Whispering to the stars: Meet Anupam V Kapil, celebrity astrologer who predicted the COVID-19 outbreak

Anupam V Kapil is one of India’s leading astro-numerologists and psychics with over three decades of experience in the field.

A well-known face on Indian television channels, he is widely sought by industrialists, politicians, film personalities, sports stars, and supermodels for his bold, detailed and authentic predictions.

He has been consulted by political leaders like former PM Chandra Shekhar Singh and Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, film personalities Kareena Kapoor Khan and Preity Zinta, cricket superstars like Mathew Hayden, Sanath Jayasurya, Rahul Dravid, Kapil Dev and even supermodels like Yana Gupta, Sheetal Mallar, and Aditi Govitrikar to name a few.

An MBA graduate with a Master’s degree in Communication and Journalism, he also studied law before becoming Executive Director in his family’s logistics business.

A passionate student of numerology and palmistry since 1985, he studied astrology in 1995 and wrote for varied publications like The Indian Express, Mid-Day, and The Times of India.

An avid enthusiast of occult and spiritual literature, he is an established expert in remedial Vedic astrology, numerology, body language, face reading, palmistry, svara vidya, Astro Vaastu, pendulum dowsing, graphology, tarot, and gem therapy.

Published in 2000, his book Numerology Made Easy became a bestseller, with record-breaking 30-plus reprints.

Currently, the prolific author is penning books on topics varying from phonetic astro-numerology, palmistry, Vaastu, gem therapy, colour healing, karmic corrective remedial insights, and temples of Ancient India.

In an exclusive interview with YS Weekender, astro-numerologist Anupam V Kapil talks about the role of destiny and faith, the impact numbers have on our lives, insightful predictions he has made, and his advice to citizens dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Excerpts from the interview: -

YSW: Tell us how your passion for astro-numerology started.

AK: It’s a long story of my curiosity about mysteries, beginning in childhood. Everything mystical and magical always fascinated me, right from comics of Mandrake the Magician, Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha books for their mythological characters, or Hardy Boys for their suspense detective thrillers.

It was a Numerology book by Cheiro that I picked up in 1984 that grabbed my attention. I read it cover to cover many times and my interest progressed from one book to another.

The more I read, the more my passion on the subject grew, and by age of 21, I was fairly good in palmistry and númerology, especially affairs and heartbreaks (as my exposure was to college students only). 

My family business of logistics and transportation was under financial pressure in the 1990s, but my astrology and palmistry skills helped me manoeuvre many contracts my way and opened many doors, including corporate India.

Then came the big break when former PM Chandra Shekhar Singh’s secretary visited my house. I had read his hands and the news appeared on the front page of a local daily with my pictures with him.

I was writing for The Times of India then and we had a Parsi lady, Sherna Gandhi, who liked me but was always contemptuous of astrology calling it mumbo jumbo.

She saw this picture and said “your stars seem to be working,” and she put the story of the ex PM’s visit on the backbeat and then another newspaper carried it on the front page. My story now had a star value.

I started writing the first númerology column in India for Pune Times from 2003 to 2009, which was called Tea with Nostradamus. I don’t know why the editor kept this name, but later on, I did a lot of research on Nostradamus predictions and combined them with other predictive forms to predict world events, which came true.

I had big Bollywood stars, industrialists, and politicians consulting me, and my passion only kept growing with each exposure.

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YSW: Since you previously studied journalism and mass communication and received an MBA in these fields, how did you know that spiritual literature and astrology was your true calling?

AK: At a young age, I broke many big stories, but I grew disillusioned when I realised that media is subject to power and influence, and many inconvenient stories don’t get published. We must have the right passion in life, and I found that only in the beautiful works of our rishis tradition combined with science, and that is the living tradition of India.

Even after 5,000 years, I am proud to be doing my research to connect the lost secrets of Indian Numerology.  

Practising astrology etc and writing were pre-ordained – who will do what profession is already pre-decided – even my Naadi reading confirmed all my professions and said the work which I do on numerology will prove to be unique research, and a system will be known after me.

It’s strange that today I am exactly working on that system and will talk about it soon. 

Knowing what is going to happen and what is going on in someone’s mind was always my deep interest. So other interests like body language, graphology, astrology, and palmistry all complemented each other by mass communication, management and other formal qualifications which make what you do look more credible since Astrology was looked down as superstition by most.

Opportunities flowed in my other career. I did the first Radio Mirchi astrology forecasts in India when private radio stations were first launched in India in 2004; it was called Bolo Tara Ra. I wrote the first matrimonial column for The Times of India called Shubh Vivaha in 2001, the first númerology column in India from 2003 to 2009. 

TV assignments with Aaj Tak on prime time and World Cup series came my way in 2007 and I never looked back after that.

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YSW: You are an established expert in remedial Vedic astrology, numerology, body language, face reading, palmistry, svara vidya, Astro Vaastu, pendulum dowsing, graphology, and tarot and gem therapy. Can you tell us about what each entail.

AK: Astrology, in a nutshell, is the science of karma of your past and current births and the phala (results) continue from various births to the future births as well. Astrology shows you the innate character and possibilities and the environment one is born in and their ability/free will in this life.

Numerology is the science of sound/phonetics (svara). Hindu names are based on Devnagiri script, every name has a fixed vibration and meaning. The sad thing is that changing letters in a name is propagated as Numerology, which is not the case.

Palmistry is very effective as there are some things which can’t be seen or predicted by númerology or even astrology, but the palm would give you the main highlights of your life very clearly – your mental state, affairs, heartbreaks, fame, longevity, and professions you are best suited for.

Body language involves the study of nonverbal communication and it is closely linked with palmistry as hand gestures, handshakes etc convey so much.

Face reading involves seeing the shape of the face, eyes, nose and expressions along with lines on the forehead. They speak about the intelligence of the person, their attitude, behaviour, temperament, reliability, leadership abilities, and luck.

Astro Vaastu means reading the vaastu of the house without physically visiting it, and it is very accurate. You can immediately identify the doshas in directions from your chart by seeing the afflicted planets and directions in the chart. As vaastu corrections are easy to make, you can identify what colours/furniture/items are kept in wrong directions and you can shift them to see results. 

Pendulum dowsing involves using your subconscious mind, not your conscious energies. 

Tarot is commonly understood only as an Egyptian science. The Indian Theosophical Society at Adyar was a connecting point for most occultists and others were researching Indian astrology. Many westerners passed off a lot of our Hindu rishi work as their own research.

Unless you understand Indian astrology and the deeper significance of the nakshatra system you cannot understand the deep esoteric significance of the Tarot.

Gem therapy: Gems cannot change your fortune as commonly propagated. Planets are connected with colours, auras in human beings are also connected with colours. An imbalance of these combinations in your charge creates an imbalance of certain colours resulting in certain physical and mental constitution of a person. Gems must be worn to restore the balance, which brings unity of mind and heart.

YSW: Do you believe each person’s destiny is predetermined? How so?

AK: Of course, it is, the Gita affirms it. A large part of destiny, your profession, the character is pre-determined due to the karmas carried forward from the past life.

Thoughts create actions, negative thoughts repeatedly create bad habits and bad habits create bad actions, which is bad karma. When the soul dies, your report card is transferred along with the new body and you are suitably given such parents, environment to work out your karma. The horoscope is a mathematical blueprint of your karma and you are born at a particular time when the stellar arrangement is in perfect mathematical harmony to your karma, it is never otherwise.

So, you do have a limited choice in shaping your destiny. People with greater free will are those with a less balance of bad karmas and they are already on the spiritual path. Having realised the futility of a mechanical life, they walk the selfless path undeterred by material success/failure. 

YSW: What is the impact of numbers in our lives?

AK: Everything in life revolves on numbers – from your birth date to the bank account, salary, mobile number, your vehicle number – from the cradle to the grave, everything is only a number. Names are sounds and sounds are numbers.

All your achievements happen on a number; you succeed or fail on a particular number. You get attracted to people because of the number they are born on, and to those whose soul numbers match your birth or bring you happiness and success in relationships and in life. Hostile name numbers are in conflict with your horoscope, and the birth date delays your success. Successful partnerships are built on the harmony of numbers of partners.

My research of 1,000 years of Indian history in 1993 proved that numbers four, eight, and nine are evil for our country whenever they come together.

This research has been copied by every numerologist in India without acknowledgement. See the recent history of events of 1948, 1975, 1984, and 2020 and you will see their malefic influence in assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, Emergency, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and COVID-19.

Whenever two 2’s appear and there are two 0’s along, it is an international emergency number.

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YSW: How accurate are the results of palmistry and tarot reading? What are the things that you identify the most among today’s youth?

AK: Palmistry is very accurate. As I explained, tarot and numerology are connected to the nakshatra and numbers, and the same things are visible on palms. Each phalange on your finger represents one of the 12 months and also the nakshatras, and by seeing the marks in them, you can time the adverse and good periods in life. The number symbols in the name given to us constitute our deck of cards with which we play our game of life.

Palmistry too is a branch of astrology; a very important one. The important blueprints in your life are visible without calculations at a glance. The lines of your hands are the summary of your destiny. The left indicates the past and ancestral influences and the right indicates your present and the future. The Head line indicates your intelligence and talent which is so important for success, and the Sun line indicates your recognition and fame in life; the fate line shows your direction and obstacles you meet on the way, the mounts and marks on them show the inherent talents, strength and affliction of planets.

YSW: Since you have written for several leading publications, what are your thoughts on daily/monthly horoscopes?

AK: Daily horoscopes are too general and can be only general considering the population. The weekly horoscopes that I write are based on ascending signs, which are more than 95 percent accurate as ascendant changes every one-and-half hour compared to the Moon which changes in 27 hours and the Sun that changes once in 30 days.

YSW: What are some of the things or future events you have foreseen, that you are most proud of?

AK: Every prediction that goes right is satisfying; it is not a matter of pride. If you learn mathematics, do you get proud every time you solve an equation? No, because that is supposed to be the exact result. The input is the birth date and time but in 99 percent of cases, time is not available and considering this huge limitation, it is wonderful when your experience helps you in developing other methods through research.

My major predictions have been the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001 predicted by me in Sunday Times in 1999; the Paris, London and German attacks; the Bombay blasts (all in print and TV, years and months before); winners of the ICC Cricket World Cup and IPL Cups; and the exact location of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 before satellite images were available.

COVID-19 was indicated in August 2019 in a Facebook post on masks. I had a dream on December 22 – the same week that COVID-19 broke out. The unfortunate assassination of former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto on Aaj Tak, repeated predictions about the rise of gold prices from 2008 till now, and the biggest one which no one predicted was a clear warning on ABP on January 1, 2020 of threat and mischief to India from China and Pakistan in February and March. 

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YSW: What motivated you to write the book ‘Numerology Made Easy’? Do you plan on writing more books in the future, if so, what are the topics you would like to explore?

AK: My first series of Numerology columns appeared nationally as the Fate Number series in Saturday Times of India in June 1999 and it was a big hit. One day, an aspiring author consulted me because her book was not getting published, and I told her it’s the easiest thing to do. Name the best publisher and I will publish a book under my name with that publisher. As providence would have it, the Universe conspired, and it happened.

My speciality is history, and I like to connect the missing dots of the ages to the present to explain to people a unique mix which they will never get to read anywhere.

Other books in the works are one on palmistry with a psychological tilt and scientific angle on how to judge character and predisposition of humans to their inherent talents; another on colours and gems and how these impact mental and physical health and the energy levels and auras so that we can use this knowledge scientifically, not superstitiously.

Another book will be on phonetic numerology, which has never been written in the modern context by anyone after 1910. Two other books will be on Astro-Vaastu and body language.

YSW: What is your explanation for the COVID-19 pandemic and what advice do you have for people struggling with it?

AK: A big disaster or epidemic was waiting to happen, collective mass karma of society has descended to the lowest, ‘paap’ has become too much, nature is just restoring the balance by correction. The two zeros of 2020 and two 2’s show the cyclicality of nature, just like the planetary cycles.

Most of the pain in life is because we do not understand the will of God, and we want things that were never meant for us. We should not try too hard but follow God’s will.

(Image Credits: Anupam V Kapil and Jashoda Madhavji DNH Media)