SAYED ALIPUR (MAHENDRAGARH): Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s native village in Harayana’s Mahendragarh district wore a desolate look a day ahead of his fast in New Delhi. Streets were empty, and sporadic peacocks’ call shattered the silence.
Late in the afternoon a cab, fitted with an overhead loudspeakers, gave a sense of Saturday’s elaborate arrangement in the National Capital, about 150km from here. An announcement about Baba Ramdev’s much-publicized satyagraha against graft at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan was a token reminder about the event.
The lacklustre publicity drew to a close as the cab pulled up in front of Dev Dutt’s house. Dutt is Baba Ramdev’s elder brother.
He said many of the villagers would either leave for Delhi or reach the district headquarters to lend solidarity with the yoga guru’s satyagraha. “Two buses are going from our village. I shall go to Delhi,” said Dutt, a retired Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.
Baba Ramdev had left his ancestral village for the gurukul in Khanpur in 1987 on completion of his Class VIII studies.
Dutt recounted his younger brother’s brush with spiritual powers in his formative years. He used to talk about seeing a saint in his dreams, who urged him to work for the nation.
Many years on, “he is trying to realize that dream. He is fighting for a cause, and no wonder there is a groundswell of support for him,” a beaming Dutt said basking in the reflected glory of Baba Ramdev.
The glory has rubbed on to the local school authorities, who will ferry his supporters to Delhi for free. “We will also provide food to them. He has made our area proud, and is fighting for a national cause,” said an owner of a private school.
Though Baba Ramdev had last visited here in 2008, he didn’t go home or meet his family members separately. “He met all of us at a public gathering outside the village temple. Even our grandfather and father met him there. His only motto is to serve the nation,” said Dutt.
Baba Ramdev, who was called Ramkishan in his childhood days, has all along been against the use of his surname. Contrary to popular perceptions, his kin and teachers remember him as a brilliant student till Class VIII.
The yoga guru’s family had to face a lot of flak for sending him to a gurukul in Khanpur.
“People used to mock us for sending him to a gurukul despite our poverty. He overcame a lot of odds and passed in first division. He has made us proud,” said Dutt while showing their ancestral house where Baba Ramdev had spent his childhood.
The house, which used to be abuzz with 70-80 people, has since been abandoned. A few of his followers had come and stayed here for a yoga programme a couple of years ago.
Locals remembered Ramkishan as a nice and hard working boy. After school hours, he used to give a helping hand to his father in farming. Had he not been a good man, how could lakhs become his followers?” asked a village elder.
Umarao Prasad, a retired primary teacher who taught Baba Ramdev, reminisced how he was a serious student and translated a prayer he sang in school to reality – “mein who purush banoo Bhagwan, jis se badhe Bharat ki saan” (Make me such a man, who would make the country proud).
Baba Ramdev had held his first yoga camp in Haryana’s Rewari in 2002, which heralded a new beginning to his glorious journey of spreading the yogic healing touch.
His younger brother Rambharat is taking care of his sprawling ashram in Haridwar, where Baba’s father also strays. Dutt’s daughter Deepika is pursuing a degree in ayurvedic medicine from the Patanjali University.
“I have never met him personally. I have only seen from a distance,” Deepika said, reinforcing his status among his immediate family members as a Swamiji, who has risen above blood ties long ago.
The imagination imitates it is the critical spirit 