Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram yoga, told some terrific anecdotes ? but the presenter wasn't convinced
When presenter Jolyon Jenkins sniffs out what he thinks may well be twaddle, he certainly relishes saying so. There were several such moments in Corporate Karma (Radio 4), as Jenkins explored the commercialisation of yoga and the move away from a spiritual emphasis towards fitness.
I particularly liked his coda to an interview with Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram yoga. He let Choudhury tell some scintillating anecdotes about teaching yoga to the Beatles in 1959, and President Nixon in 1972, before quashing them with corrections such as the fact that the Beatles didn't exist in 1959. "Bikram's anecdotes may not be completely accurate," he suggested.
Later, when Choudhury claimed to be working with Nasa, there was another damning postscript from Jenkins: "Nasa could find no trace of a research programme into yoga for astronauts."
Everyone doing well out of the yoga vogue insisted that there is no contradiction between spirituality and material gain. Jenkins never sounded remotely convinced by this, as he visited yoga conventions, competitions, and a Bikram class which horrified him ("the man in front of me is dripping sweat from his shorts, his shoulders, his belly"). In one of the programme's funniest moments a Bikram yoga teacher said of Choudhury: "He's ostentatious but underneath he really cares."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/01/corporate-karma-review
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