DR KEDAR SHARMA IS MUCH SOUGHT AFTER MAN IN JAIPUR. WE FIND OUT WHY.

Getting an uninterrupted half- hour from Jaipur based Dr Kedar Sharma is tougher than say getting the thirty minutes from the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

At any given time of the day, Panditjis phone keep on ringing i. e. when he is not busy with his VVIP clients or well wishers.

And VVIP they are. The Indian President, Mrs. Pratibha Patil, Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Birla group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, Mewar Maharaja Arvind Singh, former Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, industrialist B K Birla and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Huda. The list is indeed very long and could take up reams of paper. Suffice to say that Sharmaji has friends, clients and well wishers across the crème de la crème of India.

So what drives Indias bold and beautiful, the rich and intelligent and even the educated middle class to Sharmaji? If one were to sum up his strength or USP, it would be his uncanny ability to predict the future of the person and guide the person to the path of progress in life. And we are not saying it. The high and mighty of India have been taken aback by the accurate predictions of Sharmaji in the past.

For example, take the cynical and highly talented M J Akbar who now heads the editorial operations of India Today. Akbar with his razor sharp wit and the ability to read people has been scathing in his wrtiing about the delusional and selfappointed saviours of India. And yet, the same Akbar in his Asian Age column dated December 7, 2003 recalled an incident of how Aaj Tak and other channels had been predicting a victory for Congress in three states - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh.

Only Sharmaji went against the near unanimous predictions and told Akbar that the BJP would form the government in all the three states. A Congress leader told Sharmaji 'Results ke baad paditai chorni padegi'( You would have to give up astrology after the results). Panditji told the politician to check after a week.

And guess who was right? Pandit Kedar Sharma.

Despite his obvious success and popularity and his reach, the unassuming Panditji is available to anyone who approaches him. No wonder his residence at Mansarovar in Jaipur sees a steady stream of persons across the social strata seeking a meeting with him.

So what does Astrology means to Panditji? How has he succeeded where a battalion of psephologists and their trained personnel have failed? May be it is the ability and the wisdom that astrology has given to him. 'People say astrology is science and anyone can it. I believe that astrology is tapasya and the power of prediction can come only to those who hold it. You have to reach the crucial interface where the almighty and soul interface. Only then can you decide others life,'says Panditji explaining his talent and the way he sees this art.

Its not just the art of astrology that Panitji has mastered. His day job is that of a Professor of Economics in Agrawal College in Jaipur. And people say that the learned professor has mastered the art of numbers. Be it astrological numbers or the economic numbers.