Epilogue 181
weights, and reportedly engaged in all manner of superhuman exploits until,
sometime between age seventeen and twenty, he dropped a 380- pound weight
on his knee, shattering the patella. Doctors declared that he would never walk
again, but Choudhury, refusing to go gentle into that good night, returned to
his guru. Ghosh rebuilt him from the knees up with the miraculous yoga tech-
nolog y he had at his disposal. Through excruciating effort Choudhury emerged,
a mere six months later, like the Six Million Dollar Man he was destined to
become: better, stronger, faster.
After his rehabilitation, Choudhury left Calcutta to become the Yogiraj of
Bombay, landing in Bollywood during the tail end of its “golden age.” Today
Bollywood films have become a staple of Choudhury’s teacher training programs.
He watches his stories into the early hours of the morning, fueling the legends
of his sleeplessness. It was also during this period in Bombay that Choudhury
first met the iconic American actress and New Age enthusiast Shirley MacLaine.
MacLaine, like many spiritual seekers of her time, had come to live in India to
find herself. Choudhury nevertheless told her, “You are in the wrong place. You
won’t find the truth in India. Go back to Hollywood, sing, dance and entertain
the people; that’s your duty, your Karma Yoga. When the time is right, India will
come to you.”^7
Ghosh left his body in 1970 via what is reported to be a self- induced heart
attack,^8 charging Choudhury to complete his brother Yogananda’s mission of
bringing yoga to the world. That same year, Choudhury left for Japan, where
he introduced the use of a heated room to replicate the conditions of his native
Calcutta, aided Japanese scientists studying tissue regeneration in publishing
a series of papers, and healed a traveling Richard Nixon of chronic phlebitis
using nothing but Epsom salts.^9 Some say that it was Nixon himself who invited
Choudhury to America and met him on the runway, while others attribute the
suggestion to MacLaine. Regardless, by 1973, Choudhury had made his way to
California and opened a small school in Beverly Hills, where he quickly became
yoga guru to the stars.
While Choudhury may have started out sleeping in the back room of his small
Beverly Hills studio, four decades later he sleeps (or does not, as the case may be)
in a sprawling mansion in the same locale. He has become famous for his dia-
mond Rolexes and his fleet of Rolls- Royces. Gossip abounds regarding his harem
of mistresses. In many ways, he is that mischaracterized Yogi described by the 1932
Los Angeles Times editorial with which we began this study— minus the turbans
and snakes. His glitterati gangster persona calls up an interesting blend of old
tropes: the fearsome thuggee (one of those marauding Yogi mercenaries), draped
in Oriental luxe and updated to reflect the 1980s Hollywood that spawned
Choudhury’s yoga empire.