With Nummero, the septuagenarian hopes to dispel misinformation and myths surrounding numerology, and solve people's problems. He even plans to set up an institute that would integrate numerology with modern science
J C Chaudhry, the founder of Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) and founder & chairman of Chaudhry Nummero.
Image: Amit Verma
It was sometime in 1984, as a 30-something, that JC Chaudhry became fascinated with numbers. He was visiting his brother-in-law in Haridwar when the former manager at BHEL introduced him to the world of numerology after dinner one day. “He asked me if I was interested in learning something new,†the 72-year-old tells Forbes India. “I said why not?†Back then, Chaudhry was working as the principal of the Model Co-Ed Senior Secondary School in Vikaspuri, New Delhi.
Chaudhry had moved only a few years before that to the capital in search of a better life from the nondescript village of Sevli in Haryana, where his father had run a small textile shop. The family was impoverished so much so that Chaudhry did not own a pair of chappals till he was 12 or a pair of trousers till he went to college. For Chaudhry, who studied botany at the DAV College, Jalandhar, before going on to do a master's in botany from the illustrious Birla Institute of Technology, New Delhi offered a better life.
Over the next few years, after his chance encounters with numerology, Chaudhry also came to something of an epiphany. “Whatever was happening in my life was not in sync with my date of birth,†he says. He soon went back to his village and spent days at various government offices to validate his date of birth. “Back then, nobody checked these things,†Chaudhry says. “While my actual date of birth was November 18, 1950, my records had indicated August 1, 1949.â€
That moment of revelation had, in many ways, been a life changer for Chaudhry. He credits his firm belief in numbers and numerology for his success, which has seen him emerge as one of the richest people in the country today. Chaudhry’s sprawling educational institute, the Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL), was bought by edtech decacorn Byju’s for nearly $1 billion in 2021. Byju’s buyout of AESL was also among the largest acquisitions by an Indian startup, significantly bigger than Snapdeal’s purchase of Freecharge for $400 million in 2015 and Flipkart’s acquisition of Myntra for some $330 million in 2014.
“Whenever I used to hire people, I used to always look at their name and date of birth,†Chaudhry says. “When I would look at buying a plot for the institute, the number had to match and be harmonious with my date of birth. It is the same for the faculty that I appoint or the fee structure.â€