‘Yoga or yogurt?’

[1]

His current followers range from the likes of Andy Murray and George Clooney to Lady Gaga and Madonna. His high-flying Beverly Hills lifestyle sees him rub shoulders with the highest echelons of Hollywood A-listers who throng his sessions and swear by his controversial approaches.

Yes, we’re talking about 66-year-old Bikram Choudhury, the original bad boy of yoga who’s revolutionised the fitness scenario in the USA with his take on ‘hot yoga’.
As a teenager, he was the National Yoga champion for three consecutive years under the guidance of his guru, Bishnu Ghosh. Four decades after he left Kolkata to set up his first studio in San Francisco, Bikram Yoga has developed into a global cult, with more than 5,000 centres worldwide and an obsessed fan base.

Getting popular:
It wasn’t easy in the 1970s when I initially started on my mission — to take yoga to the world. Nobody knew what it was in Japan. When I met Bill Clinton for the first time, he asked me if it was a form of yogurt that you eat! But I kept my faith and never gave up on my quest.

Celebrity clients:
I’m able to maintain personal relationships with them as I’ve treated everyone as equal human beings in my class, even people like Indira Gandhi, George Harrison or Pandit Ravi Shankar. When actress Shirley Maclaine arrived 30 minutes late for a class, I asked her to leave. When President Ronald Reagan asked me a stupid question once, I called him an idiot in public! I thought I was going to be arrested, but he laughed and appreciated me.

The better half:
Rajashree was herself a yoga champion and teacher. She’s responsible for making a businessman out of me, and expanding my ambitions. She’s charted her own path too as a beauty queen and is the founder of the US Yoga Federation.

Connecting with U.S.A.’s Gen Y:
I presented myself to America as a person more American than any of them! I’ve insulted them, abused their country even, at the same time selling India as the sole place where spiritualism still exists — and they loved it!

Looking ahead:
I’ve been working with NASA for several years; now a Bikram Yoga Research Centre as part of the UCLA campus is on the horizon. The Governor of California is also setting up a university to promote Bikram Yoga. I teach students to be bulletproof, sex-proof and emotion-proof! My goals are to promote India on a global scale, prevent illness and help cure people and create employment opportunities for Indians to work abroad as teachers.