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Why Haven’t We Heard of the Ashram Zuckerberg and Jobs Visited?

Why haven’t we heard of the ashram both Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs visited?

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Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg found spiritual solace and guidance in a temple you have probably never heard of.

Why haven’t we heard of the ashram both Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs visited?
Mark Zuckerberg and Narendra Modi at a ‘townhall’ at the Facebook headquarters in Silicon Valley. (Photo: Reuters)

Kainchi Dham is a small temple complex on the banks of the Kosi, a river in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand. It’s about 300 km from Delhi and I have crossed it at least a hundred times on the way to my village beyond Almora.

Why haven’t we heard of the ashram both Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs visited?
Kainchi Dham Ashram is about 300 km from Delhi in Nainital district in Uttrakhand.

There is no fanfare around the temple, no board that tells you about its illustrious guests. So I was more than a little surprised when Mark Zuckerberg said that Steve Jobs recommended he visit Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram in Kainchi, during the townhall meet with Narendra Modi. Both Zuckerberg and Facebook were going through a particularly tough time, and the Apple founder thought going to my neck of the woods may help him out. And it seems that Zuckerberg actually spent two days there.

Why haven’t we heard of the ashram both Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs visited?

Why didn’t this celebrity visit make news?

Perhaps it’s the cynic in me, but in the age of celebrity Babas – Baba Ramdev, Radhe Ma, Asaram Bapu – a religious outfit not hungry for publicity surprised me. The people at the temple have never mentioned their illustrious visitors. Imagine if Zuckerberg met Asaram Bapu, or Steve Jobs had sought solace with Satya Sai Baba, newspapers and television channels would have gone crazy.

So what makes the people at Kainchi different? There’s only one explanation that comes to mind. There are still religious places in India that have people who are genuinely dedicated towards seeking a spiritual existence, far away from the influences of organised politics.

And that is probably the reason that both Jobs and Zuckerberg found solace there.

I am afraid of one thing though. Now that Mark Zuckerberg told the whole world about Kainchi, people are bound to throng the temple. Let’s hope Kainchi can maintain its purity.

(The views expressed by the author are personal)

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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Topics:  Steve Jobs   Mark Zuckerberg   Religion 

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