Swami Balendu called an atheist meet in Vrindavan

He sports a beard, a scruffy salt and pepper one that blankets his slightly wrinkly face. He speaks softly - is somewhat reticent but otherwise strikingly articulate. His attire comprises a white robe and rubber chappals. He manages to smile through uncomfortable questions and answer them with stoical calm. Often, people from around the world flock to his ashram to listen to him speak.

For the standard observer, saddled by cliches, Swami Balendu must come across as a religious saint who delivers sermons and dishes out prophecies. In a more ideal world, followers would ask him for the path that leads to god and he would jocundly point to himself. Just that Balendu doesn't believe in god: he is an atheist.

In thinly-populated Vrindavan, where temples exceed the number of houses, people greet each other with "radhe, radhe", sadhus roam about in saffron robes and aphorisms from religious scriptures dominate the city's walls, 45-year-old Balendu is a startling aberration.

"There is no room for rationality in religion. And, with no rationality, you cannot question anything, and I just find that absurd," he says.

In Vrindavan, where Krishna spent much of his childhood, such "sacrilegious" views on religion have never been met warmly.

Balendu's atheist ways, in fact, landed him in trouble just last week. A "Nastik Sammelan" that was to be attended by more than 1,000 people at his ashram was disrupted by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal. A few Muslim clerics were also a part of the protest. The event was eventually called off.

"It was a meeting of like-minded people trying to have a discussion. We were not trying to promote anything," explains Balendu, seated across me in the bamboo-themed, multi-cuisine restaurant he opened six months ago. "Moreover, this was a private affair that was being held at my house." Religion, he adds, cashes in on people's fears.

With Balendu, however, that wasn't always the case. He grew up preaching Hinduism and delivering lectures all over the country. Celebrities and politicians regularly showed up at his events, including once when former president Giani Zail Singh attended one of his speeches at Amritsar in the late 1980s. The religious disenchantment and atheist metamorphosis took place much later.

In 1997, Balendu decided to isolate himself by taking shelter in a cave at his ashram. He spent three years and 108 days in the enclosure, and emerged from it a "changed" man.

Situated in one corner of the ashram, the cave has now been transformed into a storehouse - painted orange. LPG cylinders and large cans of mineral water lie stacked around it, as a group of workers gives finishing touches to a couple of bamboo sofas that will be used in the restaurant.

Balendu shows me the tiny outlet through which he was delivered food during those three years, and an oxygen vent that has now been closed. "When I came out, thousands of people greeted me. It was as though they had found god; it was a religious onslaught. That is when I started questioning "gurudom"," he says.

Soon after this rebirth, Balendu spent a lot of his time in Germany, teaching yoga and philosophy at Cologne University. In fact, he met his German wife on one of his trips there. "Inequality stems from religion. And, inequality leads to exploitation and superstition. It is difficult to think of a just world with religion around," he says. The prefix "Swami" in his name, he adds, is to tell people that he is the "owner" - the rough translation of "swami" in English - of his life.

Apart from questioning the ethos of religion, Balendu devotes most of his attention to running a primary school that is housed inside the ashram, and whipping up delicacies in his restaurant, Ammaji's, which is named after his mother - a black and white picture of her graces one of the walls. He even makes me taste a scoop of chocolate gelato, a recipe he claims to be his own.

Asked if he'll embrace any religion again, Balendu signs off by quoting Stephen Hawking: "Science is more convincing than god. I like to go by that."