Neeb Karori Baba:The baba who has been magnet for tech master's like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Job and many other hollwood actors/actresses.

PANTNAGAR: A few years ago, Vinod Joshi, the secretary of the trust that manages a small temple and ashram nestled in a picture-postcard valley called Kainchi near Nainital, got a call from Larry Brilliant, an American physician and former director of Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. "Larry said some Mark would be coming to the ashram for a day," recalls the short, bubbly man with twinkling eyes, who has spent his life in the service of his spiritual guru Neeb Karori Baba at the ashram. 

Joshi doesn't remember exactly when because he had no idea who Mark Zuckerberg was. Facebook was yet to become a daily habit of about a billion and half people. But he does remember that Zuckerberg flew down to Pantnagar, about 65 km from Nainital, and then drove to the ashram of Neeb Karori (often called Neem Karoli) Baba, who died in 1973 but continues to enchant several highprofile Americans. 

The Baba's halo shined bright last week when Zuckerberg mentioned to Narendra Modi during the Indian prime minister's US tour that he had visited a temple in India during the early days of Facebook on the advice of Apple founder Steve Jobs. "...he (Jobs) told me that in order to reconnect with what I believed as the mission of the company I should visit this temple that he had gone to in India early on in his evolution of thinking about what he wanted Apple and his vision of the future to be," .. 

"So I went and I travelled for almost a month, and seeing people, seeing how people connected, and having the opportunity to feel how much better the world could be if everyone has a strong ability to connect reinforced for me the importance of what we were doing and that is something I've always remembered over the last 10 years as we've built Facebook." 

ZUCKERBERG SPENT 2 DAYS:

Joshi says Zuckerberg landed up with just a book in his hand without even a change of clothes. "He was wearing a trouser which was torn at one knee," he told ET. Zuckerberg was supposed to spend only one day, but stayed for two because Pantnagar was hit by a storm and flights could not take off. 

The ashram, located beside a bubbling brook and surrounded by tall pine-forested mountains, itself is small for a saint who has an elite following that includes Hollywood star Julia Roberts. It has five shrines, including one for his favourite Hanuman. Many of the Baba's devotees believe he himself was the monkey God incarnate. Opposite the shrines is a white building with square columns where the sage used to live. "We call it the White House," Joshi says.

On its verandah, there is a small wooden platform covered with a dark woolen blanket sprinkled with fresh flowers — the Baba used to spend most of his day seated on it. All over the place there are pictures of the ever-smiling Baba sitting or half lying down with his left palm supporting his head. He is always wearing a blanket.