THE INTERNATIONAL CELEBRITIES

Two babas from Madhya Pradesh made waves globally in the 1950s and 1960s. One found fans in The Beatles, the other is still being talked about on Netflix

Chandra Mohan Jain aka Rajneesh aka Osho was born in Narsinghpur district in 1931. In 1961, he began travelling across India under the name Acharya Rajneesh, giving lectures that were a strong critique of institutional religion, socialism and Mahatma Gandhi. He rattled many with his talks of celebrating sexuality but soon became as popular as he was controversial. He set up an ashram in Pune in 1974 which got disciples from across the world. The ashram shifted to the US in 1981, where his followers set up a town they called Rajneeshpuram, in Oregon. The movement ran into trouble with the US government on alleged immigration fraud among other charges. In 1985, Rajneesh was deported to

India. He died in Pune in 1990.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born Mahesh Prasad Varma, in Jabalpur, in 1918. He studied physics at Allahabad University and is believed to have worked at a gun carriage factory before becoming an ascetic in the early 1940s. He focused on what came to be known as transcendental meditation and toured the country sharing this wellness technique. He travelled through South-east Asia, arriving in the US in 1959. By the mid-1960s, his followers included The Beatles and Clint Eastwood. He died in The Netherlands, in 2008. He was 90.