'A journalist came and met me in Delhi when my office was in a five-star hotel, as a consultation room,' explains Sarathy, 64, when I meet him at the end of his two-week stay. He was conducting readings at Wan Chai's Novotel Century Hotel.

'They brought a lot of photographs and gave them to me, I didn't know who they were. They said 'these are politicians and businessmen and we want to know what will happen in the next election - you select'. I selected three people and two I gave a lot of preference. One man was not even a member of parliament - I didn't know that - and I said he will be prime minister in 1982, 83. They all laughed and said this man is not an MP, his Labor Party could not even dream of coming to power.'

The photograph was of future Australian prime minister Bob Hawke.

'I also predicted that the present prime minister, [Malcolm] Fraser, would fall sick, develop liver and back problems.' Three years later, everything Sarathy predicted was happening. In 1985, another episode of 60 Minutes was aired, which combined the then 42-year-old's predictions with film footage of the actual events. 'It gave a lot of credibility, so Australia became another homeland.'

Sarathy became an overnight sensation, heralded in Australia as 'the world's greatest living astrologer and palmist'.

In the early 1980s, the son of then Pakistan president Mohammad Zia ul-Haq visited Sarathy, who predicted the president was going to endure troubled times and would die an unnatural death. Britain's Times newspaper picked up on this and ran the headline: 'Zia will die in an accident.' Two years later, he perished in a plane crash.

As if to prove his powers, Sarathy glances at me and with his head slightly tilted like he is listening to something, tells me, in great detail, about my personality. It is an impressive character analysis. But so what? A brilliant psychologist would see all of that.

Then in his silky sweet, lilting voice he jumps to the past - the year I twisted all the ligaments in my ankle, the year my parents bought a house in France, my father's occupation (architect), the fact that I have recently taken to juices (three months ago I turned into a juice addict and have since become obsessed).With his flashing eyes, he appears to be plucking the information straight out of the air around him. 'It is like music,' he says, 'it just comes.'

He now shifts to the future. I will have an 'excellent four years' but must refuse the friend who asks me to jump on the back of his motorbike/bicycle/elephant/camel/ horse. I should also be wary of swimming on my own as there is the 'scar of a water accident' from my childhood which could come back, and finally, I must not lift anything heavier than 5kg. He knows about the book I plan to write and suggests that a course in 2004 will help me 'locate myself in that field'.

Sarathy is a natural storyteller. Throughout the interview, and in his self-published book Accept It (Realisation), he wanders off on a particular tale, then returns to the point, having illuminated it. When we talk about the element of death popping up in a reading ('It is frightening, but sometimes it is better to know,' he reasons), he gives as an example the French singer Charles Aznavour, who has sold more than 100 million records.

'He came to Amsterdam for a very rare TV interview when I was there,' says Sarathy. 'He came for a reading, and by looking at his hand I found that he was going to have a very difficult time. He was going to lose something that was very precious to him. So I told him this, that there was a lot of sadness in his hand. That evening he received a telegram. His only son had committed suicide.'

I ask him about Frederico Fellini, the famed Italian director (La Dolce Vita) who shared a strong friendship with Sarathy. 'He came to visit me in the 1980s and we became very good friends. In one letter he wrote, 'Our friendship is a mysterious one, but a healthy one' ? I remember one time he wanted to start a film called City Of Women. I told him: 'Frederico, do not start this film now because it is a very bad time for you.' He went ahead and later called me and said: 'Rama, I am in deep trouble.' The music director had died very suddenly.'

Of course, he isn't always right. At the time of the 60 Minutes predictions, Sarathy declared he was accurate 70 per cent of the time. 'It needs a lot of work,' he says now. 'Maybe in five or six years I will be more like 90 per cent.'

How does he do it? To peer into the spokes of time, Sarathy uses a combination of reading faces, reading palms (with the use of a large magnifying glass) and astrology. Though in my case he simply read my face, of the palm he says: 'It is like a traffic sign - there is a hairpin bend there so go slow, here you can go at 100, here at 60, here there is a dip coming. If a man follows that his life is saved, if he doesn't, he crashes.

'Astrology,' he says, 'is the biggest ocean. I studied it from a different angle; that is why I think I have been a bit more successful. Like Chinese astrology has the animal factions, it is the same when we take the zodiac ? we are still animals inside.

'Some birds migrate from place to place in a particular month. They fly thousands of kilometres from Siberia, they come to India in the month of June, and then they go back. Same with a person born in a particular bird sign. Always they like to migrate, and then come back. So when I see a particular bird sign in a man I tell him: 'Better get lost. Go somewhere for a holiday.' Equally, in jungle law the lioness goes and hunts the prey, she is the breadwinner. Same when two Leos marry. I have seen the husband lose the job - the lady goes out and makes the money while the husband sits at home growling. So I don't recommend two Leos marrying, generally. Or I'll warn them in advance.'

As well as being blessed with a startlingly good memory - Sarathy says he can remember the name and story of every person he has read (Sarathy gives out his telephone number and e-mail address to each client he reads, and usually gets a call years later when the predictions come true). He also has a wicked sense of humour. The hour in the hotel room is marked with peals of laughter and is a genuinely joyful time. Before I leave, it is time for the question we've all been waiting for: what is Hong Kong's future?

'In another decade this will be a very, very important place in the area of money,' he announces. 'It will progress and it will be very powerful. Leadership? There might be quite a few changes happening, every two years, a change. That shows the intellectual awareness and teaming up. A self-projection is happening right now in Hong Kong, slowly. They have yet to come to a bigger scale with their plans for an international market. In the course of time, with the stalwarts coming to the fore, I think it will work out.'