Blah Blah Ramdev

I was at an industry event the other night where a trade publication and media house jointly felicitated a 'Person of the Year' - one man who has created impact through his actions. The man they chose, who apparently got an unprecedented 75% plus of the votes of over 1,000 CEOs and such to become the person of the year is this guy -

What was astounding, given that on a Monday night with little booze and even littler food, the people who were there didn't move their ass from the chairs they were fevicoled to throughout the ceremony. Except when it came to storm the sage and take selfies with him. He is obliging like that, his smile and his arms always welcoming any and all who wanted a I-was-with-the-Baba picture for their FB timelines.

I am writing this not because I am a fanboy of the fakir. If anything, I have always wondered how he doen't feel cold dressed like an orange Mandakini in Ram Teri Ganga Maili wherever he roams.

I have been a student of his overtures. His stage gambit, his Haryanvi chutzpah, his ability to show his 'madhya ungli' (that's the middle finger, you Harvard eductaed dumbass Indian serfs) to anything foreign or threatening while maintaining a 500 watt smile. Never fading, never fatigued, never faltering.

How seamlessly has a sadhu, a fast breathing yogi, transformed himself into a fast talking corporate raider, an industrialist who is equally at ease talking about 'distribution' and 'supply chain' as he is about Shankaracharya and Karmayogis.

And while he spoke eminent sense, peppered with peppercorns like 'Colgate ka gate bandh ho jayega' - Colgate's gates will shut soon and 'Pantene ki pant kharab ho jayegi' - Pantene will shit its pants soon, his rhetoric couldn't be more apt in an Advertising, Media and Marketing event. By his own admission, he has built a 10,000 cr plus brand (that's nearly 2 billion USD). And he is on his way to make that 100,000 cr (about 15 billion USD) in 5 to 7 years. And his brand is cocking a snook at the foreign corporations that screw with India's culture, competitive-ness and commerce.

In fact, the products he makes are incidental, a by-product of his philosophy:

It is about time that we Indians (inventors of jugaad, the zero and the kamasutra - we know how to get by, we know our figures and we know our positions. What more do we need?) stopped getting our chains yanked by foreign marauders in suits and sexy-ness and woke up to our strengths and heritage.

This native tune, this earthy homily delivered with entertaining shenanigans, has resonated so well with the masses and classes alike that the rest of the game is easy peasy. Of course, his products are delivering. You can't fuck with the jugaad inventors by rhetoric alone. I spoke to the cabbie and I spoke to an ultra HNI - and they both endorsed the usage of Baba's toothpaste. They both claimed that it worked wonders. What they probably both felt a bit also was "... and while it works wonders, I can also say fuck-you to the foreign man"

Baba Ramdev is a cornucopia of confidence, serendipity and native wisdom. The kind of wisdom you learn at knees and fields, not in air-conditioned classrooms while checking your Twitter timeline. He stands for a reverse-ism, a retrograde activism that is its own brand of progress. Its own justification. His karma - building a 2 billion USD FMCG mammoth that is fucking the Levers and the ITCs alike, publishing over 400 white papers and research articles on ayurveda and holistic science, building a succession plan with over 1,000 yogis who are training under him for the last 10 years, and his dharma - he has and shall continue to do so forever, donate 100% profits to health, education, cow-care and so on, they commingle and create an action-consequence loop that is so beautifully self evident that any debate seems weak and polluted.

For now, he is unstoppable. For now, he is the real deal. For now, he is the wizard and the jester alike. We brush with him, eat with him, fry with him, try with him, make do with him and sing along with him. We listen to him, we criticise him, we make up with him and we can't imagine a tomorrow without him.

Isn't he family?