Ten days ago, life was easy. Doordarshan was still apologising for the inconvenience caused to hundreds of its viewers for a dysfunctional remote, and Twitter magnates with news shows had proven beyond doubt that Rahul Gandhi was to blame for the Irish potato famine. Radhika Apte hadn’t yet cried enough on the big screen to deserve a national award for PadMan and Ranveer Singh starring as Ranveer Singh in Padmaavat was method-acting.

But then on an eventful morning, my phone vibrated itself off the table in a notification riot to reveal that Patanjali’s CEO had announced his support for legalising marijuana. Muted WhatsApp groups across urban areas, peri-urban areas and Gurgaon shrieked in disbelief that Patanjali has had a CEO all this while.

That this multi-million dollar venture had not been operating out of a flimsy hut enveloped by sacred groves on the banks of a tranquil river. That the men running this venture did not exclusively communicate in proto Indo-European and compete for status in elite yogic postures. Even more surprising was that the announcement did not feature token white people from Finland chanting Rig Vedic hymns in the background, demonstrating why they’re so white.

In fact, a Bing search for Patanjali (Bing always autocorrects to Google) will feed you with pictures of middle-aged men armed with spectacles and rented lab coats captured in the act of aggressively shaking test tubes filled with the despair of a plummeting career in alternative sciences (the one plagiarised from the Ramayana).

More pictures feature more bespectacled men wearing head condoms, displaying subdued amazement at the new age marvel of a digital weighing scale. A totally candid behind-the-scenes footage with swelling music presents a Mr Ramdev inspiring his zealously-hopping minions to venture out on a mythical quest to find that elusive herb he needs to bag a Bharat Ratna, or the next season ofAmerica’s Got Talent. Either would do.

Vigilante reporting by The Times of India on this announcement finally made Patanjali walk out of its Panchatantra mystique. And Patanjali did not flinch once being paraded naked alongside soul-less gimmick products like Seagram’s Royal Stag Music CDs, Kingfisher calendars, and Dominos.

Meanwhile, emergency food delivery service providers rushed to late-night distress calls to promulgate to unsuspecting city dwellers that Baba Ramdev had made marijuana legal. Initially dismissed as yet another hallucination, the recipients of this information took their own time to digest that “Baba Ramdev” and “marijuana” had indeed agreed to reside in the same sentence. Before we marry these two antithetical entities, let us examine if marijuana is even worth the honour that was bestowed upon it.

Marijuana: What has it achieved?

Apart from being the number one cause of Teslas drifting in outer space, marijuana consumption has registered its contribution to peoplekind with ideas such as Himesh Reshammiya the actor, Himesh Reshammiya the singer and Exam Warriors.

Alternative titles for Exam Warriors that barely lost out were “A book”, “Look, I wrote a book!”, and “Children’s book for parents who vote”. Other marijuana-induced inklings were cutlery that you can eat, the official flag of the Isle of Man (Bing it) and the Mughal Navy. Honourable mentions include all those songs about how pain is the only real thing, a toothpaste that tastes good and Dubai.

The most scandalising episode of an Indian Narcos would be a three-part documentary about how Indian popular literature has soared higher and higher under the influence of marijuana. Everyone knows that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has repeatedly appeared via Skype on “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” for his contribution to the literary genre of “inspirational quotes”. Everyone knows that.

Consider this rumination by Sri Sri: “In your true nature, you are free the moment you see it’s not in you. If you have a pain, observe it’s happening in the body. If there is tightness or joy in your mind, observe that it is tight, sad, unhappy or happy. Just observe that you are not enjoying, and it is happening elsewhere, as though it is happening elsewhere.”

Sobriety is not high enough to achieve whatever you just read. The person whose job it is to hold a neon halo over Sri Sri’s head for when he’s about to say something is paid in passive bliss.

This is what Rupi Kaur authored as she munched on chicken nuggets of wisdom: “You musn’t have to them want you. They must want you themselves”. Or this clincher by my roommate: “Brooo I think [short pause] if demonetisation and climate change had a love child [long pause], it would be a feat of scientific achievement.”

Marijuana consumption in India has been more ubiquitous than you’d think. How do you suppose writers and producers of our daily soap operas, reality shows, and poverty alleviation programmes find the peace to sleep at night? What else would explain all those adjournments in the Lok Sabha? No Indian religious doctrine is complete without that analogy about how everything is a circle.

Try picturing marijuana consumption in India as Ekta Kapoor or Chetan Bhagat. Not only do they exist, they’ve left an indelible mark on our social fabric and whether you like it or not, they are here to stay.

Patanjali swipes right on marijuana

If having a CEO and rented lab coats wasn’t enough to dent Patanjali’s aura, then surely a pro-marijuana Patanjali would do it. Right?

As the matriarch of a median Indian family was cashing in on a Shivratri special discount on “hair oil for oily hair” (it’s a self-sustaining business model) at a local Patanjali store, she was crushed by the possibility of exposing her teenage kids to legal marijuana. How could she continue to take part in enabling state-sanctioned hunger and national paranoia? How could she give away all her treasured savings to a corporation whose CEO emerges in Forbes for being filthy rich.

But her fears were immediately allayed by a Zee News breaking story that the Patanjali Medal for Socio-Political Gymnastics was awarded to Mr Ramdev for the fourth consecutive year in a secret ceremony at the White House.

And life became easy again.

Timely political posturing, brand manager skills and that ravishing black beard have permitted Mr Ramdev to stand tall with one leg in the crony capitalism boat and the other in a boat made of ancient Ayurvedic wisdom.

If somehow currents of sanity make these boats drift apart, only a flexible yogic practitioner with a CEO can save Patanjali from a rip down its credibility.