A snapshot: 7 April 2000 fell into the last weeks of the 20th century’s turn — a moment thick with both nostalgia for what had passed and anxious hope for what the new millennium might bring. Read astrologically, the date’s panchangic profile speaks in practical metaphors. Where a bright tithi and a benefic nakshatra appear, one finds encouragement to start ventures; where shadowed combinations lie, caution and restraint are advised. Those prescriptions aren’t supernatural commands so much as cultural technologies for decision-making: heuristics people have used to reduce uncertainty and ritualize choice.