Why did this IIT-B aerospace engineer become a ‘sadhu’ and what message does he have for you?

Farhan Qureshi, played by R Madhavan in the 2009 Bollywood top-grosser 3 Idiots, left engineering to follow his heart and pursue his passion for photography.Welcome to Maha Kumbh 2025, an IITian Abhey Singh from Haryana, a former aerospace engineering student from IIT-Bombay and now a full-time sadhu, has taken the internet by storm.Abhey is a sharp reflection of Farhan, who too, afraid of disappointing his parents, takes admission in a top engineering institute but leaves it midway to pursue photography.The IITian Baba, as Abhey Singh is now being called, studied aerospace engineering at IIT-Bombay, claims to have held a well-paying job in Canada and even had a girlfriend before he gave it all up for a life as an ascetic.Between that “approximately ₹3-lakh-a-month” job in Canada and the decision to become a sadhu, Abhey says, were a few years of complete confusion about what he wanted to be. “At one point, it became so difficult that I slipped into acute depression — the kind of depression that prevents you from stepping out of your house… you just smoke and work,” he recalled in a TV interview. medium117300892This is when, he says, he began questioning everything. “I could not believe that my mind would just not stop whirring. I wanted to understand what machine this mind was that was not letting me rest,” he said.Over time, his focus evolved towards spiritual pursuits, and he committed himself to exploring and realising profound spiritual wisdom.Soon after its release, 3 Idiots, also starring Aamir Khan and Sharman Joshi, had triggered an intense debate on engineering education and how Indian parents force kids to pursue careers that they are not interested in nor equipped to excel in.Asked what prompted him to take a 180-degree turn in his career, Abhey said: “I have finally understood the truth… gyan ke peeche chalte jao, chalte jao, aur kahan jaoge, yahin aoge (keep following the path of knowledge and wisdom, where else you will go, you will come back right here to your roots),” he is quoted as saying in another interview. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/c-I9qo4gTzA?si=b8Rh2Le-TwDvsZdSAs Abhey’s videos started doing the rounds of social media, IIT-Bombay started trending too, triggering an online debate. Records show that Abhey spent four years at the institute’s Powai campus and secured a BTech degree in aerospace engineering.Soon, people began posting pictures of Abhey from his college days — dressed casually and having fun with his friends.Abhey himself is also quite active on social media. He has 4,145 followers on Instagram. Most of his videos on Instagram are on spirituality, resurgence and revival of humanity, future and destruction, and meditation and bhakti.In one of his Instagram posts, Abhey has posted a handwritten letter in English, which says, “There were so many things I did not want to be, but they were so deep within me. So, I cut parts of me out. With time, more parts I chopped, the less remained. And now I wonder who is it that is ‘left’.” The letter also has a sketch showing Abhey lying on a bed.The account also has another handwritten letter, this one in Hindi. “Dil chahta tha kuch, kya ho gaya...is zamane ki bheedh me mai adnaa sa kho gaya. Nazrein talash rahin thi kisi ko, kadmon ne sath nahi diya. Jab ladkhada ke gir pada, tobhi usne hath nahi diya. Reh gaya akela bheedh ke beech me, ulajh kar reh gaya is zindagi ke sangeet me,” it says. medium117300945Though Abhey has not opened up on the subject in any of his interviews yet, a heartbreak seems to have played a part in his transition from an engineer trying to build a conventional life for himself in Canada and a sadhu now willing to just go with the flow.Talking to TOI, seers of Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara, of which Abhey is a part, said: “The IITian Baba is bairagi [free from attachment and desire]. He has no definite location. He roams around. On Makar Sankranti, he was in Sector 19 of Kumbh; but he might be somewhere else today.”Abhey believes that while the life he was chasing in Canada left him feeling empty and muddled, the life he has accepted has brought him peace and calm. When a TV interviewer enquires if his parents are disappointed that he has thrown away a promising career, he says: “I have told them I am not trying to become a sadhu, I’m only seeking the truth.”Asked what message he had for the youth, he says: “What distresses me most is when everything linked to religion and spirituality is dismissed as superstition. With this hurdle, it becomes very difficult to introduce somebody to the path that I have taken. What we need to do is link religion with science and logic. That is how we can get the young interested.”In at least two of the interviews, Abhey makes, controversially, a distinction between “good religions” and “bad religions”. Explaining the concept of ‘nirakar’ (formless), he says that while Hindus believe god is ‘nirakar’, they also believe that god can take ‘aakar’. “That is the concept for ‘avatar’. Some religions believe god is only ‘nirakar’ and so he can’t appear amongst us to discipline us. And that is why people following these religions believe their actions have no consequences.” medium117298489‘IITian Baba’ Abhey Singh’s life in pictures medium117298500