01: A Midnight Birth in Mumbai
I was born at 1:00 AM on July 2, 1989, at Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar. My ancestral home was in Aswalwadi 32, Shirala, Sangli. A few days later, we moved to the village to live there.
My parents had an inter-caste love marriage, because of which they had to listen to taunts from family members every day. There was an atmosphere of unrest in the house. My father started committing domestic violence against my mother, and my aunt (father’s sister) played an equal role in it. Whenever I tried to protect my mother, my aunt would push me away and stop me.
I could not stay away from my mother even for a moment. Even while playing, I would check on my mother every few minutes. If I couldn’t see her, I would become anxious, restless, and eventually start crying. I was a complete mama’s boy. I did not want to go to Anganwadi either. I was sent there forcefully, but I would run back to my mother. My father used to say that I was only four years old and did not want to go to Anganwadi yet, so I should not be forced to go, but my mother continued sending me.
02: The First Runaway
One day, my father brutally beat my mother. In front of me, he struck her with a chair and severely injured her spine. I was unable to save her. That was the first time in my life that I felt an overwhelming urge to cut my father’s throat and kill him. I was only five years old at the time. Witnessing domestic violence had begun to awaken violence within me as well.
My uncle, aunt, grandfather, and grandmother warned my mother that if she stayed there even for another moment, my father might kill her in a fit of rage. Therefore, she should immediately take the children and go to Mumbai.
My mother took me and my younger brother to Mumbai to live at my maternal grandfather’s house. A few days later, my father came to my grandfather’s house in Mumbai and took me and my younger brother out for a walk.
03: Lost at Five, Cream Roll Forgot Cry
At the age of five, my father lost me in Vikhroli Market while he was intoxicated. I was standing in the middle of the road, crying and calling out for my father. A man took me to Vikhroli Police Station. I waited there for two days for my mother and father. My mother did not even know that I was lost. She thought I was at my father’s house with him. However, when my father went to my mother’s house two days later with my younger brother, my mother learned that I was missing.
My father’s elder brother operated rickshaws. He went to police stations around Ghatkopar to file a missing child complaint, and that was when he found out that I was at Vikhroli Police Station. My mother immediately came to the police station, hugged me tightly, and comforted me.
Since no missing child complaint had been filed at any police station in Mumbai for two days, the police were preparing on the third day to send me to a remand home for my care. One police officer picked me up in his arms and showered me with affection. He bought me a cream roll, made me laugh, and did not give me a single moment to cry. From that day until today, I have remained grateful to the police. That is why I have the highest respect for police officers.
04: Mother Refused to Sign
My mother was a victim of domestic violence and had suffered a spinal cord injury, because of which she was unable to take care of herself. She needed care and support. My parents wanted to separate. My father and his family did not want to take responsibility for us children. My mother wanted to take care of us, but she herself needed care. My mother’s family did not want me and my younger brother to stay at my grandfather’s house.
My grandfather advised my mother to seek the help of an NGO and send the children to an orphanage. However, my mother’s elder sister insisted on giving us up for adoption to another family instead of sending us to an orphanage. She was pressuring my mother to sign papers consenting to the adoption of her children. My mother chose to send us to an orphanage rather than give us up for adoption. Even after that, members of my mother’s family would request the orphanage to place us for adoption so that their sister could be free from the responsibility of her children, whereas my mother did not want to give us up for adoption to anyone.
05: Family Child in Orphanage
My name was Kiran. For seven years, my younger brother and I lived in the orphanage of Sarvesham Seva Sangh in Wadgaon Budruk, Pune. When I was five, my mother, with the help of a women’s NGO that covered half the fees, got me admitted there.
My father was a drunken goon. My mother, battered by domestic violence and gravely ill, could barely care for herself. That is why, despite having living parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, I was in an orphanage with no friends and a warden who wanted me gone.
I was greedy for food then—and still am. In the orphanage, I ate the most. Most of the time, I would overeat. Afterward, I found it difficult to wake up, and sometimes I even felt nauseous or vomited because of overeating. I blamed it all on the cook—she made amti and bhakri so spicy and delicious that I simply could not stop myself from eating too much. While others ate neatly, I crushed bhakri into fine crumbs, mixed it with spicy aamti, and devoured it like a hungry animal. The rule was simple: the last child to finish washed everyone’s plates. I was always last, so I washed them every day. One kind sister quietly helped me.
06: Warden Mangala’s Nightmare
I had no real friends. I couldn’t tolerate even a playful insult; I would fight instantly. My younger brother didn’t mind teasing, so every child in the orphanage was his friend. I played only with the girls—they never abused, and they ate less, so I got their leftover share. Yet even they weren’t friends; every evening they complained to the warden Mangala, and I got beaten.
My brother and his friends were playing cricket, marbles, and thief-and-police. With the boys, I played only the thief-and-police game, and I always accepted the role of a police officer. I never wanted to be the thief. I mostly played with girls, playing kitchen games, role-play games, hide-and-seek, and some other games whose names I did not know.
Running away, roaming the village, diving into the canal, fighting boys, jumping walls, flirting with girls—my daily mischief exhausted the warden. She repeatedly begged the founder to throw me out.
Underwear Rescue Mission
We weren’t allowed to leave the orphanage. The only time we could go outside was to attend school. If any boy was caught wandering outside the orphanage, Warden Mangala would beat him. I went wandering almost every day, so I got beaten almost every day.
One day, in front of all the children, the warden warned me, “If you go swimming in the canal one more time, I’ll throw you out of the orphanage that very day.”
The very next day, I went swimming in the canal again with my school friends. I had completely forgotten about the warden’s warning, but one of my school friends remembered it immediately. He picked up my clothes and ran straight to the orphanage to complain.
I was completely naked. I wasn’t even wearing shorts, and there was no way I could walk naked through the entire village back to the orphanage.
I started searching around the canal for something I could wrap around my waist. Then I found an old pair of underwear belonging to some grown man, half buried in the ground. I dug it out, washed it in the canal, and wore it. Only then did I walk back through the village to the orphanage.
The warden was already waiting for me. The moment I stepped inside the orphanage, the beating began.
Mutton Prasad Operation
I didn’t just sneak out to visit the canal. My feet automatically ran wherever there was food.
Sometimes I’d visit a chocolate factory and ask for free misshapen chocolates. Sometimes I’d go to a bread factory and ask for broken loaves they couldn’t sell. Other times I’d simply join any village feast or bhandara and eat the prasad. Whenever possible, I’d even bring bread and chocolates back for the children in the orphanage.
But because of the orphanage rules, nothing from outside was allowed inside.
One day, sixteen goats had been sacrificed at the Tulja Tekdi temple, and mutton prasad was being served. I ate until my stomach was completely full.
Then a thought struck me. “The children at the orphanage should get to eat this mutton prasad too.”
So I sprinted all the way back to the orphanage, told the warden about the feast, and somehow convinced her that every child deserved to enjoy the mutton prasad.
The warden took all the children to the Tulja Tekdi temple. By the time we got there, all the mutton was gone. Only the mutton curry and rice were left. We happily ate the curry with rice.
Meanwhile, all the running had digested the meal I’d eaten earlier… so I ate the prasad all over again.
The Walking Prisoner
One day, Cook Aunty had to visit another village to meet someone, and she took me along.
That day, I discovered there are two kinds of roaming. The first is roaming alone—going wherever you want. The second is roaming with someone else—staying only around wherever they happen to be. The second type drove me crazy.
While Cook Aunty sat inside someone’s house chatting, I couldn’t leave the house. I couldn’t even wander into another room. It felt as if she’d tied an invisible rope around me, and I was walking around like a prisoner.
I had the exact same experience whenever I went to the warden’s village with her.
Both the warden and Cook Aunty knew I loved wandering around. So whenever they had to visit another village, they’d take me along. And just like that… I became a walking prisoner.
Ganpati Pandal Marathon
During the Ganpati festival, I’d roam all over the village visiting different Ganpati pandals. Sometimes I’d wander so far away that getting back to the orphanage became a challenge.
Every day of the festival, different pandals served prasad. On a single day, I’d visit two or three different pandals just to eat prasad at each one.
One day, the warden took all of us children to Pune’s famous Dagdusheth Ganpati temple. The place was unbelievably crowded.
Watching the way Warden Mangala carefully looked after all of us made me respect her even more. She knew she really had to keep an eye on only one child… Me.
All the other children were sensible. I was the only mischievous one.
07: The Bhakri in My Pocket
Sometimes Warden Mangala would get confused. The same girls who complained about me were the ones I continued to play with—even after being beaten because of them. I was the smartest child there, so she trusted me with managing the market accounts. But I was also the most mischievous, so I was always the first one to be punished.
I was beaten so often by Warden Mangala that I ran away from the orphanage twice. But within 5-10 km, I got hungry, I returned on my own. Once she discovered my weakness—hunger—she started giving me two options: beating or food. Then she would decide herself and deny me dinner.
After that, whenever I made a mistake (which was quite often), I would first sneak into the kitchen, steal a bhakri, and hide it in my pocket. Then I would go and surrender for my mistake. I wouldn’t get any food, of course—but I already had my bhakri ready.
I always knew that I was breaking the rules and that I would be punished sooner or later. But whenever I weighed the pain of punishment against the pleasure of breaking the rules, one thought always came to my mind: Let’s enjoy the moment first—maybe the warden will forget to punish me.
But the warden was sharper than I was. She never forgot to punish me, not even once.
08: Two Sips Milk and A Mother’s Love
Every two months, my mother would visit for ten days, showering me and the other children with love. Sometimes, when she gave more attention to the others, I would tug at her sari and say, “Mom, you are only my mother. You must love only me!”
The warden, Mangala, would send me every morning to bring milk in a large jar. On the way back, I used to secretly drink two sips from it. In fact, I would insist on going myself just so I could have those two sips every day.
When my mother found out that I was doing this just for a couple of sips of milk, she arranged something special. Every month, she paid a nearby general store for half a liter of milk. From that day on, my brother and I got to drink half a liter of milk daily. My younger brother never really drank his share. He would give it to his friends or even to stray dogs. But I was a complete foodie—I never shared my portion of milk with anyone.
09: Lost Compass, Found Warlord
After passing 4th grade and getting admitted to 5th grade, my mother bought me my very first big compass box for 35 rupees. It contained a pencil, eraser, ruler, and many other things that I was seeing for the first time in my life. I was extremely happy. In my excitement, I was dancing, jumping around, and showing my first compass box to all the children in the ashram.
But somewhere in the ashram, there was a boy or girl who felt unhappy seeing my happiness. To make me suffer, that person stole my compass box. I cried for two days. Seeing me cry, many children started making fun of me. Eventually, I accepted that I would never get my compass box back. I thought someone must have thrown it away or burned it. At that very moment, I decided that every single child’s compass box in the entire ashram would be buried in the gutter.
However, I did not like stealing. Even while playing cops and robbers, I always chose to be the police officer and refused to play the thief. So I could not steal anything myself. But I could hire thieves to do the stealing for me. So I offered two boys in the ashram a deal: they could keep all the stolen goods for themselves. I told them, “I cannot steal, and I cannot keep stolen property. I only want the entire ashram to experience the pain of having their compass box stolen.” They agreed.
Every morning, all the children studied in the hall and left their school bags there while going to the dining room for breakfast. That was the moment I sent my two thieves into action. They stole everyone’s compass boxes and filled a large bag with the pencils, erasers, sharpeners, rulers, and other items they found inside. They buried that bag inside a mattress, and I threw the empty compass boxes into a nearby gutter.
When all the children discovered that their compass boxes were missing, they became upset. Seeing their sadness should have made me happy, but instead it made me sad as well. Then Warden Mangala lined up all the children and threatened to punish everyone. At that point, one of the thieves revealed my name. He said that all the compass boxes had been stolen on Kiran’s orders and that Kiran alone was responsible.
Unfortunately, I was the only person named Kiran in the entire ashram. The warden did not doubt his words for even a second. Right then and there, she gave me a severe beating and warned me that I could be expelled from the ashram.
10: The Mad Boy’s Bone Marrow
I was ten years old and studying in the fifth grade. One day, a child at the ashram became seriously ill. I was not friends with him, so I knew nothing about his condition. But when that child left the ashram to stay with his relatives, I learned that whenever a child became seriously ill and the doctors could not treat him, the child was sent home.
I also wanted to leave the ashram and live with my mother, so I decided to pretend to be sick.
For an entire month, I could not figure out what kind of illness I should pretend to have. Then, suddenly, someone mentioned that one of his relatives had become paralyzed while lifting a water pot. At that time, there was no water supply in the ashram, so everyone was bringing water from outside. I was also carrying a water pot when I began pretending that I had become paralyzed.
I continued the act for ten days, hoping that my mother would come to the ashram to see me and take me home.
After ten days, my mother admitted me to Sassoon Hospital in Pune. Orthopedic doctors, mental health doctors, general doctors, and doctors from different specialties began examining me for my paralysis. I continued to display my acting skills in front of every doctor.
One day, I was lying on my hospital bed and needed to go to the bathroom, but my mother was not nearby. She had gone to fill out some hospital forms. I was worried that someone might steal my mother’s bag, so I put it over my shoulder and walked normally to the bathroom while carrying it.
A nurse saw me walking normally. My act was about to be exposed.
So I created another act on the spot. I pretended to be shocked and said that whenever there was pressure on my shoulder, my paralysis disappeared, but whenever there was no pressure on my shoulder, I became paralyzed again.
After this was discovered, many more doctors came to examine me. Everyone wanted to test me.
Then some doctors asked my mother to sign a paper and took me into an operating theatre. They made me lie on my stomach and placed a large lump of cream-like material on my back, covering it with a large bedsheet. Then a doctor forcefully inserted a needle into my spine and took bone marrow from me.
That night, I experienced severe pain. I continued to suffer from that painful condition for three months.
After the bone marrow examination also showed that everything was normal, the doctors discharged me from the hospital.
I then went to live with my mother at my maternal grandmother’s home in Ghatkopar.
My grandmother repeatedly cursed and scolded me. My mother had also become temporarily disabled after suffering an injury to her spine, and now I was in a temporarily disabled-like condition because of the painful wound from the injection into my spine.
One day, my grandmother threatened me. She said that she could not keep two disabled people in her house. Either I would have to return to the ashram, or she would throw both my mother and me out of the house.
That day, I realized that my mother was also living at my grandmother’s house out of helplessness. If I continued insisting on staying with my mother, I might create more problems for her.
That same day, I told my mother that I was ready to return to the ashram.
After returning to the ashram, I waited for the right shocking moment. As soon as that moment came while I was playing cricket, I ended my act of pretending to be paralyzed right there.
And just like that, my paralysis disappeared on the cricket field.
11: Pride Never Gives Happiness
One day, in the morning, I was on my way to school. I saw a man who had put his wallet in the front pocket of his pants. He was on his bike and standing there for some reason that I did not know. His bike caught my attention, but then I noticed his wallet, which looked like it could fall down at any time.
Once he started his bike and moved forward, immediately his wallet fell down.
I ran to pick up the wallet and chased his bike for about 20 metres, but he still did not notice me. Then I threw a small stone towards his bike. He noticed me and turned back, apparently to beat me. Without saying anything, I handed his wallet back to him. He checked it and gave me ₹50.
I took the ₹50 because I really needed it. At that time, I could rent a bicycle for ₹2, so with ₹50 I could rent a bicycle 25 times. I immediately started imagining myself renting a bicycle 25 times and doing stunts.
Once I entered the school, I told my class teacher that a stranger had given me ₹50 and explained what had happened. My teacher was very impressed. After the morning prayer, she announced my name in front of the entire school and appreciated me for my honesty. She told everyone to be like Kiran.
I should have been happy, but I was not, because my teacher took that money and bought me four notebooks and other stationery after noticing that I did not have enough stationery. But I did not want stationery. I wanted to spend that money on renting a bicycle.
The entire school was cheering for my honesty, while I was still unhappy because my ₹50 had turned into notebooks instead of 25 bicycle rides.
The entire school was cheering for my honesty. My teachers made me feel proud, and everyone tried to make me happy — but I was sad because I had lost 25 bicycle rides and received stationery that I could have managed without.
That day, I learned something without actually realizing it: pride never gave me happiness; action did. And that day, I had lost 25 chances to act, ride, and enjoy myself.
12: The Day of Adoption, The Life of a Vow
My mother always said, “Your father knows this address. He can come any day.” I had last seen him at five, in our village home. In seven years, he never came once.
I felt no one in the world truly belonged to me except my mother. One day she arrived, and as always, bliss flooded me. She took me to the founder’s office and said, “A family wants to adopt you. Go live happily with them.”
I was eleven. The words shattered me. I had always believed that if everyone else abandoned me, at least mom never would. When the founder described the family, it sounded as if they wanted a lifelong servant who would tend their garden and pretend to be a son.
I looked at my mother and said, “If they adopt me, they’ll keep me as a servant-son forever. Whatever you decide, Mom, I will accept.”
She changed her mind that very day. That night I cried until morning came, but the tears didn’t stop. At dawn, I took a silent vow:
“Today no one wants to accept me. One day I will give the world such a gift that the whole world will accept me.” — Kiran’s silent vow, age 11, crying until dawn
I didn’t yet know what gift the world needed most.
13: The Magic of Sabudana Khichdi
A month later, I was in six grade at the government school. One day my classmate Mayur brought sabudana khichdi in his tiffin. I had only ever tasted the sweet version of the soup; the spicy one was a revelation—heat in the mouth, tears in the eyes, a running nose, a tingling scalp, jumping legs, and a fierce new craving in the heart.
I begged Mayur for more. He laughed and said, “You can eat all of it. Today was Kakad Aarti prasad at our house.”
I asked what Kakad Aarti was. He explained: every morning at five, bhajan-kirtan in the village Ram temple, followed by prasad at a devotee’s home. He said, “If you come daily, you can eat as much as you want every day.”
Bliss and sadness hit me together—bliss at the promise of daily delicious food and sadness that after seven years in the village I had never known this existed.
14: Escape for Prasad, Not Parmeshwar!
I decided I would go the very next morning. But orphanage children were not allowed out without permission, and warden Mangala slept beside the locked gate. So, I planned to slip out through the toilet window at four.
When the temple bell rang, I woke up. My legs were stiff with cold; my oversized pants kept slipping. I tied a desperate knot, grabbed the drainpipe, and wriggled out. I hadn’t washed my face; my hair was a tangled mess. Still, I ran to the temple. Outside the gate I suddenly felt ashamed of my dirty face and hands. I rubbed off the sleep from my eyes and stepped in. Only the priest was there. For a moment I thought I’d been tricked. Then the kirtan group arrived, and the singing began.
It was my first bhajan-kirtan. I understood nothing of the words; they sounded like noise. My eyes kept drifting to the clock. Finally, at six, aarti ended. Everyone took tilak and walked to a house for prasad—steaming onion poha. I ate until my stomach was full, then slipped back to the orphanage just as breakfast (plain rava dalia) was served. I sat down innocently, as if I had been there all along.
For fifteen days I went alone. Then I thought, why enjoy this alone? I took my brother and his friends. They came once, ate little, and never returned. I went alone again. Slowly, something changed. I no longer went only for the food. I began listening to the words, trying to understand why people sang to God. A curiosity about God himself started burning inside me.
One day the warden found out. She beat me badly and warned, “Next time, you’re out of the orphanage for good.”
I stopped going, but the questions wouldn’t stop: Who is God? Where is he? Does he know me?
I asked everyone. Most said, “Later.” I would cry—I wanted answers now. One sister finally said, “Only sages know God, and sages tell only their chosen disciples.”
15: My Father’s Mysterious Death
A month later, as usual, my mother came to visit us at the ashram, but this time she brought some tragic news. She told me that my father had passed away three months earlier, and she herself had learned about it only the day before. My mother met my aunt every week, yet my aunt had never mentioned that my father had died. No one had informed my mother of his death.
When we reached the village, we heard many different stories. Some people said that my father had become involved with criminals, and that he had been murdered and his body thrown into a well. Others said that he had taken his own life because he could not bear being separated from his wife and children. Some claimed that he had slipped while bathing, fallen into the well, and drowned. According to what we were told, his body remained floating in the well for two days without anyone noticing. On the third day, it was recovered and cremated. Even today, I do not know what actually happened, nor do I feel any strong need to uncover the truth anymore.
My aunt told my mother, “My son performed your husband’s last rites, so you should give him a piece of farmland in return.” Later, she told me the same thing—that because her son had performed my father’s funeral rites, I should give him a portion of my land. Hearing this made me angry and deepened my sense of detachment from my father’s family.
At that time, I felt as though my father had become a demon-like figure in my mind. I often thought that if he had remained alive, he might have tried to kill my mother, and I might have been forced to kill my own father to save her life. Because of these thoughts, I did not feel sorrow at his death. Instead, I felt a sense of freedom.
16: The Mission: Find God, Gift It to the World
From that point onward, I was no longer concerned only with knowing God. I wanted to understand why human beings die, where a person goes after death, and why birth is given at all if death is inevitable. I wondered what it is within the body that keeps it alive, and why, the moment it leaves, the body becomes a lifeless corpse that must be cremated and returned to ashes.
That very day, while sitting in my village home, I made a decision: I would not only seek God, but also seek to understand the very nature of human existence.
That settled it. When I grow up, I decided, I will become a sage. I will search until I find God and get every answer myself. And whether or not anyone becomes my disciple, I will tell the whole world about God.
This is how Glutton Kiran took his first step on the path to becoming a sage for the world.
Conclusion
Reading my childhood stories, you may feel that Kiran could never become a sage. And that is true. It was only as Kiran slowly started becoming Kedi that some qualities of a sage began to develop within him. Even now, those qualities are not fully developed—the process is still ongoing.
Kiran can never be Kedi, and Kedi can never be Kiran — a person keeps changing, keeps evolving. While shaping a stone, some unnecessary distortion sometimes creeps in, whether by accident or through ignorance; correcting that very distortion is the sculptor’s work.
Doing Kiran’s kind of work is itself the path toward becoming Kedi. I have officially changed my name from Kiran to Kedi, but I hadn’t fully become Kedi yet — the transformation continues.
Note: This content represents the first chapter of Kedi Purana, a 64-chapter work authored by Kedi Ganapati. Kedi Purana is a modern Purana of the present and final Kaliyuga.