CHENNAI, India (CNN) -- At 68, Christian Fabre, CEO of Fashions International, might be expected to be thinking about retiring.



Christian Fabre, or Swami Pranavananda Brahmendra Avadutha, or just Swamiji for short



But Fabre, or Swami Pranavananda Brahmendra Avadutha as he is also called, is a practicing Hindu monk as well as a businessman, and retirement doesn't really enter his thoughts.



"I'm having too much fun," he says with a chuckle.



Hardly a gnomic mysticist, Fabre comes across as a jolly old soul, and greets me wearing saffron robes, sandals and sporting the most stylish pair of rimless glasses ever worn by a monk of any denomination.



As we chat in his light, open office on a sunny morning in Chennai, his BlackBerry beeps with new e-mails. Tools of the trade, or at least business, are allowed then?



"How can a man who is supposed to be meditating in a cave do this, you may say. But there is no dichotomy between this and my spiritual beliefs," he says.



A MacBook on his desk and a picture of his guru on the wall, plus the company's 25 percent growth last year, Fabre life seems to be in balance.



However, he admits that reaching the place he's in today, both spiritually and physically, "was no pleasure cruise."



Instead of a backpack and a pocket full of marijuana, he arrived in Chennai in 1971 with a job in the textile-buying business, a wife and a young son. Three years later the job had gone, so too his wife, taking their son with her.



Rather than return to France, he stayed, having been seduced by the richness of Indian culture, but struggled to find more work. He met his current business partner in Fashions International, A. Jayapalana, when embarking on an ill-fated and short-lived venture with a fashion designer.



However his rag-trade to rags to saffron robes existence only developed when he was introduced to the guru of his yoga teacher.



"He'd suffered from leprosy, but radiated happiness and energy. It dried my tears; I had no right to cry over myself. I also wanted to know his secret, and after meeting regularly for six months, he told me I was right to become a swami."



As a child, Fabre had wanted to become a priest, something his communist railway-worker father completely rejected.



"Who knows how he would take it, but I'm sure if I was telling him about my spirituality, he would agree. Communism and Hinduism go well together in some Indian states, although I'm sure Karl Marx would wonder what it's doing here," he says.



Depending on how much work he has to do, every month Fabre spends around a week at his ashram, where he has some disciples. It's an eight-hour drive from Chennai and two miles from the nearest village, where he has more time and space -- and less clothing -- in which to further his spiritual practices.



His personal life is more ascetic than his BlackBerry-bleeping office existence. He does however have satellite TV at home and the Internet at his hermitage, plus a personal driver, but one thing he always carries with him is a spiritual self-awareness.



"Everything is the ultimate. It is a very leveling spirituality, is it not?" he says, the French accent slipping into an Indian lilt.



"I can be a businessman and a swami without losing that awareness. It's within and it's without. It's the ultimate and the universal and beyond the universal. It makes you understand a lot in a split second, and you can see things from many angles."  Watch financial advice from Fabre »



Business karma



One thing he clearly understands is the fashion business. As an outsourcing supply company, Fabre's company is indirectly responsible for employing around 80,000 people in 200 factories around Tamil Nadu, and his clients include labels such as Kenzo,
How long has Christian Fabre been in India? Who is CEO of the fashion company? In what city is his office? Who is a CEO of a fashion company and a Hindu monk What religion does Christian Fabre follow?
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