Two frogs out of the village well

 

My first independent trip as a traveler came in the first year at college. Me and my uncle—more of a friend because he was of my age, being the youngest of a dozen children fathered by my granduncle—went to Shimla. We have saved enough from our paltry pocket money to give us courage to see the larger world out there beyond the boundaries of our village and the nearby town. As per the fashion of the times, we had long pantaloons, belts with elaborate shining buckles, leather shoes, printed shirts with side-slits to carry them well both in and out of the trousers. All this was topped with dark oversized sunglasses to make it a photogenic presentation.

I had a little red and black rectangular Panasonic camera to capture the moments pumped by the adolescence youth in us. We hit it off with a lot of spirits. Trekking to Tara Devi temple we soon realized that people already knew where we come from. The little shrine is situated ten kilometers down from Shimla on a hill from where Shimla glittered like a tiny heaven. I had been here as a part of the school children tourist group for fifteen days. That was a few years before and the pull of that free fun still beckoned me to the hill. During that trip, we had camped on a hill on the way to the shrine. It was a quaint British-time bungalow where we stayed. It was sheer fun. Well, of that sometime later.

Well, how did the people come to know where did we belong to without even having a word on the issue? Our actions speak louder than our tongues. We had been dislodging dead pine trunks down the slope. ‘You must be from Haryana! No wonder!’ a man exasperatedly sighed.

We captured the best dining moment of our lives at a restaurant at the erstwhile summer capital of the British India. It was a very high-end facility from our rural standards. The table had knives, forks, napkins. We hardly had any clues about this. But we felt bound to use them, so we followed others with a lot of anxiety. Then the beautiful aroma and wonderful taste of the food relaxed us, making us bold enough to click the best moments of life so far. Our bowls and plates had been wiped clean to do justice to the every paisa spent on the order.

There was a gentle hum of the urban people eating with dignity and perfect decorum. We had eaten too fast, we soon realized. The people basically talked and enjoyed the time there and took little bites in between. We had plainly gobbled down the food. The people who were already there when we arrived had barely touched their stuff. Sitting in a restaurant isn’t all about gobbling the food straightaway, first lesson. So we thought of prolonging our stay there. The bowls with warm water and lemon slices arrived. ‘See, they serve lemon juice as well to help digestion!’ we told each other. So this being our last item, we took elegantly stretched time to finish it like the real gentlemen do. We squeezed the lemon slices with a well-meaning look and sipped the digestive juice with a meditative muse. In fact we took many pictures of the cherishing sips. All this while a gentleman—a real one—casually looked and unhurriedly carried on with his lunch. A thorough gentleman not to get judgmental at all. His look didn’t betray even the slightest condemnatory hint towards our manner of treating a finger dip as a stomach wash. So we had a prolonged lemon juice drinking spree.

Then the moment of second learning struck with a nice punch. Very coolly the gentleman squeezed the lemons, expertly dabbed his oily fingers into the acidic concoction and elegantly wiped them on the napkin. The only saving grace was that he didn’t look at us even once while doing all this. A real gentleman, passing the message without making us feel embarrassed. Now it was difficult to stay there anymore due to our shame. We somehow managed to chicken out. Our entire schooling hadn’t taught this much as this visit to the restaurant did in a little time span.

We had shiny clothes, large shining belt buckles and still bigger glasses for our brattish faces. Now here was this beautiful Mall Road boulevard humming with tourists as the evening handed over the baton to a mercury lit arena. A perfect night for a lighted boulevard. But dark goggles are for shading the sun, the night is already shaded. To us a picture was incomplete without sunglasses, especially if you possess them. So we imitated an entire set of filmy postures with our hands on the hips and the legs positioned in varied ways to do justice to the sunglasses. All this while two girls, urban girls a bit senior to us, swankily clad in T-shirts, kept staring, giggling, saying something to each other. Now I realize that it was plain flirting and teasing to get us onto some encouraging frequency. But we weren’t exposed to such fine nuances. We felt offended. We thought they were joking at our expanse, making fun of us, little did we realize that teasing girls are a boon for the boys. It was a belated lesson, which I realized a few years later, as I vividly recalled their behavior, that it wasn’t an insult. It was a beautiful bait of youth. It was a tantalizing teasing. As urban girls and maybe a few years senior to us they knew far more in the domain of boys and girls. So quite foolishly, we felt insulted, scorned at them, threw daggers of hate at them, muttered our dissension in their direction, left the scene to carry on with our photo shoot at some other location.

Enlightenment is just a step away: Awareness

The early mornings in the beginning of winters have a mild chill. So here I’m draped in a chador, the best way the farmers and their ilk feel warm. Give them the best of a thermal clothing, which would keep one warm even in Antarctica, but the farmers would feel unequipped against cold in the absence of chador or blanket load over them. It only shows the level of habits in shaping our realities.

So here I’m draped in a light chador picking up fresh clothes to wear after a bath. The set of clothes slung over my arm, I’m looking for the missing towel. The towel has gone missing. It gives me concern as I go searching over the place. Then the concern turns to irritation for the inconvenience caused due to the missing towel. Then arrives self-justification. I’m sure that I always place my things at their proper place. So the reason for the missing towel must be someone else, not me. My family members can hear my irritated exclamations over the missing towel as I wander around looking for it. It’s not to be found anywhere. I’m sure that I cannot be so careless as to put it at a place where it cannot be found. There is a prompt conclusion that someone else has misplaced it—the very same old habit of putting the blame outside of one’s own self. ‘I always place it here, someone has misplaced it for sure!’ they hear my summarized mumbling over the episode.

Then it’s found. All of them are staring at me as it’s found. It’ there on my shoulder, hidden by the fold of chador draped around me. That was the first item I had picked up but then the chador corner must have slipped over and while adjusting it the towel got hidden. So here I stand with my lost towel found now. The towel that was always with me. But for whom I had already gone searching out, looked for the missing cause outside and already made judgments about the others as the cause.

It’s deeply humbling to be caught so wrong-footed, to be found so unaware. It only shows the level of unawareness we carry with ourselves on a daily basis. Then we go for a frantic search over the missing towel, the towel that was never lost. We go out on a search outside and naturally look for the reasons for its misplacement in other people.

Well, the towel is always there. But it’s hidden in the deep folds of the chador of unawareness. The chador of ignorance spun by a conditioned and customized self; made of the threads of limiting beliefs, fears and insecurities. Unawareness is draped around us like a chador’s folds and hides the towel of our real self. And thinking that the towel has gone missing, i.e., our real essential self, we go on a frantic search. We believe it to be outside. And when we don’t find it, obviously we blame others.

Like the missing towel we have lost touch with our real self. The hiding blanket of unawareness draped around us gives us a false sense of security against cold and vicissitudes of life. The towel of our real self is hidden among its folds. And we going on a futile search, feeling restless, wading our way through the network of family, friends, relatives, acquaintances. Assuming them or the larger world outside to be the cause of the missing towel. And we won’t feel the real rest till we find the missing towel. It but is nowhere to be found. How will it be found outside? It has been with us all along this time. But we have moved far and wide. We judge and blame others for the missing towel. We try different occupations, careers, faiths, belief systems and relationships to find the missing towel but fail.

The experience was deeply humbling. It showed me how our unawareness is the cause of all the unhappiness. From the missing towel to the estrangement with our true essential self, it’s the same germ of unawareness that begets us unhappiness and suffering. We just need to watch, understand and be aware of all that goes within and around us. Then maybe suddenly we find the towel slung right there on our own shoulder, while we had futilely covered miles after miles searching for it.

A journey with a Naga sadhu

 

I'm walking to Jhilmil gufa. In order to take a shortcut I end up taking a long-cut as it usually happens. The hill forests are mischievous. The tiny foortrails 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, Maharastra. He was a sickly child in a poor family who couldn't afford to get treatment for him. 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 robust sadhu. His guru left his body, leaving the ashram and its 41 acre agricultural land under his 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. Nagas have fought many times to upkeep dharma. 'Only a person from a warrior clan, the martial castes like Maratha, Jat, Sikh, Rajput, can become a Naga,' he says with pride as he walks with force in his steps like a soldier sage. 

I was surprised to know about the level of their opposition to 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 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 people avoid getting a Brahmin for officiating at havan on auspicious occasions like marriages and other pujas. So that should give you the level of our bitching. Caste is a factor even in talks between two strangers in a forest. No wonder caste decides who rules the country. 

'The ashram land gives 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 insurance 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 touched 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 insurance. Both of us are disappointed. 'This is no bichhu buti. It's some fake plant imitating a famous one,' we concluded. 

Sadhus have a free passage to the place of other sadhus. An ash smeared Naga baba is performing a havan for a seemingly rich man. It's a big fireplace, the trishuls are big and 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 an insurance against getting shoved away by 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 prasadam. To be frank I took almost as much as would fill my cupped palms together. I was hungry. Prasadam as food. The Naga baba watched it with muse. So I have my food and my friend baba has prasadam. 

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 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 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,' he shares the story. 

Then baba's chappal gets broken. I am wearing shoes. I feel guilty in walking in shoes while the baba has broken chappals. 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 had tea in front of the Baba Gorakhnath's fireplace. They smoke weed. The cave's resident sadhu is a good host. 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 are on a meditative high on weed, my head spins just with the smoke. 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. And 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 agreed. 'Ok, if you say so. I will buy good chappals in your name,' he laughs. We take leave.

I had a babboo stick with me as a companion on the way up. But I forgot it at the caves once I met the Naga baba. Now I missed the sturdy stick as I waded through a steep, faint trail among lots of bushes under the forest. And when I reached the place where he had pointed out the leopard I missed 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 through the feeble trails to get to the main path.

Evening shades

Evening shades...a musical silence...a pleasant sadness...a shifting stability...a solitudional companionship...a sweet loneliness...a whisper...a dewy smile...a place where light and dark have a date..

From the banks of Maa Ganga

 

Well, he performs better than at least me in smartly lopping water from a tap😃

And I always thought only I devoured books at a furious rate...well, there are bigger claimants 😂