Wednesday And Thursday: A blur

It doesn't get anymore surreal than this. I am sitting in a plastic chair in a 1,000-plus square feet apartment in Chennai listening to a 29-year-old mystic spell out Immunothromytic Perpura for my benefit. The man is Tatwamasi Dixit, a brahmin from the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh who moved to Chennai in search of greener pastures in mid-90s.

The girl at the reception in the hotel I was put up in recommended him when I explained my quest to her. Oh, yes, Immuno......is a debilitating disease that destroys platelets (these are responsible for clotting) in the human blood stream, and Dixit claims the style of vedic healing practiced by his company, Kaayakalpa (that means a nostrum that holds the key to eternal youth), can cure it and a host of other ailments.

Don't be taken in by Dixit's appearance; I almost was. He's dressed in a spotless white shirt, and a spotless white dhoti, and sports the tuft of hair on the back of the head that is characteristic of pundits in India. But listening to him speak, it is evident I'm in the presence of an entrepreneur who knows what he is doing.

The Kaayakalpa model of healing begins with psychiatric counselling, then moves on to what Dixit calls intuitive diagnosis although it also draws from ayurveda for this purpose, then, to the actual treatment, which involves a great deal of chanting, some simple yogic exercises, and meditation, and then concludes with allopathy (purely for monitoring). ''We don't want someone who comes here to be cured of diabetes getting hypoglycemic,'' explains Dixit, who doesn't have a formal degree in medicine; he presided over a marriage ceremony when he was seven, if that's any help.

Kaayakalpa attracts 15 to 20 patients a day; the typical patient needs to be treated for at least three months; and end up paying a minimum of Rs 7,000.

Dixit's second entrepreneurial effort is Infovedic Services, which is in the process of, what else, building a portal on vedic healing and the Vedas in general called Mypundit.com. The next step? An office in Singapore.

Will he able to do so? Methinks, yes. Kaayakalpa and Infovedic Services list chartered accountants, qualified allopaths and ayurvedic physicians, and trained para-medics among their employees.

Gulroop Bala/Reiki: The 49-year-old former housewife teaches Reiki from her 600 sq ft apartment in central Mumbai. The cost of the cosmic attainment" promised by her? Rs 900. In a good month she makes Rs 10,000

Hyderabad is a downer. I don't meet anyone even half as interesting as Dixit. But the city's denizens seem to prefer the organised route to salvation.

The most popular new-age technique here seems to be pranic healing; and the most popular new age organisation appears to be the Andhra Pradesh Pranic Healing Foundation. Speaking to C. Sasidhar Reddy, the president of the foundation, the reason for its popularity becomes evident: it runs courses on everything from basic pranic healing to crystal healing, psychic self defense to clairvoyance, and Feng Shui to Yoga. ''One of our more popular courses is Kriyashakti, which helps an individual create energy that will maximise material and financial success,'' says Reddy.

That blows my mind: a new-age spiritual technique that facilitates the worship of Mammon. May Sasidhar's tribe increase.

A Frenetic Friday

Back home in Delhi, but I'm not staying at home. I slink in and out of cabs hoping that my wife doesn't see me and wonder what I'm up to. First stop is Defence Colony where Bharat Thakur lives. The 27-year- old Thakur is the newest celeb in a town that is forever short of the species. The e-mails and the phone calls haven't stopped since Time published Thakur's contrarian take on yoga in a July issue (that's right, it's the same issue with Christy Turlington on the cover).

Thakur doesn't look like the mental image of a yoga instructor I'd formed in my mind: he's clean-shaven, dressed in gym gear when I enter the room, although he exits and makes a reappearance in a far more suitable Indian costume, drives a Matiz, expresses a weakness for blue jeans, and says something about having a love life, which I ignore. No Xaviera Hollander stuff here.

Yoga, going by what Thakur says, is still the thing. The man conducts workshops for employees of Infosys and Bharti, is personal philosopher to 10 hot-shot industrialists including a telecom tycoon whom he takes for a morning walk once a week in Delhi's Lodhi Garden.

Thakur is a consummate pro: he charges a minimum guarantee fee of Rs 90,000 for workshops; Rs 2,000 for his two-day tapasya programme where people dance to Sufi music piped over Bose speakers to detoxify their systems; and Rs 2,000 a month for the use of the capital's only yoga gym that is run by him (it has over 5,000 members). ''I am not a person,'' says Thakur enigmatically. ''I am an instrument that can show you who you are and help you become who you want to be. I can take anyone to a state of samadhi in 11 seconds.''

Thakur's parting words after he fails to take me to this promised state of meditative bliss is ringing in my ears-''Come out of the boundaries of logic to experience God''-as I head for the office of Ma Prem Usha in Delhi's Maurya Sheraton hotel.

Usha, a former acolyte of Osho, works out of a plush 8x8 office in the basement of the hotel. ''Rs 990 for a 30 minute session,'' reads a stainless steel board outside her office. Usha is a tarot reader, and while she won't tell me how much money she makes, she'll go far enough to say, ''I don't make a lot of it; I pay over 30 per cent to the hotel and 10 per cent as tax.''

Tarot, for those who came in late, is a soothsaying technique that mixes ancient Egyptian and Celtic cultures with a dash of the occult. ''Tarot is like a mirror that tells you what you are. Nobody leaves this room with negative vibrations,'' says Usha, as she spreads a pack of tarot cards in a neat circle with a shimmering quartz ball at the centre.

I flee before I can change-negative vibrations help me get through life and work-and head for the Kottakal Arya Vaidaya Sala's hospital located in an East Delhi suburb. The hospital is on a 2.5 acre campus, has 25 beds for inpatients, and charges up to Rs 35,000 for a one month intensive treatement.

It was demand for the ayurveda-based treatements offered by the centre in Delhi that prompted the Vaidaya Sala (literally, house of medicine) to make the crossing over the Vindhyas to Delhi. ''Our treatment is most effective in the cure of paralysis, arthritis, Parkinson's disease, and psychosomatic problems,'' says Kottakkal Delhi's Chief Medical Officer Dr. K. Ravikumaran.

Lay readers may be most familiar with the treatment known as Dhara, which, to my mind, seems an extension of the Chinese water torture. Medicated oil is liberally applied to a patient's scalp; he is made to lie on a wooden plank; and a non-stop stream of the prescribed medicine is made to drop gently on his forehead for 90 minutes.

Going Home

On the way back home-I must remember to act as if I've just disembarked from a flight-I go over my experiences over the past four days. I am still not sure which new-age technique or fad I should make my own, but am convinced that it will have to be an organised sort of thing.

Like the Art of Living programme offered by the Art of Living Foundation founded by Sri Sri (is there one more Sri? I don't know) Ravishankar. Through a franchise-like model-people who've been through the course and trained as instructors are authorised to offer programmes of their own-it has been able to build a network of around 400 instructors.

Or the Vipassana International Academy that conducts a 10 day Vipassana meditation programme at its 63-acre ashram in Igatpuri, Maharashtra. Or even Tatwamasi Dixit's vedic healing programme in Chennai. God knows, I've earned it.

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