Baba, black sheep

TELLY VISION

My brother loves Baba Ramdev. I mean, he absolutely adores the man, finds his smile really sweet and considers telly a blessing "" that's rare "" whenever he catches the guru in those complicated yogic postures.

In other words, he's a big fan of this saffron-clad swami. Which is why I was surprised when my brother choked on his chapati and dal "" "Baba says no to ghee chapatis at night," he once told me "" and screamed, "Come here, look what your telly is showing now."

"Oops! Your baba's in trouble," I said, watching the breaking news as Brinda Karat announced that Ramdev's ayurvedic stuff was no good. "I have evidence", she screamed her lungs out, "to show that crushed animal-testicles are used in Ramdev's ayurvedic products." At that point, I thought, Karat could have greatly benefitted from Ramdev's pranayama and anger-control management.

"Ugh, how could he do that?" I asked. "Hey listen," hissed my brother, "it's just a matter of faith."

I quickly changed the channel to avoid any further confrontation, but good ol' swami was dominating all the news channels. There he was, defending himself on Aaj Tak, beard flying off in all directions as he shouted, "Yeh ek shadyantra hai (This is a ploy)," and showed off blurred, dirty-looking documents to prove he was totally innocent.

"Whatever happened to his stay-calm-and-composed mantra?" I asked my brother. "Do I hit you or do I hit you," said my brother, feeling bad for the guru who had taught him how to meditate, what to eat, what not to eat, how to maintain a calm posture, how not to lose temper, exercises for the spine, mudras to prevent balding, etc, etc.

Just then Telly whispered into my ear, "Watch Mamma Love." Soft porn, I thought, rubbing my hands in delight, but my hopes were dashed. On NCR Live, a nondescript channel, I was staring at a guru from the West.

A heavily-loaded-with-accent anchor on something called the RKB show was interviewing a lady who purred and called herself Mamma Love. Married six times, she was on her great Indian trip of discovery, or should we say nirvana. "Will yuh marry again?" flirted the anchor.

"Of course, seven is a lucky number."

"So what do you teach?"

"Oh, just a whole lotta stuff."

"Ooh, like?"

"Y'know, there's a programme, a meditation technique to bring couples closer, but it's not what you guys call Kamasutra." I didn't hear the anchor say a word after that. The guru, also resembling a walking-talking upholstery store, with her weird sense of dressing, posed prettily, drummed her fingers on the studio desk and drawled, "Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, they're my clients." "And what did you do for them?" asked the anchor almost jumping from his seat. "Solve their problems," said the guru nonchalantly.

"Bro, check out this guru. She sounds cool," I said, trying to distract my brother. He, meanwhile, was readying to order the meatzaa special. "Didn't you turn vegan after watching Ramdev's yoga programme on one of those spiritual channels?" "He's fighting like any of us. He's on a spiritual break, so I thought I might as well take a swami-diet break," winked my brother, tucking comfortably into his pizza.