situations wiht a daring do few can match . Bank Clerk was his more role while fearless soldier was his core role .



For example the Indian Middle class is generally denoted as systems loving , rule abiding , education oriented lot . For many years we kept blaming our educational system as a system designed by the Britishers to create clerks . We blamed the stress on mathematics and English and the rote method of byhearting a number of things . We kept saying that this system teaches obedience rather than thinking which is so essential for success in the modern world . But with the advent of the computer age the world changed . The environment changed. Our more roles and shore roles suddenly changed and came in demand . Today Indian Programmers are in demand world over. No software company can do without the Indian programmers . All the programmers have come through the same educational system that everyone blamed . At the same time , the core value being one of slavery and followeship India does not have a single independent computer program to its credit . That is the importance of core role and how you take it . It is interesting here to note that Pakistan , Bangladesh and India inherited the same educational system and society from the times of the Britishers . Yet it is the Indian programmers who are in demand world overe and not Pakistanis and Bangladeshis . Can you now see the reasons now ?

What you see around you are all manifestations of the core role of yours. You get attracted to subject that interest you. The interests flow from the core role . You get job or you keep the job you do well . The job description in general flows out of the core role . Sooner or later in life you tend to gravitate towards your core role . This creates a comfort zone through which one tends to operate . This is like creating a cobweb around you which is impervious to outside influence . You get so much used to the style and ways that seem to flow from the core roles that you in your wildest imagination do not want to change them or trade them for something else . This ensures your level , your success , your failure , your limits in life . If you want to go beyond , you have to look within and change or modify some of the manifestations of the core values or change the environment where you are operating .



Please do not remain under the impression that a person has only one core role . There can be a number of core roles . We have to continuously keep looking inside and introspect to see and check the bank of our core roles .


The core roles are defined by our horoscope and remain fixed all through our life but due to the permutations and combinations thus made available these are the most difficult to pin down .Just think of it .. the horoscope at base level gives us nine planets , twelve signs , and twentyseven nakshatras thus 2916 ( two thousand nine hundred and sixteen ) combinations. This is the reason it is very difficult to find out the core role at one sitting . We need to allow the horoscope to blossom through the sequence of dashas and at each step having got the advantage of the hindight we can suggest a more and more accurate path - both outside towards the shore roles and inside towards core roles .The dashas give us more roles , The transits give us shore roles or temporal roles which are even short lived . The shore roles give us the opportunity to work inwards while working outside to understand and realise our more roles and then move further inwards to realise our core roles.


Through our life our core roles and more roles keep changing . In astrology it is called as Dasha . The dasha gives us further core roles which are powerful during a certain period .

Ways to understand our core roles

1. Astrology

Core roles Signs

1. Aries : Leader
2. Taurus : Follower
3. Gemini : Student
4. Cancer : Mother
5. Leo : Master
6. Virgo : Manager
7. Libra : Performer
8. Scorpio : Defender
9. Sagittarius : Teacher
10. Capricorn : Worker
11. Aquarius : Adviser
12. Pisces : Thinker


Core Roles Planets

1. Sun : Creating feeling of self
2. Moon : Feeling
3. Mercury : Communicating
4. Mars : taking action
5. Saturn : being cautious
6. Jupiter : Creating system of rules
7. Venus : appreciating and creating beauty through arts and skills
8. Rahu : Creating virtual smog
9. Ketu : Creating feeling of deficiency


You would have noticed that the roles assigned to signs are all nouns while roles assigned to planets are all verbs . Verbs denote actions while the signs denote the framework through which the action can take place . For example Ketu located in pisces will make a person think of his deficiency in thought process and thus urge him towards reducing his ignorance. Ketu being natural denoter of deficiency will not help gathering of knowledge but will help in eradicating ignorance.

We experience success in the areas where our core role is congruent or in line with the more role . We experience great success where the core role is congruent with our more role and the more role is congruent with the environment .


2. Psychodrama : The trainer gets a group of about 12- 15 people together . The people are divided into teams and are given some tasks to do which require team work . In general under moderate stress and interest people tend to behave through their core roles . In a 45 minute session many core roles begin to emerge or start becoming evident . The core role comes out through the behaviour of the person . Psychodrama raises the spontaneity in an adequate and functional manner. When one becomes spontaneous one forgets about the world around and goes to the role that he is most comfortable with . This role remains one and the same through variety of exercises undertaken . An experienced trainer is able to spot the roles and bring it to the notice of the participant . Then the participant himself can judge whether these core roles aer being helpful or harmful to him in his life either work life or family life or social life. If required the trainer / consellor can then help the participant to mould is core roles to suit the situation better .It is through psychodrama that a system can begin to become creative, life filled and develop new solutions to old and tired problems or adequate solutions to new situations .

3. Sports : Games is a way of psychodrama . Win , loss , elation , suspense and surprise depression , frustration , joy , sorrow , competition all are represented in the games . The more physical the game the more the element of drama . Even the style of playing the game arises out of your core role and environment . For example most Indian batsmen will duck a bouncer while most West Indian Batsmen will try to hook the bouncer . This despite the fact that India has very few fast bowlers having good bouncers in their arsenal while the West Indies have a number of deadly bouncers .

Conclusion :

Life is interplay of the entity that is you and the environment that is the surrounding situation. You have a core role , many more roles and many many more shore roles through which you go through your life . Your core role remains constant through which you tend to deal with life situations or carry out your outer or more and shore roles . You tend to respond to life around you , your tasks through your core role only. This may be beneficial sometimes and problematic otherwise . If you correctly realise the role you are playing and behave as per the need of the role , you go a long way towards success and satisfaction. Deciding and defining the core role has to be done over a period of time as the number of variables involved are too numerous . This is an ongoing task which is similar to blossoming of a flower .

We experience success in the areas where our core role is congruent or in line with the more role . We experience great success where the core role is congruent with our more role and the more role is congruent with the environment .