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Of Dalai Lama, Ramdev and bushy beards

By Shekhar Iyer | Hindustan Times

The Dalai Lama tugs on Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s beard during the launch of the Encyclopaedia of Hinduism in Haridwar, India, on 3 April 2010.File photo/AP/India

The Dalai Lama has this thing about beards: he cannot resist playing with them — as senior BJP leader LK Advani discovered for himself a few days ago.

The Tibetan spiritual leader tugged the beard of renowned yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, when they greeted each other at a function which Advani also attended.

“I was amazed to see the Dalai Lama first greet him (Ramdev) as one does normally but without much ado, actually pull his beard quite vigorously,” Advani wrote in his blog. “Swami Ramdevji laughed out aloud and said ‘That is his way, he always does it when he meets me’.”

The Dalai Lama was releasing the Encyclopaedia of Hinduism, along with Baba Ramdev and Advani in Haridwar on 4 April.

Later, Advani met Victor Chan, a Hong Kong-based writer, who gave him a book on Dalai Lama he’d written.

In the book, The Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys, Chan wrote when the Dalai Lama visited Belfast in Northern Ireland, which for many years was the site of bitter inter-religious war, “he pulled a Protestant minister and a Catholic priest close together with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and tugged their beards.”

Copyright © 2010 HT Media Limited.

Published in Hindustan Times