Sai Baba and My Time at Russian Playboy

For my appointment to the sexiest job in Moscow, I had the godman to thank. So too, perhaps, for my stint being cut short

Though not religious, I have always had a soft spot for gurus, the saffron clad especially. It was Osho, or Bhagwan Rajneesh, who inspired my sex columnist nom de plume, Dr Rajneesh, and catalysed an early disposition towards high-testosterone womanising. And it was another guru, Sathya Sai Baba, who helped frontload that passion by indirectly anointing me editor-in-chief of Russian Playboy some ten years ago. For that exhilarating phase of my life, I must thank the guru’s suggestion to his Russian disciple Artyem Troitsky, the edition’s founding editor (upon gifting him a diamond-studded Rolex watch), that a young Indian journalist in Moscow would solve his problems.

Six months after Troitsky made his pilgrimage to Sai Baba’s ashram in Puttaparthi, I was Chief Editor at Russian Playboy. I had this dream job for seven glorious months, and was the envy of my entire social circle. During office hours, I got to hang out with and cast some of the most beautiful women in the world, and then go out and party with them in Moscow’s many glamorous bars and clubs. Moscow in the 90s is now widely recognised as a fervid decade, as memorable as Paris of the 20s or London of the Swinging 60s. I was living the iconic life of an iconic period, and it was all thanks to a big, jolly fellow with an Afro hairdo, a penchant for magic tricks, and perhaps as outrageous a sexual libido as mine, if some reports are to be believed.

At the time, I didn’t think much of Sai Baba and his role in my success. It was an amusing story to relate at dinner parties, and it also confirmed the staff’s sense of Troitsky—who was a classic, rock-loving, anti-Communist dissident-type—as something of a wacky editor. It’s possible that he’d made up the entire incident for his own ends; I later realised that the reason he wanted a non-Russian on board was to shield his own position from any threat. How could an outsider gain the allegiance of the staff, as the previous chief editor (who was unceremoniously fired after a heated argument) had done?

Was I just a puppet editor? Sai Baba’s death has brought that whole phase of life back into sharp focus. The truth is that I had briefly been curious about the guru. Yes, indeed. It was during a difficult period, having just turned my back on a successful career as a Wall Street analyst, and on a visit home from New York with a plan of moving to Moscow to try my luck as a journalist, that I visited Sai Baba’s ashram with my mother, who’s way more gung-ho about gurus. We stayed at a modest hotel and attended one darshan with the great man, who, hands clasped, a blissed-out smile on his face, walked around our large seated group, tapping a lucky few for a private audience later. We weren’t VIPs, and so were left gaping at him from afar.

The experience left me feeling punk-rock cynical. How come status mattered even in supposedly holy places like this? Wasn’t it the same at Tirupati? Was Sai Baba a genuine healer with superhero powers, or just a charlatan like all the rest? But something about the next morning’s bhajans, the simple breakfast of idli-dosa, and the monastic lifestyle of his devotees from around the world soothed my frayed nerves. I remember reading his biography that day at a desolate tea stall and wishing I’d realise my ambition of living the life of a rock star.

Five years later, as the rollicking editor of Russian Playboy, I met an English rock star from the band Tiger Lillies who had performed at Sai Baba’s 70th birthday party in Puttaparthi. Life indeed was coming full circle at four times the velocity I’d ever expected. Was Sai Baba somehow responsible for this? Or was it just the super-size-me energy of Russia after the collapse of Communism?

Take India today, with all its buzz of Americanisation and sliding social mores, and hollow it out, scooping out the feel-good vibes of an economic powerhouse, and you’d get close to what Russia was like in that lost decade. A superpower that had once challenged the hegemony of the US was on its knees; and with Marxism discredited, Capitalism had become the new religion. While most of its citizens were thrown into a desperate struggle for survival, the rich in Moscow threw their energies into apeing the West. Porsche dealerships, Versace boutiques, ultra-lavish London-style nightclubs, Michelin-starred restaurants, Vogue magazine and other Western symbols of luxury mushroomed in the new Moscow. Professionals, hucksters, conmen and other adventurers from the West flooded the city in the hope of cashing in. Incredible fortunes were being made, and so were 3D memories to savour for a lifetime.

Among a small clique of 20-something journalists who had risked regular career paths in New York and London for the wild ride of Russia, I led a charmed life. After sharpening my skillset on the features desk of Moscow Times, I became a well-paid freelance journalist for several American publications, including Esquire, The New York Times, Newsweek and others. One week, I’d be flying to Siberia to interview a tough-talking governor, and another, sharing champagne with Chuck Norris and tens of models at the opening of a Beverly Hills casino in Moscow. Another time, I was offered $10,000 just to fly to New York with a budding fashion designer and act as her PR help during those few days. Sex was also plentiful, that too in a country with some of the most beautiful women on earth.

As expats from the West, we were the anointed elite, widely seen as emissaries of a smarter, sexier and more sophisticated world. Since my editors back in New York had a more rational view of things, I realised it was more exciting changing Russia from within than reporting on it for abroad. We launched a provocative bi-weekly, Living Here (which later morphed into The eXile) with a few friends, daring to splash the raunchiness and insanity of post-Communist Moscow. With columns about doing amphetamines, shagging underage girls, interviews with prostitutes and strippers, and gonzo political journalism satirising Yeltsin and others, it quickly gained a cult following. The notoriety of the publication and my role in it raised my profile and helped turn me into a Moscow ‘personality’. I wasn’t seen just as a journalist anymore, but more as a trendsetter and agent provocateur. It was superbly exciting living in a city on edge, seemingly about to implode any moment—as it actually did during the August 1998 financial crisis, with the rouble losing three-fourths of its value in a single day.

I started writing more for Russian editions of Western glossies like Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and so on. They paid well and settled expense budgets upfront in crisp $100 bills. After I fell out with The eXile founder Mark Ames, Moscow Times invited me to redesign its weekend section, spicing up the nightlife listings to appeal to a new crop of expatriates. I also learnt to disc jockey, and involved myself in the emerging art, music, fashion and other scenes, befriending some of the creative figures that defined the era. One of my best friends from that time is Victor Pelevin, the Chuck Palahnuk of that generation, whose novels Omon Ra, Generation P and Buddha’s Little Finger capture the absurdity of the times.

It’s obvious now why Troitsky chose me as editor. I was the only Indian around at the time. There was an Indian community left over from Soviet times, but they were a different bunch altogether, assimilated Russians rather than Westernised Indians with panache. Most Indians in the West at that time chose to stick to familiar shores. Moscow of the 90s was not yet Shanghai of the teens. Troitsky was likely looking out for me when he approached me at the opening of Moscow Art Days and broached the idea of a proposal, sending me into a frenzy of speculation. It was only a week later that I realised what job he was offering me.

In retrospect, I should have squashed the Sai Baba story in its bud, instead of letting it linger on as a myth. By coming on board as an ‘Indian’, I raised the ‘ethnic’ flag, which is always dangerous in a naturally xenophobic country like Russia. On hearing of my appointment, the magazine’s staff joked about picturing their new boss arrive at work in a turban and traditional dress. Some of those stereotypes persisted after I assumed the job, fuelling an ‘us versus him’ mentality among staff members who were unhappy that their former boss and friend had been fired. As a former New Yorker, I had the requisite legitimacy, plus a track record in Moscow to boot.  It didn’t matter.

Sai Baba might have helped me get the job, but once I had it, his shadow made it hard for me to function. I was young and naïve, and rushed blindly into a situation that I knew very little of. Troitsky’s strategy worked: as a guru-appointed editor, I never had much credibility with the staff, and the rift between us widened as the months progressed. Once Putin came to power in 2000, the mood of the country began to shift. Foreigners were no longer the ‘White gods’ of earlier, they were the succubae. Russians, suddenly, were the chosen ones again. Seven months after my heady plunge into the breast-shaped pool at Hugh Heffner’s Playboy Mansion, I found myself outside the gates, unemployed and despairing.

It didn’t occur to me during that difficult year ahead to pray to Sai Baba while I quickly wrote a novel, White God Factor, based on my experiences during that madcap time. In fact, I haven’t thought that much about the guru during these past ten years, except two weeks ago when I heard of his death. Now I wonder, sometimes. Did he know? Was he somehow responsible? Did he even know of my existence?

MoscowPlayboySai Baba