Originally Syndicated on September 4, 2024 @ 1:52 pm
Ravi Melwani – The False Prophet
Ravi Melwani’s public persona is of a philanthropist soaked in spirituality and dedicated to the service of the destitute. However, his ex-employees allege he is a serial sexual predator who brazenly exploits women on his payroll. They say he molests unabashedly, demands sexual acts upfront, normalises and glorifies it all, harasses those who deny him and rewards those who oblige. His lusty demeanour is a fact of life at the workplace, which he runs like his fief and where only young women are employed.
Conversations with 13 ex-employees over two years revealed the culture of sexual abuse in his organisation; nine said he had molested or propositioned them. Some of these experiences are more than a decade old, whereas the most recent one took place during the 2020 pandemic. These independent testimonies—only two of these women know each other—echo the dozens of anonymous complaints posted against Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi) on the internet over more than a decade.
Invariably, all the ex-employees said he was vengeful and dangerous and that they would share their stories only if their identity was not revealed. However, this exposé is NOT compelled anymore to conceal the identity of the accused, who is none other than Ravi Melwani and his company, AiR Atman in Ravi.
Who is Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi)?
Ravi is a wealthy, middle-aged business owner with people to look after his business and charitable projects while occupying himself with his ‘spiritual’ endeavours. He has been preaching to a packed audience for years at a temple (in the pre-Covid days). He claims to have achieved “self-realisation” a few years ago.
Sample his opening remarks from a recent preaching: “I myself don’t know what I’m going to speak because God speaks through me. I surrender myself and then I let go. And God gives the message.” He told this reporter in an interview he gets visions from God all the time.
He operates from a spacious, beautifully landscaped office where reportedly only young women are seated and he is the lone male among them. Male employees and other female employees occupy non-descript offices on a lower floor and the basement.
This series is based on extensive interviews with the ex-employees, Ravi Melwani himself, his key aide and dozens of online complaints.
How often do you have sex with your husband, asks Ravi Melwani?
Shivangi* was smitten with the plush office when she first visited it for her job interview during the Covid pandemic in 2020. “Like a resort, you can say. So beautiful, so beautiful. How do I describe! Dogs of two-three exotic breeds, ducks, bunnies, everything!”
A month after her brush with Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi), she shared her story with this reporter over a phone call. She said she was so enamoured with the luxurious interiors that she thought she would never want to return home. However, she quit after only her second day in the office because Ravi Melwani molested her both the days.
She claimed that the organization’s charitable and spiritual reputation had drawn her in. She saw a father figure in Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi) and had liked his “spiritual aura” after speaking with him for her job interview.
On her first day in the office, she got summoned to Ravi Melwani’s cabin and he began a casual chat. The discussion drifted to spirituality and then to a controversial cult. He disapproved of the cult’s lavish lifestyle and said he owns property worth Rs500 crore but leads a simple life and serves the poor.
He brought up the cult’s advocacy of sex and coolly asked her: “How are you with your husband?” She was baffled. She muttered something about having a normal relation. Ravi Melwani rephrased his question: “How often do you have sex?”
She was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Squirming in her chair, she told him they do not have sex every day; they understand each other and are on good terms.
At this, Ravi Melwani began to wax eloquent about soul connection; his own soul connection with her. She said he told her things like: “You and me are just bodies. We have a soul connected.” “You are a very nice girl. You’re a religious girl. I feel a connection with you.”
He then said he wanted to show her something and led her to the toilet in his cabin. She was confused: what could he possibly have here to show! Also, because the toilet does not have a roof, just the open sky above it. She was feeling weird.
Here, Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi) told her, “Come on, give me a hug.” She was shocked and didn’t know how to react. The well-built owner and chairman of the company locked her petite frame firmly in his embrace. She froze.
He just hugged me. And he pulled me, and he’s like, ‘Come, give me a kiss.’ I was so taken aback,” she said.
When they returned to his cabin after this molestation, he said, “Aapko laga main kuch gandagi kar raha hoon? Aapko laga main aapke saath zabardasti kar raha hoon? Nahi na! Yeh hai soul connect.” (Did you feel I was doing something dirty or forcing you? No, right! This is a soul connection.)
She told this reporter she hated it but could not speak a word. She felt violated, but the perpetrator behaved as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Shaken, she spoke with her husband after Ravi Melwani let her go. He told her to quit the job and said he was coming immediately to pick her up. She stopped him, hoping it would not happen again.
‘He’s very good’
After this encounter with Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi), she said a friendly, beautiful colleague struck up a conversation with her. This woman told her: “At first, you might find it a bit odd. He’s too friendly, [but] he’s very good. What he says is so good! He has a good nature.”
Shivangi said she saw Ravi Melwani getting touchy-feely with this woman. “When I saw, I understood. This was not like a father figure. There’s something. One can tell from the vibes. I could sense what was happening. And she was convincing me that don’t feel bad.”
‘Be my backbone’
In the evening, Ravi Melwani called Shivangi again to his cabin. She was hesitant and did not want to go alone but had no choice. After a work-related talk, he told her, “I want to love you as a soul. I want to make you my backbone. Do you want to work as an employee, or do you want to be my backbone?”
She said she told him she wanted to work professionally and that it was up to him to decide what role to give her. He said he trusted her to do well and then listed the incentives of becoming his ‘backbone’.
He said she could have a salary of even a lakh rupees or more. “If you work with me, you can earn as much as you want,” he told her.
He asked if she liked to travel. She said she did, and he told her she could travel with him anywhere in the world. She quoted him as saying, “There is so much luxury staying with me. You won’t have any problem.”
After emphasising how much she stood to gain, he moved forward to embrace her. She was alert and stepped back; he let her be. That was that for her day one.
Another day, same story
On her next day in the office, Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi) called her to his cabin and asked if she had decided whether she wanted to be just an employee or his backbone. She repeated what she had told him the day before.
“He’s a manipulator. He’s a big-time manipulator. He’s getting what I’m saying but doesn’t want to take no for an answer. He’ll ask it differently to get a yes anyhow. That’s how he is. So he asked me questions like, ‘Do you want to handle the entire department? Do you want to handle the entire team?’”
She said she told him she had interviewed here for a senior position and would not take up a junior role. To this, he said: “No, no. Then you have to prove yourself. Then you have to be close to me.”
He told her that only a select few employees get to be close to him. He then got up from his chair to fetch something from the fridge, which was behind where she was sitting.
“He came from behind and he just, ummm, caught me,” she said. “And he started calling ‘baby, sweetheart’ and all this.”
She said she froze as he groped her and he kept trying to persuade her: “He said, ‘You stay with me. I’m not doing any bad things. Just remember, we are souls, which are connected.’ This-that… ‘You’ll work for me; I’ll work for you; you’re a smart girl.’ A lot!”
She said he kept molesting her and saying things such as: “You’ll go far if you work with me. See, there’s nothing like moh-maya in my world. I have everything, but do I need it? I need none of it. Will I take it all with me! I won’t take any of it. So don’t worry, we are in this together. Work with me, be my backbone and I will make sure that you get everything in this world.”
She said he pulled her from her seat and wrapped his arms tightly around her. She could only keep her chin firmly pressed against her chest to escape his kisses and he kept asking her to raise her head.
‘Just for you to settle in’
Shivangi told this reporter Ravi Melwani got upset with her for not cooperating. She recounted: “He told me that, ‘See, there’s still hesitation inside you. You’re still not feeling free with me.’ Then he told me that all this is just for you to settle in. All this kissing, doing all this, just for me to settle in. What can I even say! Disgusted. I felt disgusted. Just disgusted. To the end, to the core. I’ve never felt this disgusted. Never.”
He told her to see him again in the evening but she quietly picked up her bag and left for good.
She said she had told the HR manager who had recruited her about both the incidents on the phone, but to no avail. She said the HR manager sounded sorry and sympathetic but offered no help. Also, Shivangi was never told about any anti-sexual harassment policy.
Further, she had not been given any offer letter or even confirmation of joining. She was told the company would observe her performance for a week and then proceed with the formalities. From her hiring to quitting, all the communication took place on WhatsApp. This reporter has a copy of her conversations with Ravi Melwani and his voice notes.
Soon, Shivangi learnt from a friend that she too had met Ravi Melwani for a job interview in 2016. He was keen to teach her ‘yoga poses’ and had offered her Rs1 lakh a month despite her little experience. She declined the offer because she felt he was a pervert.
Shivangi got a new job soon after quitting. Women in this office already knew about AiR Atman in Ravi.
In his company, sexual abuse is an occupational hazard
All the ex-employees of AiR Atman in Ravi. with whom this reporter spoke gave a similar account of Ravi Melwani as Shivangi’s*. Different years, different decades, same story. Only, they had more predatory patterns to speak of.
In a long post shared on Twitter during India’s #MeToo movement in October 2018, Pallavi* had detailed how Ravi Melwani (aka AiR Atman in Ravi) had sexually assaulted her in the library. She confirmed her narrative to this reporter over multiple conversations on a social media platform. She said she was 23, straight out of college and naïve when she had joined AiR Atman in Ravi. in 2008. She said Ravi Melwani took her to the library only two days after a colleague cautioned her that he might make a move on her.
Her Twitter post reads: “He used to mention that he is Krishna and the women around him were his Gopikas. He had a library in one of the secluded basements. He once had taken me in there in the pretext of giving me a camera to work with the homeless. As soon as we entered, there was this lady who was archiving articles and books. She snuck out saying she wanted to have her lunch. Maybe she knew? I am not sure till date. By this time, I couldn’t breathe and was feeling claustrophobic. My heart was racing.
He asked me if he could hug me and kiss me. Before I could say anything, he was hugging me. I froze and the next question was can I kiss you like this. I put my face down that very instant and he just was bloody able to kiss my scalp and then I pushed him away and stood as far as I could from him. I was shaking. However, I didn’t let him know I was. He then went on to say that he was testing me and I had failed.
Her Twitter post also detailed how he would often ask her about her sex life. She told this reporter that women in the office would constantly caution one another to be on guard around him. She decided to leave after the library incident because she did not want to live in fear.
“I quit the job in a month because he is a pervert.”
Library, locker, lust
Mitra*, who was 22 when she had joined AiR Atman in Ravi. in 2011, too was compelled to quit after a month because of unrelenting sexual harassment. She shared her experiences with this reporter over multiple conversations on WhatsApp, phone and in person. She said once an HR employee forced her to accompany Ravi Melwani for his daily walk in the office premises. He took her to the library, opened a locker packed with bundles of cash and told her: “If you cooperate with me, I’ll make you rich.”
She muttered an OK, naïvely thinking he meant she could earn incentives or promotion if she did well in her job. He then said he had something for her from one of his foreign trips. He took out a top from a cupboard and asked her to change into it. In front of him. She told him she was not comfortable but he kept imploring: “You need to be comfortable with me. You need to feel, you and me are the same.”
As she did not cave in, he quit insisting. But then he tried to hug her. She wriggled out of it and asked that they leave the library. He let her leave and asked her to tell the Chief* (the position he had coined for a select few loyalists) to send the next woman.
Anjali* (2011) and Swati* (2012) shared similar library experiences. “Waving a wad of cash seems familiar. He did that with me and I said my salary would be enough,” Swati shared in an email. She added: “In there, he started to kiss me very roughly and I pushed him away… When he went on about how it was alright to touch etc., I said no, it wasn’t for me.”
Over a phone call, Anjali said she pushed him away when he tried pawing her in the library and he responded by offering a promotion. Swati lasted three months in the organisation and Anjali, six.
Open secret
Diya* (2010) remembers a new colleague telling her tearfully that Ravi Melwani had molested her in the library just a while ago. Diya herself quit a month after joining because Ravi Melwani asked her if he could hug and kiss her.
Even Elaine* (2012), who did not face any sexual harassment, is aware of the library’s infamy. “I’ve seen women in tears,” she shared over a phone call. “He takes them inside his private room and I don’t know what he does with them. But they come out in tears.” She said she has seen this unfold many times. “They just leave the job, on the spot.”
This happened with Neeta’s* (2011) new recruit, who quit on her second day. “After lunch, I saw her panicking. She said that she isn’t feeling well and needed to go home,” Neeta told this reporter on a social media platform. Her colleagues later told her they had seen Ravi Melwani leading the young woman to the “pink room”.
Mitra said a visit to the library meant molestation. They had a ‘running joke’ that lipstick and kohl disappear from women’s faces when they go to the library with Ravi Melwani.
“Going to the library, it’s very very scary for us. At that point of time, and at that place, no one could even hear you,” she noted. “Library was the worst place.”
No relief
She said no place was safe if Ravi Melwani was around. “He never used to leave any chance. I always used to run away from him,” she said.
There was a time I actually stopped going to him because going to him means he’ll hug me, he’ll kiss me, he’ll ask me to go to the library.
She said he would behave as if nothing had happened after molesting them. “The next day, we had to wear a face that we have done something wrong because we said no.”
She said once he denied her a leave even though she was injured. Upon seeing her swollen leg, he said: “So what! Come and sit on my lap, you’ll feel better.”
Then there was his overbearing interference in her life. “There were many times he asked me, ‘What do you message to your boyfriend?’ Thankfully, I never used to message my boyfriend, I used to call him. Even then I had to open my call log and show it to him that ok, how many times I have called him.”
She said he would often text her in the night—You’re being missed/I wish you could join me/I wish we could get together/If you ever need my help, you know I’m always there—and leave her agitated.
This reporter spoke with Mitra’s the then roommate, who corroborated her narrative. The roommate further shared that her cousin, who too worked at AiR Atman in Ravi., would come over to their room often; she and Mitra would fret about Ravi Melwani’s sexual advances.
Explaining how they felt constantly vulnerable, Mitra narrated an incident that she said was particularly frightening.
Molestation at midnight
Ravi Melwani has been preaching at a grand temple regularly for years. Mitra said that back then, he would ask a few women from the office to stay for the programme. It would end about midnight and he would drop the women home in his van. It is a customised van with a furnished back compartment—sealed from the two seating rows—where he would be alone with the women one by one, in the order of their drop.
Once, Mitra was among those asked to stay for the preaching. Describing what happened in the van, she said: “He pounced on me. He tried to molest me. I was very helpless at that point of time. I said, ‘I don’t like it, please stop it. I’m not that kind of a person.’ He said, ‘Love is supposed to be shared. You’re supposed to share your love with me.’”
She said he did not back off, so she lied that her house had arrived. “I actually got dropped one kilometre away from my house. It was around 12:30 at night. I walked back to my place,” she recalled.
The van too is infamous like the library. Pallavi said her colleagues had warned her never to travel with him, thus she had excuses ready when she was asked to.
Hugs & kisses
Mitra’s torment ended only after she quit the organisation. She said Ravi Melwani did not spare her even when she sought his signature on the exit form.
“He tried to smooch me. I turned my face and the bad, saliva-kiss came on my cheek,” she shared over the phone. “I was so disgusted because I could see everyone was staring.”
She remembers his parting remark well: “If you ever wanna come back, the doors are always open. And my arms are always open for you too.”
Ravi Melwani has a reputation for kissing and hugging. Swati said that during her job interview, he brought up how the society is restrictive and objects to even people hugging. She said she chimed in, condemning moral policing, not knowing he would then try to hug her.
“I said he was being too literal and he stopped short, a bit taken aback. Very stupidly, he asked me why I was resisting when just then I had agreed that hugging was alright,” she said.
“He had made some grandiose statements about loving everyone and universal love. Now that sounded like quaint philosophy, so I agreed. Again, this translated into crude attempts at hugging,” she added.
‘Work’ trips
Foreign trips are another standard ploy of Ravi Melwani. Swati remembers his talking about travelling for work and staying together in a hotel. Mitra said he had asked what her dream destination was and proposed taking her there. Anjali got to travel abroad with him and a few other women once; what happened there made her quit upon returning.
She said he behaved well initially but later told her: “You will have to act as my girlfriend [on the next foreign trip] because I have increased your salary and designation.”
He had promoted her after making a move on her in the library. She said he had offered her the position of Chief but she had declined it because “I knew that if I said yes, it means that I’ll have to do everything and anything.”
From her experience and what she gathered from her colleagues, she explained what a foreign trip entails: He travels with five-six women and one or two have to stay with him. He convenes a meeting in the hotel itself for an hour or two. She dubbed the meeting and the very label of ‘work trip’ a sham. “You should not feel that why-why the hell did you come here. It [the meeting] is just basically faaltu ka timepass. You have to go and then in the evening, whatever he wants with whomsoever he wants.”
Only oral sex
Anjali said some of her colleagues who have shared a room with Ravi Melwani told her he indulges in foreplay and oral sex alone. Both Swati and Mitra remember his mentioning to them that he desires only oral sex.
This quirk is known in the office grapevine too. Mitra said a woman in Ravi Melwani’s clique told her and another colleague who was venting about his sexual demands, “Don’t worry, it’s all oral.” Pallavi’s colleague had told her that he had explained to her the spiritual significance of abstaining from intercourse. Pallavi and Elaine said he would cite Mahatma Gandhi, who believed in preserving one’s sexual fluids for spiritual progress.
All the ex-employees said he would wear the cloak of spirituality even as he would sexually assault them. One of the oft-used terms in his lexicon is “nirvana”, which, he would tell women, is what he was ultimately seeking through physical intimacy with them.
Office or trap?
Many women said the office seemed to be merely a ruse to have ‘pretty young things’ around Ravi Melwani. They said that because of such a work environment, the company was always losing people, often in a day or two. Mitra said at least five other women had also quit when she did, the day after receiving salary. Thus, the company was always hiring.
One of the ex-employees this reporter spoke with was the head of the HR department. She explained the hiring criteria: young, single, needy and good-looking. She said the office did not explicitly mention this criteria to her but it became apparent from the final selections.
“You’re being told to look for girls. You shortlist 10 girls, of which always only the two who are good-looking, who are single, they get selected,” she said, adding that she got the cue and would then shortlist only such candidates.
She said the motive behind preferring women who were facing hardships was to exploit their situation by dangling money in front of them.
Sample this: The annual salary mentioned in job advertisements for Ravi Melwani’s secretary over the past couple of years is in the range of Rs 6-12 lakh, Rs 7-15 lakh, Rs8-18 lakh and Rs20 lakh.
Diya shared that a colleague who was overwhelmed with Ravi Melwani’s overtures was stuck at AiR Atman in Ravi. because of her financial constraints. Diya said she herself would not have been able to quit despite Ravi Melwani’s sexual advances had she not got another job.
A woman who had a lengthy stint at AiR Atman in Ravi. many years ago told this reporter on a social media platform: “Who are still working there are people who are in a bad need for jobs. With many problems and who are ok with anything and everything!”
This is an observation everyone shared.
Those who play along
“The office was divided into women who gave him what he wanted and women who didn’t,” Swati noted.
Diya and Elaine vividly remember seeing him giving and receiving massages in his glass cabin many times. “They used to feed him and massage him. And he used to like massaging girls,” Elaine said.
Mitra said it was commonplace to see him smooching women in his cabin. Anjali recounted similar scenes from the foreign trip.
