Weded to Astrology

Since I was 5 years old. I was a great fan of my grandfather. He was a great astrologer, never hankering after name and fame. Done service to astrology and human being till he breathed his last. People jealous of him used to called him the Bhrigu Rishi of the Modern days ! Still nobody ever dared to confront him before his truthfulness, straightforwarness, non-covetness, auster life style and knowledge in jyotish, sanskrit, ayurveda and karmakanda. He was also fluent in many languages; Hindi, Bengali, Oriya and Parsi. A lot of people used to come to him for consultancy everyday for various matters.  He used to commnad wonderful respect among the unlearned as well as the learned people for his down to earth and practical approach to life. He used to tell 'Jyotish is no substitute for Karma'.....Jyotish is the vidya to  provide guidance to people who seek it for leading their life in rightful way.  By the time I was 5 years old he took me along with him to my village school. As at that time I was very home sick as the child, he used to trick me into school by gifting a sweet (ladoo) everytime I go to school. After a few months I developed good rapport and friendship with little children of may age and started going to school without sweets. Since that time I use to share the bed with him also till I was 24 years old. Everyday after finishing my schoolwork in the morning and evening I used to sit beside my grandfather watching him assisting people in various aspects of their life... from health problem...to agriculture...to solve the problem of  ...caste/creed quarrels etc. He used to say before  the British people came here, there were no system of untouchability in India. It is these people who engineered this system in the beginning of 17th century.. the feeling of hatred of one community against the others to their own benefit. 

 Around 8 years age, I was quite adept in doing the four basic operations of additon, substraction, division and multiplication of basic arithmatics. Grandfather used to teach me basics of  calculation of  Ishta Kala,  Kala Hora , Yamardha ( Choughadia in Hindi) , tara suddhi ( navatara in muhurta), chandra suddhi ( deciding favourableness of moon for various aspects of life), use of yogini in muhurta chart , basic skills of match  (dasakoota )making i.e. tara, chandra, varna, bala, mandala, bhavanadhipa, jati , nadi , swara and varga etc. Within one year I easily picked up the technique for calculation of lagna and casting of horoscope on the basis of the local ephimeris. Grandfather never put any pressure or force on me or any of his grand children to either learn karma kanda or jyotish.  But he always encouraged if someone picked up something with his own interest.  The  basic books for learning Jyotish were... Jyotish Sara Sanghara by late Pandit Damodar Rath....Sarvartha Chintamani....Jataka Parijata....Dashaphala.....Jyotish Kalpadruma (Bengali)... Bina Guru Re Jyotish Siksha ( Learning Jyotish without a Teacher)... Jataka Alamkara...Prasna Jnana ( by Bhattotpala)... besides the partly available.....Varaha Samhita (written by Varaha Muni.. not the same as jyotish Varahamihira).

I had to leave the village school for doing matriculation at the age of 13th year. The syllabus became a little vast than before and I found very little time to study or practice jyotish. So I ferverntly hoped for the Durga Pooja and Summer Vacation to spend some quality time with my favourite pastime ...Jyotish.

 In the intial years although I was able to caste the chart mannually ...also able to findout the dasa-antardasa and pratyantardasa...delinate the results of transit on the basis of  Ashtakavarga still....I was very bad at arriving at correct predictions for future...i.e. timing of events.  Then upon grandfather's advise the regular study of  books ...Sarvartha Chintamani ...Dasaphala... and Jataka Alamkara... helped me a lot to arrive at satisfactory level of predictions and timeing of events on the basis of vimshottari mahadasa.

Sudden attack of brain malaria upon me forced me to remain bed ridden for nearly 2 months around March-May 1988...break in education ....which has already been predicted by  Shree Sharat Kumar Behara a close friend of my father also an efficient astrologer one year before actual happening of the event. 

This encouraged me to study astrology more sincerely.