Journey with a wandering monk

 

I’m walking to the famous jhilmil gufa in the hills above Rishikesh. In order to take a shortcut I end up taking a long-cut as it usually happens. The hill forests are mischievous. The tiny foot trails are green leafy mazes where they will try to keep you busy in solving the puzzle. Then a baba arrives from some other trail. I ask him about the caves where sage Gorakhnath did tapasya for many years. Incidentally he is also going to the caves.

He is one of the most friendly babas I have seen. It’s surprising given the fact that he is a naga sadhu, the warrior ascetics who worship lord Shiva. Within a few minutes we are talking like good friends.

Baba Shambhu Giri is from Jalna, Maharashtra. He was a sickly child in a poor family. They couldn’t afford to get treatment for him. So his helpless parents offered him to the holy fireplace at the ashram of a naga baba. The baba took care of him from the age of five, treated him with herbal medicines, and initiated him into the order. He turned out to be a healthy, robust sadhu. Then his guru left his body, leaving the ashram and its 41 acres of agricultural land under the disciple’s care.

‘I’m a farming naga baba. I don’t believe in asking for alms. I do farming on the ashram land,’ he shows me his tough farming hands. The nagas have fought many times in wars to upkeep dharma. ‘Only a person from a warrior clan, the martial castes like Maratha, Jat, Sikh and Rajput, can become a naga,’ he says with pride as he walks with force in his steps like a soldier sage.

I am surprised to know about the level of their opposition to the Brahmins. I will avoid the details of that discussion because my Brahmin friends will get angry about this. I’m from a Jat family and to be frank at the level of community we too have lots of things to say against Brahmins, just like Brahmins have against us.

He is happy to learn that I’m also from a martial caste. We Indians can’t help getting into the casteist talk even when we are in the hill forests and happen to be a naga baba and a spiritual seeker. So we have our share of bitching against the Brahmins. The details should always be avoided. The summary I can say is that naga baba told me that Brahmins come from the lineage of daityas and in Maharashtra about 75% of the people avoid getting a Brahmin for officiating at a havan on auspicious occasions like marriages and other pujas. So that should give you the level of our partisan talk. Caste becomes a major factor even in talks between two strangers in a forest. No wonder caste decides who rules the country.

‘The ashram land provides enough money. Then there is charity which we sadhus get so easily just sitting on our bums whether we deserve it or not. I use the money to manage the ashram, getting poor girls married and other charity work. And once a year I come out on my wanderings like this,’ he is very honest about what he thinks and feels, be it money or caste. I like his honesty about most of the things. He just says what he thinks inside. No pretensions.

Suddenly he gets excited like a boy and goes to a bush nearby. ‘Bichhu buti, scorpion plant, I got myself bitten by it yesterday. It’s very discomfiting and painful but I won’t get any disease for the next six months,’ he tells me. Who won’t wish to have free, natural immunity against all diseases for six months? I ask him to get me bitten by the buti in the right proportions. He is hesitant. Then agrees. He holds a little shoot softly and gently allowing one tip to touch on the back of my palm. He removes it before it barely touches the skin, like a father would be careful not to harm his child. No effect. I pester him for a bit higher dose. So this time the touch is bigger, and still bigger on successive trials. I don’t wince with pain. I don’t get my free immunity shot. Both of us are disappointed. ‘This is no bichhu buti. It’s some fake plant imitating a famous one,’ we conclude.

Most of the sadhus have a free passage to the places of other sadhus. An ash-smeared naga baba is performing a havan for a seemingly rich man. It’s a large fireplace, the big trishuls are blackened with smoke and look ferocious. We sit in front of our host, he with friendly ease and me with apprehension because I have heard about their inflammable tempers when disturbed. But my naga baba friend is a shield against getting shoved away with the tip of a trishul. The ash-smeared naga is calm, focused on his rituals. He nods to our greeting and without stopping the process, gives us soaked grams and raisins as prasad. To be frank I take almost as much as would fill my cupped palms together. I am hungry and eat prasad like dinner. The naga baba watches me with a strange muse. So I have my food and my friend baba has prasad.

We take leave from the baba and move onto our path. Then he suddenly points to a place where he faced a leopard during the Corona period. The world of humans had retreated and the animals came out. ‘It was standing there and snarled. I knew it could injure me if it didn’t run away. Had I turned my back to it, it would have reached me in three bounding strides. So I stood upfront and took up a stone. Never look away from a predator and never show your back. And hit it on the nose if it approaches you. By the grace of God, the leopard backed away and vanished in the forest,’ he shares the story.

Then the baba’s chappal gets broken. I am wearing shoes. I feel guilty in walking in shoes while the baba has a broken chappal. But surprisingly he walks as if it’s not broken at all. Once in the gufa he tells me all the stories related to the place. We have tea in front of Baba Gorakhnath’s fireplace. They smoke weed. The cave’s resident sadhus are good hosts. Again the matter of caste comes up. ‘Brahmins and householders aren’t allowed to touch the holy ash in the fireplace,’ the Gorakhnath order sadhu tells me. The casteist bugs in me are getting fattened today. I nod with glee, almost happy, even joyful about the fact that Brahmins don’t hold monopoly to our faith. They maybe manage more of the ritualistic part of it. So we have to accept the fact that casteism is deeply entrenched in our Indian soul. It decides things from caves to presidential palaces. They babas are on a meditative high on weed, my head spins just with the smoke.

I stand up and walk to another small cave on the side of the big cave. And here I come across the most mischievous bala yogi, a naga boy sadhu. He doesn’t speak, just hums like a black bee. Continuously. I marvel that he is actually a black bee hovering over the divine flower to sip the nectar of self realization.

My naga friend will stay here today but I have to walk back. So Baba Shambhu Giri introduces other caves to me like Hanuman gufa and Ganesh gufa. The kind baba then guides me to the trail that would take me to Neelkanth from where I could easily walk back to Rishikesh. I take out 500 rupees before taking leave. He isn’t interested in it. He has enough he already told me. ‘Maharaj, your chappal got broken while sharing this lovely journey with me, so it’s my duty to give a replacement,’ I request in all sincerity. He agrees. ‘Ok, if you say so. I will buy a nice pair of chappals in your name,’ he laughs. We take leave.

I had a bamboo stick with me as a companion on the way up. But I forgot it at the place where we had sat down to eat prasad at the naga baba’s place on the way up. Now I miss the sturdy stick as I wade through a steep, faint trail among lots of bushes in the forest. And when I reach the place where he had pointed out the leopard I miss my stick even more. What will I do with a stick in the face of a leopard? Well, at least I would try to hit it on the foe’s nose as suggested by the baba and get a solace that I die fighting. But there is no leopard and I quickly move on the feeble trails to get to the main path.