I had graduated and was going to join my first job when I met an old school days friend. During the discussion he told me how the character of a person is more or less defined by his sun-sign. It was my first exposure to the ancient science of stars and their role in human life. It was the first time I heard of Linda Goodman. I never knew that this day was the beginning of my interest in the science of stars. The discussion with my friend made me buy the Sun-Signs by Linda Goodman.

The first reading of the book turned out to be an anti-climax. It was difficult for me to see myself matching with the Capricorn Man of Linda Goodman. And this made me inquisitive about the influence of planets on human life. This was the beginning of my scholarly interest in astrology. I also found friends who had good knowledge of astrology and this is how I learnt the art of prediction. I developed my own concepts and my own approach of analysis using the wrong predictions to redefine the correlation between the placement of planets in a birth chart and the events in a persons life.

Being a strong believer in the philosophy of Karma, I don't advice people to take major decisions of their life based on astrological advice, but it is fascinating  to see in real life how movement and placement of planets do influence the events and their timing in a human life. It is fun doing reverse engineering and predicting the actual time of birth of a person from his characteristics and the timing of different events in his/her life.

And now I can see myself maturing more as Linda Goodman's Capricorn man with some effect of Jupiter, the ascendent lord. The correlation between movement of planets and it's impact on a persons life is decently well documented. It still requires a bit of intuitive understanding and subjective analysis of the strengths of different houses and various planets for making a good prediction. But the whole science of astrology is fascinating and challenging.