Baba or Blahba?

In the Tamil action-fantasy Baba, southern superstar Rajnikanth plays the good-hearted atheist. But he’s also supposed to be a reincarnation of afailed Himalayan yogi! He eventually gets to meet his former mystical mentor, the immortal Mahavtar Babaji, who gives the hot-headed hero a gift of seven boons.

Being an ardent sceptic, the hero wastes his priceless powers on trivial tests and only belatedly redeems himself by a high profile display of selflessness.

However, just when Rajni is about to follow his eternal master into the Himalayan heights, destiny intervenes again. Audiences are told to expect a sequel. Mahavtar Babaji, the enigmatic ‘eternal’, also figures in Paramahamsa Yogananda’s The Autobiography of a Yogi.

Great many Gurus and Godmen have made claims about meeting the Master, who seems to zip across the cosmos as a beam of light, defying all known laws of causality. All this does make for sensational copy. But should we treat it as fiction or fact?

In his new book, Immortality, the metaphysician and former diplomat Steven Cave raises what he calls are four narratives of immortality sparked by humankind’s death denial and hankering for infinite life-extension.

One defies death by merely staying alive. Then, with ideas like resurrection, transformation or transmigration of souls, we try to cheat the Grim Reaper; and with legacy and children.

But think of the unbearable blightedness of eternal being; infinite future may lead to paralysis by robbing action of urgency, Cave warns; turning a Babaji into a Blahbaji!