Disclaimer: This article has very little to do with astrology. This is more to provide a reality check and some cathartic release for yours truly.

“Give me some Ketu dasha.” 

A very dear friend sent me a message after reading an article that I had written about my Fakiri routine as a liberated corporate slave.

My reply to him was:

“I WOULDN’T WISH A KETU DASHA ON A FRIEND OF MINE.”

After reading this that article, people have messaged me and told me over phone how cool my life is. They think I am a free bird who wanders in and out of airports and 5-star hotels. A man “Liberated” by Ketu living on his own terms.

While there is some truth to this (No I don’t go to airports and 5 stars daily. Many a time I just sit in my car in middle of nowhere and drink tea at roadside stalls.) But what they really don’t know is what I went through BEFORE reaching this stage.

Yes Ketu has liberated me. But the pain and torture that I went through was just too much. If I could have chosen, I would have perhaps avoided Ketu.

This is my story of Ketu first half, the one full of horrors, heartbreaks and humiliations. While the tale is much longer, I would share the details of the most intense part of it Ketu-Venus. Story of my “punishment posting.” This is one part of my life I would never wish upon anyone.

So let’s start.

PROLOGUE: FORGIVING & FORGETTING

“Have you forgiven JG?” My wife asked me one day.

“JG who?” I asked. My wife looked at me with shocked disbelief.

Then I remembered who JG was, and laughed my guts out. Finally I was a step closer to spirituality.

I had forgiven and even momentarily forgotten the person who had given me the worst dose of humiliation in last 10 years. I don’t blame her any more, I blame my Karma. Ketu has taught me this. Let me tell you how.

 In Mercury dasha life was good, I was getting timely promotions, my package was cool, my post was powerful. My “boys” would even park my car for me. I had developed arrogance typical of successful corporate guys.

But Ketu had a “Rehabilitation Program” especially designed for my needs. 😀

PART 1: THE HONEY TRAP: Divine Ketu hunts the arrogant pricks like me, using a “honey trap” of our desires and ambitions, to engineer our downfall, and teach us lessons in humility. My honey trap was a promotion. For the first time in a decade, I was denied a timely promotion. The site wasn’t growing, so, the only way I could get a promotion was to move to another town.

They gave me an option of moving to Delhi NCR which I turned down. I wasn’t going to NCR at any cost, it was hell in my eyes. However, I agreed to option of taking a movement to Hyderabad.

Ketu laughed …. !

PART 2- GOING TO HELL:

At the last moment, there was a downsizing in Hyderabad, and I was sent to guess where … Delhi-NCR (Gurgaon to be exact) … !

I had handed over my duties of the current post and had no option but to move, to what was rumored to be a punishment posting, to a position so bad that no local wanted it. But I was blinded by my “ambition”.

Oh by the way, they promised me an additional hike to take care of my “increased living expenses”.

Ketu Laughed … !

The hike that wasn’t: The promised hike was shamelessly denied three months after my movement (corporate freeze you see). Gurgaon rents were insane, so were the people. I was officially thrown under the bus. And this was just the start.

PART 3: THE TERRIBLE TROIKA: 3 LADIES WHO ROCKED MY WORLD

Corporate Rule: If you don’t know who the scapegoat is in your department, it is probably you. Did I mention I was given a punishment posting?

The department was sitting on a mountain of sin accumulated over past three years. A scapegoat was needed to be blamed for collective sins of higher ups, and then sacrificed on the altar of “objective results”. Later feast on its flesh would follow.

I was sacrificed, slaughtered, and then cooked and stewed by three ladies.

Lady Number 1: The Corporate Slave: My cowardly boss: She was a mute slave, and expected me to be one. She got me to the worst position in the organization, dumped me into the warzone, gave no support, denied me a promised hike, and conveniently blamed me for everything that had happened in past three years (I lasted total of 7 months in that role). In our last meeting, which was my “performance review” she gave me “strong” feedback. I opposed saying that I was para-dropped in this crap, and was not responsible for things that happened literally 900 days ago, and I was being made the scapegoat. She hastily ended the discussion telling me that I needed to work on my “executive presence” especially my “dressing sense” (the only part of the discussion I really agreed to. My dressings sense has never been great (Ketu + Venus you see). This was the only just point in her feedback).

Epilogue: She left this role within a month of my movement. The last I knew, she was a slave to a horrible boss. #KARMA. I have forgiven her. In fact, I pity her.

Number 2: The corporate bi * h – My Co-worker from Hell: I am a philogynist (one who loves, respects, and admires women), I am a strong women rights advocate, and a worshipper of Shakti. I never use the word b ** h for any woman. But I would make an exception for this woman. If ever there was a corporate b * h, she was one. This is the only character in this story who I still find difficult to forgive. The day am able to forgive her, I would consider myself blessed. She was my worst corporate enemy ever. A master of politics and manipulation. She wanted my job and tried her best to set me up, and she did a great job of it, using her knowledge of the system and deep political connections. She played friendly to my face and then stabbed me in the back so well that my career in the department was dead before I knew it (She was so good that I found what she did only weeks before my exit that she was the one behind my troubles). Worst of all of that, she was close to my hyper-aggressive VP-JG, whom she used to hammer me often.

Epilogue: Within three months of my movement, she was FIRED for … “integrity violation and unethical behaviour”. The guy who was my replacement, drafted and handed over her termination letter … KARMA proved to be a bigger bitch … than even her … !

Number 3: JG – MY HYPER AGGRESSIVE Super Boss-“The Iron Maiden”: This was an Iron Maiden, not as in “Iron Lady” but Iron Maiden, a medieval torture device. A ferocious tyrant and a dirty player. My bitchy co-worker had her ear, and almost daily, I was being hammered, mercilessly by JG. JG was loud, ill tempered, ill mannered, and ill everything. She would shout insults at a volume that would make me quake in my boots. (Honest confession, I had done this to many other people in the past. Karma is a bitch, indeed).

But wait there’s more … my biggest humiliation sessions would often happen on weekly conference calls with 10 other people listening (after all everything was my fault). Once I took this call from home, the phone was on speaker, and my wife heard her shouting. She was in tears. I hate to admit, so was I, my wife’s tears just doubled the humiliation.

Things were so bad in those days that I would have crying bouts and often used to wish that I meet with an accident or even something goes wrong with my family so that I would not have to report to office. This was the lowest point in my life. (Dear reader: I don’t look so cool now, do I?).

Mercifully, after a few months, my soul rebelled. I became so sick of JG, that I stopped taking her calls or responding to her messages. Even when we met personally I would silently but unflinchingly stare at her as she shouted her lungs off. I had had it. I was ready to quit. This job wasn’t worth so much humiliation. No job was.

Footnote: JG moved to another organization within a month of my movement. I am so glad that I have forgiven her and even had forgotten about her. Some spiritual progress I have made.

AFTER THIS:

I was ready to quit but my mentor helped me get a new role. I changed two more roles and went through a lot in them but life was never that bad. Post my experience with JG, I took an oath, NEVER to take shit again in my life. This decision made my life better, but ultimately ended my corporate career.

I could go on with stories of two other roles which include their own struggles. But I would just do it in short.

ROLE #2: A snake of a boss: In my next role, my new boss hated me (I was talking back to him, my experience with JG had toughened me up.) While he did not confront me directly, he had me trapped, and behind my back engineered my exit from company. I was saved by an old boss and was given a new role, which would prove to be my final one.

Epilogue: My “snake” boss left the company BEFORE my movement to the next role. For the record, he ended up in a politically brutal company. May be he would meet his match. #KARMA

ROLE 3: Rebelling against a tyrant: I got a new role (which would prove to be my last), thankfully, this time I had a cool boss. However, my rabid ops VP hated me. While my bosses sucked up to him, I couldn’t take it for long, and soon, I would talk back to him (remember the “I will take no shit” oath). My poor boss would panic as I would have verbal duals with the VP and would refuse to follow his silly orders. “Just do whatever he says” l remember my panicked super boss telling me almost begging me to maintain the peace. I would not listen. I knew that for me this would be the end of the road. I was going to go down, but I would go down fighting.

Finally after a few months my body gave up. My BP had reached dangerous levels, and I was taken to a hospital from office. Sitting in the emergency room of the hospital, I was looking at my swanky office, across the bridge, and realized that this wasn’t worth it, and decided to end my corporate career. Few weeks later, I resigned.

Epilogue: This tyrannical VP moved to another role within 2 months of my quitting the job. He was taken out because people rebelled against his tyrannical ways and there was employee unrest. #KARMA

Realization and Let Go:

When I heard about the movement of the last man on this list of my tormentors, it made me contemplate this pattern.

Everyone who had hurt me in my roles, moved out within THREE MONTHS. If I would have taken my movement 100 days later, I would NOT have met any one of them. A coincidence could happen once, twice, thrice, but not five times and that too with a precise limit of three months.

I would admit that initially I had a lot of anger towards these individuals but it reduced considerably after this realization. And now almost all of it is gone.

Maybe, maybe they were waiting for an old Karmic bond to dissolved, maybe I would have done something similar to them in some past life. Maybe this was my Karmic clean up (Ketu does that efficiently).

One day I finally took the hate out of my heart thinking, “If you paid an old Karmic debt, I bless you, and I apologize for whatever I had done to you, and I hope we are settled. However, if I was innocent (honestly I doubt that), but if at all, I was innocent and was tormented by you, I am pretty sure that Karma would take care of it.”

After that thought I rarely thought about these individuals. They slowly they faded out of my sub-conscious, blissfully to the point where I had forgotten their names. I consider myself blessed.

Final Thoughts:

Best thing about Ketu is that you lose so much that after a point you don’t have anything to lose. You realize impermanence of things, right from money to relationships. And that can be liberating.

I lost a lot in my Ketu Mahadasha: My career, money, friends, pride, but I guess the best thing I lost was attachment and fear and most of all EGO … !

You let go of friends and foes, of victories and defeats, of attachments and enmities.

You forgive and forget.

As you become less, you become blessed.

After all BLESS really means “BE-LESS”

Ketu Smiles … !

God Bless Us All,

G. Vijay Kumar

Honestastrologer.com

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