The Baba, Don Quixote and the romance of revolution

It’s over finally, it appears. Seven days after he started his controversial fast against corruption and black money, yoga guru Baba Ramdev seems to have ended it on Friday. There’s no clear word on it though. Earlier, he was shifted from his ashram at Haridwar to Dehradun after his health deteriorated. The Baba’s fast kept the country engrossed with its dramatic and hugely farcical moments. Ultimately, it turned out to be quite a dull, uninspiring affair. It’s not clear whether Baba Ramdev ever came across a character called Don Quixote. If he has not then he should meet the gentleman. They would get along like a house on fire. Don Quixote is a fictional character from the book Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, a literary masterpiece from the Spanish Golden Age written by Miguel de Cervantes. The work deals with the tragic-comic misadventures of a countryside man in his 50s obsessed with books on chivalry. One fine day the gentleman decides to turn the knight-errant to revive the dignity of the vocation. Armed with a rudimentary sword and covered in a tattered suit of armour, he heads towards Spain in search of glory. He rides a skinny, eternally suffering horse and has a plump hanger on for company. [caption id=“attachment_23411” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=" French actor Fyodor Chaliapin Jr and George Robey GW Pabst’s 1933 film version of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel Don Quixote. Getty Images"]  [/caption] To cut a long story short, the book is a farcical account of the goofy adventures of a man who mistakes inns for castles, takes the inn-keeper for the lord of the castle, tilts at windmills, promises governorship of an island to his most loyal follower and basically, goes about making a spectacle of himself with his odd-ball mission. What has it got to do with Baba Ramdev? Well, it’s about the blurring of the thick line between imagination and reality. Quixote made himself a laughing stock in his community because he failed to realise that the two stand wide apart. One hopes the Baba does that pretty fast. After his Delhi mission, which had a rather unceremonious ending, the Baba has jumped from one folly to another and started making outrageous statements with disturbing frequency. He tried to escape from the Delhi melee in the guise of a woman and was nabbed by the police. Back in Haridwar, he claimed it was a trick he learnt from the life of the great Chhatrapati Shivaji. The Maratha warrior, the Baba said, was a master of disguises and he always managed dupe his enemies by using this technique. Shivaji, of course, would not have appreciated the poor attempt at imitation and the fact that the yoga guru was detected so easily. Dispassionate bystanders called the act unnecessary. What was the need to run away from the police in the attire of a woman in the first place? Ramdev could have stayed firm and courted arrest like any law-abiding citizen, they argue. During his regular press conference at his ashram, he was getting more and more fanciful on his experience with the police by the day. “There was a plan to kill me,’’ he said, adding the fire at his yoga camp at Ramlila Maidan was part of it. Those who have watched the television grab of the small fire realise that the Baba was exaggerating. He was also getting increasingly more aggressive with the government, blaming everybody, starting from Sonia Gandhi to Manmohan Singh, for his plight. Police action, surely, does strange things to men. What really takes the cake is his call to arms. He said he would be raising an army of 11,000 youths to take on the government. Next time he goes to Delhi, his armed force would be on stand by for intervention in case of police action, he said. Under criticism for the statement even from friends, he has revised his words since. Poor Baba, he is in dire need of good advisors. Imagine the yoga guru on horseback leading an army of armed followers to Delhi. His deputy Balakrishnan is far too understated, thus smart, at press meetings. The problem with Baba Ramdev is not so much his intention as his hurry. After having the government on bent knees he could have returned with some concrete results. He refused to do that and went on expanding his list of demands. Whoever told him that issues like black money and corruption could be handled overnight and settled on the streets was taking him for a ride. Now that he and his business activities are under the scanner, he ought to be more careful. He does not seem to be mindful of that. Don Quixote did not end up achieving what he wanted. He was too much into an imaginary world. Baba should take note.