London, Nov. 3 :
London, Nov. 3:
Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has fallen out with her Indian New Age guru after the latter got the Prime Minister's wife to open her clinic in a blaze of publicity.
Bharti Vyas - known in Britain as the holistic Ayurvedic practitioner who helps Cherie deal with stress - was at the receiving end of Cherie's wrath yesterday after she publicised the fact that Cherie was opening her new clinic and invited the media in.
Photographs of a laughing Cherie hugging Vyas were all over the papers as she opened the Bharti Vyas Holistic Therapy Centre in Chiltern Street on Wednesday. The write-ups invariably carried references to Cherie's love for alternative therapies like acupuncture, crystals, etc.
But, as The Daily Mail revealed today, while Vyas enjoyed the publicity for her new clinic, the Prime Minister's wife obviously didn't.
In a terse letter, reproduced by the newspaper, Cherie wrote to her one-time guru.
'Dear Bharti
I am writing to say how disappointed I was by the handling of the opening of your school on Wednesday.
I am very uneasy about being used this way (not for the first time) to promote your business. I am going to take a few weeks off from visiting the salon and hope in the meantime that you and Priti (Vyas's 34-year-old daughter) will refrain from discussing anything to do with me in your press.'
The letter was signed 'Cherie' and came simply from 'The office of Cherie Booth QC'.
Cherie uses her maiden name Booth professionally.
Cherie had apparently been given to understand that the opening of the clinic was a small family affair. When she arrived she was appalled to
find herself among 200 of Vyas's
disciples along with the media in
full flow.
She disguised her feelings at the function and went on a tour of the facilities with her customary smile and enthusiasm.
But back home, she shot off a letter to the holistic guru mildly hinting that she would not be returning to her clinic again.
Cherie is known to rely on
Vyas for special one-to-one stress-busting sessions. When she was
pregnant with her fourth child in 1999, it was Vyas who told her to
get Tony Blair to massage her every night.
The Prime Minister's wife said she was shocked even before the function as she read interviews given by Priti to The Daily Mail. Cherie said she had understood that Vyas had an agreement with her office that they would never discuss anything to do with her with the press.
In her strongly-worded letter she said:
'You had clearly announced the event to the press without any consultation with my office.'
'I understand that Carole (Cherie's fitness trainer) asked
Priti to phone Fiona (her press secretary) once we realised this was
not the quiet family affair I had
told them it was. She declined to do this.'
'As a result the event was disorganised and shambolic, the coverage was embarrassing to my family and me and has caused distress and anger amongst the many other people who support me in my life whether they are practitioners, designers or my colleagues at Downing Street.'
Vyas has refused to comment about the rebuff from her famous client.