30 for 30: Bikram

A curation of some of the hottest digital audio you should tune in to by Shyama Krishna Kumar.

The #MeToo and Times’s Up movements have caught up with almost every industry so far: films, politics, education, IT, media... the list goes on. The world of yoga has not been spared, either. Chronicling the troubling rise and fall of Bikram Chaudhary, the enigmatic founder of Bikram yoga, is ESPN’s 30 by 30 podcast. Hosted and produced by Julia Lowrie Henderson, who is herself a Bikram yoga practitioner and has managed one of their yoga studios for several years, the riveting five-part series is a departure for the documentarystyle podcast that previously only did single-episode arcs.

Early in the episode, author Benjamin Lorr is heard saying: “He’s created a yoga that has healed and helped tens of thousands of people at minimum and that has hurt and destroyed thousands of lives. And there’s no arguing with either sides of those coins.”

And it’s exactly that alarming dichotomy that Henderson explores through Bikram, as she dives into his story, tracing Chaudhary from his childhood in Calcutta through to his unmatched success in the US and finally his fall from grace as sexual abuse allegations began to pour out against the man.

You’ll find some of the stories and the sentiments from the Bikram series echoing those of other documentaries we’ve watched or listened to in the near past: whether its Netflix’s Wild Wild Country, a look at Osho’s fall from grace, or the podcast Dear Franklin

Jones, hosted by Jonathan Hirsch, looking back at his childhood spent in the community of the controversial spiritual leader Franklin Jones.

The cultish appeal of these communities is reflected in Bikram’s own clique, and the podcast wonders if it’s possible to separate the man from the practice? To find out, tune in.