Virat-Anushka wedding: Maharaj Anant is the Baba of the moment

The wedding of Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli in Italy earlier this week has launched an unlikely celebrity — a Haridwar-based spiritual guru called Maharaj Anant Baba whose pictures with the couple have since gone viral on social media.

For many, the fact that Anant Baba too was flying to Italy with the Sharma family was a clear sign that a wedding was in the offing. The Baba has for years been the family’s spiritual guru, specifically Sharma’s.

Not many had, however, heard of him in Haridwar until Sharma landed there to meet him at his ashram, Anant Dham, in 2014, says a local resident. One of the Baba’s disciples, who does not wish to be named, says the ashram in Haridwar was set up barely a decade ago. “Our maharaj,” he says, “is a very pious man and we are not supposed to talk to the media about him.”

Little is known about the Baba whose name, according to the ashram’s website is Pradip Agnihotri. His disciples also address him as “Anant Narayan Gurudev”. Born into a simple family at Pathri near Haridwar, he is said to have set out on the spiritual path when he was only 15. During this journey, which lasted a good 25 years, he is believed to have stayed and engaged with several saints and sages, including in the Himalayas.

He claims to have mastered the Vedas, Upanishads, the Brahma sutras (the Sanskrit text that expounds Vedanta philosophy), Kundalini yoga, astrology, tantra and occultism.

Sharma’s mother is from the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand and that’s how the family is believed to have come in contact with the Baba. According to vernacular language newspapers, he has performed anushthan, a religious ceremony, for the Sharma family on several occasions, including a few days before the marriage at their residence in Mumbai.

Before her debut film, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi opposite Shah Rukh Khan, Sharma had visited the ashram in 2007 to seek the Baba’s blessings. She has in the past said that whenever she needs mental peace, she reaches out to her spiritual guru, Anant Baba. The visits have become low-profile since she became a celebrity.

According to some reports, the couple visited Anant Dham some months ago for the Baba’s blessings. It was he, reports say, who fixed the date of their wedding.

The ashram in Haridwar does more than offer spiritual guidance. The activities include organising health camps, preserving water bodies as well as supporting women and providing them vocational training so that they can earn a living through art and craft; these include tailoring, stitching, candle-making workshops and computer education. The ashram has a women’s centre and also an old age home.

Besides organising tree plantation drives and creating awareness for plastic-free surroundings, the ashram holds de-addiction programmes. The Baba, through his discourses, also hopes to encourage dowry-free marriages. The website says that one of the ashram’s aims is to “train women to protect themselves from bad elements in the society. [To] help her stand on her own feet and to support her to be strong and vibrant”.

A blend of traditional and modern is how the ashram and the Baba are viewed. His picture at the Mumbai airport on the way to Italy in some ways captures this image. The Baba is seen here not in his saffron kurta and white dhoti but in in track pants, sweat shirt and sneakers, with a bag casually slung over his shoulder.