"Ab to gale lag jao swamiji (now we can exchange a hug)," telecom minister Kapil Sibal told Baba Ramdev at the end of their nerve sapping over five-hour negotiations on Friday. "You can afford a smile now surely," he told the yoga guru. The reason for Sibal's sense of satisfaction was a handwritten letter – which no one in the Claridges Hotel suite on Friday evening imagined would prove so critical for the government - offered on behalf of Ramdev by his close associate Bal Krishna.