A layman's skirmish with mantra sadhna

Father could read write and speak English as if he was a professor of English in some English-speaking country. A wonderstruck group of white tourists had given him the certificate of English proficiency like this: ‘Sir, you know and speak English better than our professors!’ So that is a kind of indication of his mastery in the field. He worked as a middle-level governmental employee in the Life Incorporation of India (LIC) and spent most of his working years at the LIC headquarters at Connaught Place in Delhi. He commuted daily by train to office. So his was a day stretched in contrasts—the day at the most cosmopolitan spot in India and the night at the most rustic village. During the weekends he simple read books. He provided the money for the upkeep and Mother carried the domestic cart on her strong peasant woman shoulders. She did the household chores, took care of the cattle in the barn and managed farming as well. Father looked a saintly man, somewhat a worldly hybrid—in looks at least—among Swami Ramakrishna, Shirdi Sainath and Maharishi Raman—and wore plain kurta-pyjama. So when one day when he was in full form giving a lecture in English to some young college students in the train on the way to office, a disbelieving farmer nudged at his neighbor and exclaimed, ‘This man is haunted by the ghost of an Englishman!’ Father heard it and from then on it became his identity in the family.

Well, I inherited his skills to a partial extent and the little group of villages in the countryside declared me to be the most suitable candidate to crack Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination, the gateway to the most powerful bureaucratic positions in the country. So naturally I found myself preparing for the corridors of power. I was the darling of the entire village’s eyes. They wanted me to become a big magistrate or commissioner to have a part in ‘power game’ so that they would have someone from the village to protect them when there were traffic challans, family feuds, drunken fights, bloody skirmishes over lands, etc. A few drunkards in the village were sure that life would be a cakewalk for them once I became a bada sahib and they would stay at my official quarters. One particular liquor-lover, whom I had seen falling from his bicycle many times, already appointed himself as my future official driver once I became a district magistrate.

These days the Indian Civil Services exam has been pared to test majorly the attitudional smartness of the candidates. But during our days it was a behemoth of syllabus literally covering everything on earth. The exam went through the year across various stages requiring one to be buried in tomes of books. There were so many books as would fill up a decent-sized room to the ceilings across its full dimensions. So that was a tapasya. It was just studies, studies and studies. It was just like a yogi buried in tapasya in his cave. For seven long years I was in day-night studies and hardly remember anything else from my youth.

I came very near to fulfill the dreams of my father and the entire village. I had cleared two stages of written exams and the final interview remained, the all-important half hour that could undo the entire year’s labor. I had scored very high in the written test, as I would come to know later in the final marksheet. If things would have gone even averagely good, given my high written score, I might have been selected for the most coveted diplomatic corps, the group of elite officers who represent the country as ambassadors. But the higher forces! My brain went numb during that half hour. Something pushed the talk into the zone of negativity, non-confidence and arguments. I received the least possible marks in the interview to be summarily rejected. I had four chances, so for four years I futilely ran into the wall only to be recoiled into failure.

The villagers hadn’t yet lost their faith in me. The second most coveted bureaucratic posts at the provincial level (Provincial Civil Services—PCS) were still available to fight for. So my next three years were spent in this tapasya. Once you have cleared the ICS exam, clearing the PCS is very easy, so I was clearing the PCS exams pretty easily. But selection to the PCS involved lots of tests, not strictly falling in the zone of examination and personality test. One had to, at least till then, clear the written exam with very high score and for facilitation in the minutes-long personality test one had to either own a few sackfuls of currency as well as political recommendation from the highest political elements. I had none. So as it would happen, I would score very high marks in the written part but would be shown the way out in the interview, which used to be a gross mockery, a mere formality for manipulation, during those times.

That is when the element of faith entered in my life. I had realized that certain forces, bigger than any of my effort and academic capabilities, were stonewalling my efforts. And only faith in powerful deities can break those walls. There was this very famous astrologer who boasted about a certain mantra sadhna. He proclaimed that if done by serious students he/she can easily enter the astrological chart of raja yoga, that’s a sharer in ‘power’ in the most coveted positions. It involved 125 thousand chantings of a mantra after taking the sankalp of that goal to be achieved. The mantra I would keep secret for its sanctity. It was in worship of Ma Tulsi, holy basil, the sacred plant, a representative of Ma Lakshmi. The ritual involved getting Ma Tusli and Saligram (a phallic representative of Lord Vishnu) married with a mauli thread tied for their sacred union and chanting the mantra 125 thousand times with a Tulsi mala in hand. Now please read carefully about my sankalp, my purported blessing from the sacred plant in lieu of my mantra sadhna. ‘Hey Ma please get me selected to the HCS,’ I sought the blessing in this literary presentation. It meant, O Mother Tulsi please get me selected to the HCS. Here HCS stands for the Haryana Civil Services. They become additional commissioners and sub-divisional magistrates, a step down from the all-powerful ICS.

My mantra sadhna started. It was rainy season. I had set-up the divine union between Ma Tusli and Holy Saligram in our garden and would daily chant the mantra, just lips moving and the mantra vibrating across my being, holding the Tulsi mala in hand, eyes closed, a butter lamp and incense burning in front of the deities, rolling my fingers over Tulsi beads. I would daily perform the mantra sadhna for three-four hours for about a month to complete the count of 125 thousand mantra japs. In between I got one of the worst malaria bouts of my life because there were mosquitos, it being the rainy season. My condition was really bad but I kept the schedule and chanted while lying flat in front of the little instrument of my faith for those two days when my weakness didn’t allow me to sit. But thankfully I was successful in completing the task. The mantra sadhna was complete.

The next attempt brought miracles. I was selected. Finally. So much for Mother’s blessings. To be selected for a post for which, even then, people would offer 50 lakh rupees in corruption money, for which a recommendation nothing short of a state’s Chief Minister’s direct recommendation would do the trick, me, a simple guy without that much money and that big political recommendation, was a miracle. Somehow things had taken a course as to facilitate me through the hitherto unsurpassable hurdles. The group of villages went into celebration. They would finally have a magistrate to shift little battles in their favor. I would always give extra affection to those whom others spurned, so the much-maligned liquor-lovers declared that now their woes are over, they would live with their dear magistrate.

I had asked to be blessed with an ‘HCS selection’ and with the punya of my mantra sadhna I had got ‘selected’. However, a massive ‘but’ remained. Destiny still chuckled with glee and anticipation over the futile efforts of its puppet.

Now I share the most important part in the game of mantra sadhna. You must have read stories about demons doing hard tapasya, doing rigorous sadhnas for a blessing by the devtas. The devtas would finally appear and ask them for a blessing. Now a little-brained, with loads of muscles though, a rakshasha would blurt like a child and ask for the boon, foolishly wording it in a way that it left a big loophole for their own undoing even with the Godly blessing. I had done the same. I had demanded to be ‘selected to the HCS’ and Ma Tusli blessed me with a ‘selection’ in lieu of my mantra sadhna. I thought that was all that was required to change one’s destiny. But there was more to it. There is a big difference between getting ‘selected for the HCS’ and ‘becoming a HCS’. Then the unthinkable happened. It happened for the first time in independent Indian history that a duly selected PCS officers batch was denied appointment. Mother’s boon ended at getting me ‘selected’. In my folly I hadn’t insisted on ‘becoming an HCS officer’. I thought both are same because till then getting ‘selected’ was synonymous with ‘becoming’. So sometimes Gods would take help of linguistic loopholes to still have their say despite all of your efforts.

The batch got into political controversies between rival chief ministerial candidates fighting an internecine battle for power. And it was messed up. The case is still gasping with feeble breaths in the courtrooms even after 18 years. During this time I have seen the grossest of misuse of power by judges and powerful politicians. There were sometimes very shiny days in between when all were assured that finally justice would be done but it would soon get undone by a sudden squall of unexplained events that would again cast gloomy shadow on the case. I can report all those mysterious, sudden events but it would take several pages. Anyway, of that sometimes later. I’m still involved in the litigation, not for power or pelf. What do they matter now? But it’s just out of habit maybe, or possible an inclination to stick to the concept of justice. It just draws me sometimes to keep the case alive.

I don’t blame corrupt judges and powerful politicians for the episode. They are mere puppets in the bigger game unfolding around. If at all there are some lacunae, they are there in the wording of my seeking blessing in lieu of my mantra sadhna. Like a cute little demon, seeking boons and blessing in return for tapasya, I left a linguistic loophole which allowed destiny to fulfill my wishes as well as guard its own mysterious plan.

And I don’t have any complaints against Ma Tusli either. She knows better what is good for the child. Recently during the rainy season, I slipped horribly and landed like a log on the stone floor. I landed near a pot bearing holy Mother Tulsi. The fall was so hard as to leave me numb for many minutes. There was absolutely no pain or injury. Like a grounded child, rattled out of my senses, I looked at Ma Tusli. One of her branches was broken. Didn’t she receive me in her embrace like a kind mother and taking a looming fracture on her own? I haven’t removed that dry broken branch till now. It reminds me of what she has done for me. Then it becomes so easy to forget and walk over what wasn’t done.   

A rich boy's story of poverty

 The teacher asks a rich student in the class to write a story on poverty. The boy writes:

‘There was a very poor family. Their car driver was also very poor. The gardener, cook, and other servants in the house were also very poor. Their car was also not as good as those kept by the rich people in the city. The children couldn’t go to Europe for summer vacations like the rich people did. It was a very poor sad family.’

So this was the boy’s meaning of poverty. Well, all our individual truths are in fact mere funny judgments and opinions drawn from the relatively higher or comparatively lower reference points. And they will keep shifting. With more money in the said boy’s family, the definition of poverty will shift to a new point. The shifting facts can never hold real universal truth in their grasp. Debates, discussions based on shifting facts and varying truths will at the most give careers, business, one-upmanship but the universal truth stays hidden. It hasn’t any worldly reference. Its only reference is that it strictly isn’t in reference to whatever we perceive with ordinary sense perception.

What is the way out left then? The interesting web formed by these relative, referential, shifting truths—mere judgments and opinions in reality—is so seductive, so alluring. It seems so real.

Well, crawl through the web and go into saturation with the pursuits. If that gives you real joy then you already are a saint, somehow detached from all that engages you. But if you feel the restlessness and meaninglessness of all this then start filtering out. Neti, neti…not this, not this. With your experiential realization you will walk through the clutter and see the charming futility of all this. Maybe then the self-sustaining, self-standing, immovable eternal truth will grace you with the profoundest meaning of all this meaninglessness exploding around.

Self-love

Charity begins at home...self-love is the seed of the overall tree of love that grows to cover the surroundings...self-love is the source light of all that can be seen beyond all the darkness. But there is a very subtle, thin line between self-love and selfishness. The latter might even impersonate as the former. But we have to understand, self-love is born of joy. It's something positive in nature. It's a high frequency emotion. The other is born of our fears and insecurities. It carries a low frequency. This is basically a contraction, a primal instinct for self-preservation. Self-love is expansion, evolution. In strictly material terms, they might appear the same numbers. But they are antipodal, like 1 and -- 1, 2 and -- 2. They move on the opposite directions on the axis. One sulks and sucks, the other smiles and expands. But at the operational level, it’s a very thin line. One has to be very careful because it's so natural to enter to the other side, the zone of negativity. And constant awareness and continuous asking the self about the difference between self-love and selfishness will do the task.

A layman's skirmish with Kundalini Shakti

 

This sharing is something deeply personal in nature, at the level of experience, in the domain of experiential knowledge. I’m not sure how many of the readers will relate to it. Still, its mere theoretical reading will make it interesting. This much I’m sure. It lies in the domain of spirituality and all the seekers have their individualistic experiences. There comes a time when one feels like sharing them with others after the initial years of closely guarding the secret as if it’s a treasure. There is no specific reason behind guarding the experience initially and there is hardly any reason for sharing it later. These things happen of their own, mere happenings.

All of us are essentially spiritual beings carrying lesser or more worldly baggage. The latter is merely a fuel for the journey in this lifetime, an accumulation born of our karmic balance from the journey so far. There is no fundamental flaw in carrying one’s own unique worldly baggage. But there is a temptation to take the fuel as the main thing, the essential component of life, while it’s mere fuel and is supposed to get burnt in the form of karmic dissipation, taking us to further destinations in a bigger dimension of perception and consciousness.

The theme of this discussion is Kundalini. I’m sure most of you must have some theoretical knowledge about this much fabled thing. Kundalini is an auxiliary dimension, a seed of potential, lying dormant in our psychosomatic system. It’s a short-cut, a gateway, a portal, a trigger point for speeding up of the evolutionary process of consciousness. Of course, just like any other short-cut it has its risks, dangers, possibilities, rewards, agonies, ecstasies, everything in fact.

The fundamental law of cosmos is primarily pure potentiality. Kundalini is a seed of that potentiality in the human physiognomy. It is a trigger point to unleash a sudden current of energy to take your consciousness to a level where it would have taken several lifetimes in the natural sequence of karmic resolution to help one solve all the entanglements and their resultant pain and suffering.

There is a set of controllables and uncontrollables in one’s life. I tried my level best to succeed in normal worldly terms like anyone around. But the set of uncontrollables at a level of existence beyond my efforts would always push me back to the starting point. Naturally that gives one a lot of pain and agony. One questions the basics that operate the world around him or her. And before you realize you are seeking solace and answers to your burning questions in a spiritual dimension after having failed to solve the puzzle in the normal thoroughfare of life.

I never had a guide in physical form on the teasing and testing field of spirituality. Based on my understanding of things I went into pilgrimages, bhakti of various deities and yogic practices. I was crazy about one particular yogic posture. It involved hammering the base chakra, muladhara, with relentless force. This chakra is the seat of the pure energy potential named Kundalini, which isn’t otherwise needed to live a normal happy life and that’s why most of us are born with it in its sleeping state. As I would realize later, this particular yoga amounted to forcibly prodding the sleeping coiled energy—the serpent—at its seat of rest. And the snake rose. The energy moved. It shook the world that was related to me involving body, relationships, career, family, emotions, thoughts, everything that had the slightest bearing on my current identity. That’s why they say that it’s a living death—you die to your former self in this lifetime only. But for that there is a lot of examination one has to cross through.

My organic structure wasn’t prepared for this sudden onslaught. Imagine a thousand watt current suddenly let loose across a normal 240 watt wire. What would happen? It will heat it up, there will be sparks, and it may even burn. Similarly, human system is for normal flow of energy. The organs are adapted to a normal operation of energy, most of it getting pleasantly getting dissipated in our sweet-sour pursuits and just a fraction going up to activate of our neurons which define the conscious part of our mind, the thinking mind.

The hyper current gave me many nightmares which manifested at many levels—thoughts, emotions, body, relationships, finance, carrier, family. It ruffles you forcefully, taking a tight grip on you, as if shaking you out of your slumber at lower levels of awareness. Literally it left me in a dark night of the soul. It was a karmic leap, a jump into the unknown. I was all alone to fend the onslaught for myself. If there were hidden forces supporting me I wasn’t aware of it. But in effect it was the toughest phase of my life. There was so much of agony, pain, fear and phobia to make life almost unlivable. I was running all around to clutch at any straw for salvation. I went on pilgrimages, roamed all alone in forests, went to ashrams, fell at the feet of holy men—all this just to save myself from getting sucked into a void. Religious differentials melted. Spiritual solace was welcome from any corner. I would enter a gurudwara, mandir, masjid, church, Buddhist monastery with the same reverence and faith. Anything as long as it would save me from darkness. I tried to be an unquestioning bhakt of many deities. I tried and tested yoga, pranayama, mantra sadhna, fasting, anything that was suggested to my dizzying mind. The blizzard of energy was making me dance to its tunes as if I was merely a lifeless puppet. The force of energy was seeking newer and newer avenues to hurl its fury into.  

Then about six or seven years back I started worshipping Lord Hanuman with full fervency. I kept Tuesday fast and read Hanuman chalisa from a booklet because I couldn’t chant it from memory. I had never memorized it fully. At that time I was visiting Osho’s Murthal ashram where Sadhguru Osho Shailendra—Bhagwan Osho’s real brother—gave mala diksha and sermons. Once I was lucky when he put his blessing hand on my head. I was ready. I was dry fodder. I have no other explanation other than to take it as a case of Shakti pat. It triggered a chain of experiences that shook the theoretical foundations of my knowledge. Just recently I had been lucky to be blessed by His Holiness Dalai Lama as well. So I would say that was a lucky period for me.

Shortly after his blessing touch on my head, on my Tuesday fasting I was reading Hanuman chalisa from a little booklet, incense and oil lamp burning in front of the idol. Then it happened. An intense external force gripped me very tight. I was in perfect awareness but the body was under the control of forces that I cannot attribute to my conscious mind. I was twisted and turned in very tough yogic postures which I cannot even think of performing in normal condition. It was like a mysterious, profoundly powerful hand was twisting and turning me in tough yogic postures. I was helpless and allowed myself to be treated like a ball of dough being made into many shapes. Everything was unfolding by itself. These were no weird, asymmetrical contortions. There was a symmetry, a harmony, a precision behind them. As if each set of movements would complete a cycle.

Lord Hanuman’s idol was put on a little house temple of stone. The stone ledge in the front for placing lamp and offering had a sharp edge. I was twisted in a lotus posture and my torso started going down, taking my forehead towards the sharp stone edge. The slow rhythmic descent to the stone edge was very precise to leave the middle of my eyebrow on the edge. Then the brow started drawing along the thin edge. Just a millimeter down and it would have injured my eye because the rub of the eyebrow on the edge was quite forceful. Completing the cycle on one side, the same happened with the other eyebrow on the other side. The divine synchronicity knows more than our fear, planning and calculations. There was flawless geometry and timing behind these movements. There were many such movements for around 45 minutes. Strangely, I wasn’t scared even for a second during all this. Some mystical assurance kept me convincing that all this is good for you. So there was no panic. How will fear and panic survive when one is straightaway linked to the cords of divinity?  

After that the force left me in voluntary control of my body. My spine got so tautly drawn and straight that I felt like a wooden plank. Then the sweet aftermaths of the divine exercise performed on my body by the higher force—a prasada, a sweet reward. I found myself singing Hanuman chalisa all by myself. I hadn’t been able to memorize it in a yearlong chanting on Tuesdays. Now it was freely flowing from my mouth.

After that for about six months I would experience involuntary mudras and body movements that would play with me like a puppet. Then the crawling sensations started. The movement of prana channels across the body. Like serpents crawling over back and head. There are little channels of crawling energies that I feel all the time. They aren’t painful. One gets used to them after a time. Different channels take shape at different stages. But the one on agya chakra is most forceful, keeps on sending streams of invisible energies down the bridge of the nose and on both sides. Another on the right side of lower back is also significantly active, and many along the spine. I know these are the pranic onslaughts let loose by Kundalini to remove the significant karmic entanglements across my system.

Maybe all this happens to make us realize that we aren’t just what we think ourselves to be. Or maybe to trash our ego that you aren’t solely in the driver’s seat of your destiny. Primarily, it’s to convince you that there are bigger realities and dimensions. At the body’s level, maybe it’s all meant to remove the psychic entanglements in our karmic structure. I know I have lots of karmic entanglements from the past to resolve and that’s why the rise of energy has posed such challenges. It isn’t necessary that someone else will go through the same sensations. All of us have unique genetic structure—an offshoot of our unique karmic structure—which responds in various ways to the exposure of this extra surge of energy. Still there are some common observations and on the basis of those experiences, observations and responses of the human body the theoretical framework of Kundalini has been set up to help us understand the basics of it. But one thing is sure, beyond the tiny framework of commonalities the manifestations in different bodies are varying to a big degree. So we cannot generalize or compare one’s with the other’s. These are mere pointers. I just shared my experience and it doesn’t in any way lay claim to any fundamental truth or law behind the Kindalini experience.

The journey continues my dear fellow travellers on the path. As the brain adjusts to this new surge of energy cascading across its hitherto unused neural pathways, I hear various types of sounds in my ears and the head. The story of sounds that you must have read one hears in Kundalini awakening is definitly true. I hear buzzing bees, tinkling bells, sharp chin-chin of anklets, drums, flute and rumbling of clouds. This is the divine music of high vibrational frequencies. Meditating on them can take a sadhak in very dimensions of perception. But I’m a common man. I have my responsibilities and worldly duties to fulfill to resolve all my karmic issues still lying unsettled and creating my circumstances. So I travel on the path without any spiritual pretenses—balancing my path between worldly needs and the food for my soul.

I’m open to guidance. It always arrives from different corners. Presently, I have a hunch that His Holiness Mahaavatar Babaji is guiding me on the path. And I feel privileged and blessed. I’m not bothered about the truth of it. Laugh at me, scoff at me but that’s my truth at the moment.

Skirmish with a sadhu

 He is a saffron clad-baba, aged around forty, swiping his wooden staff to avail a lift on some two-wheeler. He is well built and a mere look at his ears bearing glass rings makes his identity evident. He is a follower of Nath sampradaya, a follower of Baba Gorakh Nath. He couldn’t have thrown his staff in front of a more suitable vehicle. With the Baba confidently pillion riding I ask him the whereabouts of his journey.

Becoming an ascetic wasn’t his conscious choice. His parents hadn’t any child even after many years of marriage and they made a vow before the holy fire in an ashram belonging to Nath Sampradaya that if they had children with the great saint’s blessings, they will offer the first born to the sect to be raised as a complete renunciator on the path. With the great saint’s blessings they had four children and keeping their vow they offered the first born to dhoona, the holy fireplace at the ashram. Now the very same sadhu is pillion riding my bike.

He has been to all corners of India on pilgrimages and evaluates people’s worth in terms of their disposition towards kindness. The latter aptly measured in terms of their opening the purse for charity donations. These are hard times. A baba has to have something in the purse to survive because everything is monetized. Literally every breath we take seems to come at some financial cost. So this baba too is entitled to innocently covet money like all of us do. I don’t have any right to expect too many spiritual and hard-penanced elements in this baba’s life because asceticism isn’t his choice. It has been handed over to him by his parents. Thankfully he seems to have accepted his fate and doesn’t seem to hold any grudge against them for depriving him of a role on the normal worldly stage.

The crux of his philosophy that he told me can be summarized in a few lines: ‘Health is the biggest blessing a human being can possess. Health is as important to a fakir as it’s to a king. Both cannot follow their path with full commitment with ill health.’ Well, cannot agree with him more.

As he disembarks from the bike, I teasingly ask him, ‘Should I give you 100 rupees maharaj?’ As I’m drawing out my purse he comes to fresher spark of life, ‘Of course beta, of course, some chai pani!’ The major advantage of being a sanyasi is that you get entitled to call everyone a beta, anyone from newborns to centurions. He has quick eyes to scan the contents in my purse as I search for the promised 100 rupee note. The money is given. But these are hard times you know. Nothing seems sufficient, at least financially. I am expecting a smiling blessing but I find him serious and pointing to the lower side pocket of his saffron robe. The cloth is well-washed and looks quite new, not worn out at all. A bit of stitching has gone in a corner of the pocket.

‘The robe is torn beta. Baba would be pleased if you get him a new one,’ he sulks. I am about to laugh and say, ‘Baba, it just needs a stitch that would come for free, so why take the trouble of getting a new one for this.’ But I keep quite. ‘Maybe even a baba needs safe new pockets to do justice to the charity money by keeping it well guarded in sturdy pockets,’ I tease him within myself without giving any outward sign of my insights.

In any case he has decided to further lighten the weight of my purse which is already light. ‘I don’t have a clue to the price of an ascetic robe. How much do you think it costs?’ I ask him. ‘About 600 rupees!’ he tells smartly. Now I realize he has blessed the 500 rupee note in my purse by his kindly gaze and with this additional amount, apart from the one already in his grasp, the charity would match the price of a robe. I feel primarily sad at such times, if nothing else. So resignedly give into his charity-seeking enthusiasm and hand over the 500 rupee note to him. I casually look at the 100 rupee note in his hand. He instinctively puts both of them in his cloth bag as if afraid that I may ask for the smaller denomination to be returned in lieu of the bigger note.

Before I realize he has drawn something out of his pocket, grabs my hand and secretly puts something on my palm, folding his hand over my closed fist as if he has handed me the most miraculous nag mani, the gem of alchemy. ‘Keep it with you and it will save you from all dangers, make you a millionaire, make you the luckiest man on earth!’ his blessings are profuse. After all, 600 rupees in one stroke sometimes turns out to be more than the entire charity that they collect in a week. Most probably I have just contributed to his ganja smoke at the most.

I am about to burst out with laughter at his blessed gem but to help him assume that I’m in awe of his blessing I keep silent. It’s a five-mukhi rudraksh bead, that too a fake one, most probably. But to make him happy I keep it in my pocket. I have no reason to be angry at him. I cannot hold too lofty spiritual expectations from him because the path isn’t born of his conscious choice. He was just pushed into it, like most of teeming millions that we see robed in ascetic cloths across India.

He is still speaking and before I hear some other financial plan for the upkeep of his saintly ways I shoot away like a rocket. He was still speaking while I sped away. I don’t know why but I rode pretty fast after that. Maybe it was the reaction of my subconscious mind for losing some money because money has turned out to be as dear as life these days.

He was practical enough to ask my name and the village of my residence. ‘I will pay a visit to your nagri,’ I heard him shouting as I sped away. Most probably he finds me someone who is simpleton enough whose purse can be opened with the slightest effort. But he is grossly mistaken on this. I am happy to contribute to his ganja smoke once but if he commits the mistake of following my track to my village for further ganja doses then the baba will be trouble.

Here is my plan of action if he is unlucky enough to follow the foolish scheme: I will welcome him at my place, offer him water, serve him tea and ask for food if he is hungry. And the moment he demands money—which he would most probably—I would produce the fake rudraksh bead asking for full refund.

That night when I went to bed I had a hearty laugh: ‘I bought a fake rudraksh bead for 600 rupees. Imagine my lack of business sense and with that sense I once—height of heights—explored the possibility of turning a businessman and scouted some countries in Africa, central Asia and eastern part of Asia.’ The plan lightened my pockets to almost perfect weightlessness. But this reflection at least assuaged those mild bruises of losses whose pinch I feel sometimes during nostalgic moments. No point in going into that all. That’s all the normal stuff as it happens to most of the people. Nothing exceptional about that. But the baba has to be careful. Very careful.