The hotheaded yogi

For a yogi, Bikram Choudhury is surprisingly belligerent, says Damian Whitworth in the London Times. The inventor of the eponymous Bikram form of yoga—a rapid series of poses in a room heated to 105 degrees—studied yoga in India from the age of 4, moved to America, started doing training courses, and became a rich man. “Now 100 million people do Bikram yoga on this earth today,” he says. (He also claims to have healed a blood clot in President Nixon’s leg, and to have taught Pope Paul VI about yoga.)

What he hasn’t yet mastered is the art of talking to journalists. “I don’t like to talk the negative things,” he grumbles. “People get cancer and people die in chronic disease. You know who is responsible for that? The media....I can keep you alive a hundred years. That’s why pope come to me. Whole world come to me. You came here with a negative attitude.”

He recalls another journalist who offended him. “I said, ‘You know what, I don’t think a fat bitch can write a good story about me. So come to my class, lose 60 pounds, then I’ll give you an interview.’ She thinks because she’s a reporter I’m going to kiss her ass. But she don’t know Bikram Choudhury. Mrs. Gandhi also scared of me.”

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