This has always been a difficult question for me to answer. The long and short of it I would say – having realised the uselessness of being a graduate in Chemistry I pursued my masters in Mass Communication and Journalism. I started my career as a journalist, ended up in a dot com and later took up professional astrology as a full time career. Since the year 2004 I have been predicting human lives and guiding people from across the globe with precision! Now here is the full story (long read alert) –
My father never had any concrete career plan for me and neither did I. He was a mathematical genius and I was just the opposite. May be he consulted many astrologers for me and they would have all told him that based on the placement of Jupiter and Mercury in my horoscope – I will become a teacher, which is true but not entirely.
At schools when teachers asked me, ‘what do you want to become?’ I replied Engineer, because the previous student just had said Doctor. And I replied Doctor, whenever the previous student had said Engineer.
I was an average student all my life and was indeed bad at by hearting things – always lost in my own thoughts. I was good at art and sketching but my father never knew that part. We lived in a period when only a few chosen ones had access to the right guidance. I never knew the existence of JJ School of Arts or any other art schools for that matter – or else I would have surely wanted to end up there.
Based on my 12th grade marks, though most of my friends with lesser marks ended up doing their Engineering in self financing colleges, my father was very clear about my life. “You won’t be able to handle the pressure of Engineering. You better do your bachelors in science followed by masters in it and then try your luck at Civil service, and if you get lucky you might become a IAS officer if not you do your MPhil, then PhD and become a tutor in a college,” my father said. I was like, oh fuck! I surely could see the dark tunnel with no light whatsoever at the other end.
Somehow I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry without a single arrear and also got selected in campus interview for Titan industries – a job which thankfully I never took.
Lying on my back staring at the sky, waiting for my bachelor’s results, I asked myself only one question, “what have you really learnt in the last 3 years?” And the answer I got was, “2H2 + O2 = 2H2O.” And that too isn’t true – it is just a theory! Oh fuck! Did I just waste 3 years of my life in memorising crap? And that too by paying my father’s hard earned money? Had they at least taught me how to make soap bubble liquid – I would have been a multi millionaire by now. Motherfuckers – the thugs who run educational institute cheated me!
On the other hand my father would have burnt me alive had I asked him to invest in any of my business ideas then. I had 2 years more left before I could say an adieu to my parents’ and mind my life. And in these 2 years I neither wanted to waste my father’s money nor my time. I enrolled myself for Post Graduation in Mass Communication and Journalism and thankfully I completed it. But now what?!
I studied for the heck of it and I never wanted to be a journalist for God sake. All my life I always knew what I didn’t want to be, and once in a blue moon when I felt like becoming someone or felt what I wanted, I would request my mom to tell my father. When she said, “Your son wants to be pilot”. He replied, “mmmm”. Next time she said to him, “Your son wants to be a cricketer”. And he replied differently this time. He just said, “mm”. That was the end – for any new requests or approvals.
Movies always interested me a lot but then I came to know the existence of Pune Film Institute only after I had completed my bachelor’s degree. It was too late then.
I moved to Bombay (Mumbai), submitted my resume to all the TV channels, all newspapers, all Ad Agencies, all magazines – and none responded. Well after a month or so, I started off with a small stint at ‘Jetwings’ the in-flight magazine of Jet Airways and then moved on to The Indian Express Online Media as a sub editor.
I enjoyed my job and fell in love with the ‘Internet’. I was part of the Latest News desk, and we were the first in the world to provide live news update 24/7 on the internet. Even BBC and CNN never gave live news updates back then. In fact I was the one who broke the news of Princess Diana’s death on the Internet on August 31, 1997 – which was my 9th day at work! But fucking who cares? People have forgotten Princess Diana and who bloody wants to know who broke the news of her death on the internet 3 decades back!
Editing news stories was getting boring and I wanted to do something else. Thankfully the management trusted me with Cricket World Cup 1999! I was the first to create the most comprehensive Cricket World Cup website in the entire world with live ball-by-ball score updates. No other website accomplished that feat! But again who fucking cares?
After Australia lifted the World Cup 1999, I had to do something new. I could not go back to the desk again editing news stories. I presented a proposal for a website on ‘photography’ to my Vice President and he readily agreed. Well, I was the first to start a vortal dedicated to photography when people didn’t knew how to scan their prints. The idea was simple, people will post scanned pictures onto our site – wildlife, travel, portraits, nudes – and they can create their own community. Today it sounds more like I am referring to Instagram, but Instagram was started in the year 2010 while I created my website in the year 1999. Again….who f&&&&& cares….
The management changed their philosophy and wanted to focus just on what they were strong at – NEWS. Shekhar Gupta took over as the new CEO, and he stopped all the other experiments. Had the management trusted the new brains – India could have delivered an International platform. In fact I wanted to digitalise the whole of Indian Express photo archive that has photographs none could ever have access to, but then they never bothered. I quit, and ended up at Satyam Infoway – the first private ISP (internet service provider) in India.
The year was 2000 and destiny conferred me now with the assignment of creating the world’s first portal on Vedic Astrology with paid consultation module, and I did. Sify Astrology was the only portal that made profits when compared to all the other portals that Sify had under its umbrella.
Although I was doing well and enjoying my time at the corporate, I for sure knew this was not meant for me or I wasn’t meant for this. Ten to fifteen years down the line – would I want to become a VP or CEO and sit behind a glass wall? The answer was clear – NO. I was already 27 years old and I had not found my inner calling yet!
The wise men say, men have two birthdays. The one – when you are biologically born and another when you find the real purpose of your life. And it happened to me – I finally found my inner calling after living my life for the sake of others for almost 27 years! The first 22 years I lived to please my father and another 8 to please the society. And finally I liberated myself!
In the process of interacting with many astrologers day in and day out for business purposes I stumbled upon my astrology and spiritual teacher/Guru. He asked me to visit his house for a meditation class. I saw his life style – people visited him with their problems, he guided them both astrologically and spiritually, and they paid him and went home happily. For me this was it – a purpose filled life that I wanted to replicate.
“Can I learn astrology too?” I asked my teacher. He said, “of course you can. I will let you know when you are ready.” I didn’t understand what it meant but then I waited patiently. And one fine morning I got a call, “Kennedi you can start coming from tomorrow morning at 6 am,” my teacher said. I wasn’t prepared. I had to be at the office at 9 am and the work used to get over at 6 pm everyday and I don’t remember if Saturdays were off but then I used to visit the office for some work.
My teacher lived 30 kms away from my house and on top of that I didn’t have enough funds to pay his fees right away. I reached his house next day morning at 5.55 am on my motorbike and my class started. I told him I shall pay the fees soon. I had no one whom I could ask for a loan – and I wasn’t comfortable to ask my father or siblings. All the other relatives unanimously refuted my idea of learning astrology. I applied for a bank loan, and paid off my teacher’s fees.
I used to get up at 4 am, leave my house at 5 am, reached my teacher’s place at 6 the class used to get over by 8 am, I used to reach my office by 9 am, work till 6 pm, then go back home at 7 pm. This pattern remained the same for close to 2 years, I started to learn in the year 2002 and it went on till 2004. Meanwhile I started to predict for people at office for free of cost and I still am thankful to those ‘guinea pigs’ who trusted me and helped me make my mistakes.
The year was 2004 and Web Logging (Blogging to be precise) was catching up. The way today (2022) every Tom, Dick and Harry makes videos for YouTube, those days every dickhead got on to blogging. I didn’t bother much till a well wisher walked to my desk and said, “Kennedi when idiots are blogging, why can’t you?” He made sense. I started to blog on our company’s blog site that was called Sify Blogs.
The moment I started to blog, my bosses and co-workers became unhappy and were offended. They thought profanity wasn’t right on a public platform, and I was given a choice to make by my autistic boss – you want your job or you want to blog? I was 29 years old and I had to make a serious life choice now – should I quit my high paying IT job or just sit there and blog nonsense? Had I chosen the former, you will not be reading this page. I chose the latter – I quit one fine day with Rs 35 in my bank account, and I am glad I did. For me it wasn’t about choosing between a 9-5 job or blogging – it was a choice between freedom and captivity, and I guess choosing freedom was the wisest decision. I never wanted an asshole to decide how much money I will take home or when I can take a vacation or what should I think and what I should be writing.
I registered my URL Askenni.com, and started to blog and also started to provide astrological consultation. Rest is history!
I am a professional astrologer since the year 2004 with a global clientele. If you want to consult me to understand your life pattern? You are welcome to get in touch with me at kennedig@yahoo.com