All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World (5 page)

Sadhus: the Sky-clad Ones

Ash-smeared, dreadlocked, possibly naked, the
sadhu
is both one of our most archetypal images of India and the one most at odds with Western civilisation. Our culture grows ever more obsessed with material wealth and the body beautiful. For
sadhus
the body is a mere vessel and the world an illusion. The starting point of their quest is to leave our world behind.

Alexander the Great, crossing the River Indus in the spring of 326 bc, saw a group of such holy men and called them ‘gymnosophists’ or ‘naked philosophers’. It is likely that the holy men he saw were not that different, either in appearance or customs, from those that still wander modern India today. As the story goes, Alexander was so impressed by their feats of endurance that he had the idea of adding one of them to his entourage. Dandamis, one of the oldest of the
sadhus
, refused at once, saying that ‘he was as much a son of Zeus as Alexander, and that he had no need of anything Alexander could give, since he was contented with what he had’.

Even for Hindus,
sadhus
can be enigmatic figures. Some of them claim supernatural powers and all of them, to some degree, are believed to be conductors of divine energy. For myself, it was impossible not to be fascinated. They lived life on their own terms. Their obsession with their inner journey was such that they’d given up everything to pursue it. They were romantic figures without the burden of possessions, worldly ambition, money of any kind. I had often seen them sitting peacefully by the roadside all across the subcontinent. Perhaps I even envied them a little. They weren’t trying to ‘be’ anything, unlike the rest of us. They were interested in absolute freedom and that suggested a sort of evolution to me.

No better opportunity exists to see the full pantheon of
sadhus
than at Mela festivals, gatherings which celebrate the creation myth of Hinduism. It is said that during the creation of the universe four drops of
amrit
, the nectar of immortality, were spilt on earth. Every four years, the festival is held at one of these points, with the most important in Allahabad, at the confluence of the three sacred rivers: Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. For Hindus, to visit a Mela is the equivalent of making the
haj
to Mecca, and the festivals are amongst the largest human gatherings in the world.

Allahabad is in north-east India, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. As I travelled north, the talk of my fellow passengers began to fill me with trepidation. Twenty million people would be there, said some; fifty million, said another. I would see wondrous feats of asceticism. I would see the most austere meditators, who leave their caves only twice in a decade. There would be stampedes during the auspicious bathing days. And the greatest gurus of the
sadhu
ranks would move through the crowds on sacred chariots.

All of it sounded most daunting, and, as my rickshaw trundled away from Allahabad station, my concerns only magnified. From the railway bridge, a scene reminiscent of a medieval battleground came into view. Across the river plain, an ocean of old-fashioned tents stretched away on the horizon. I had never seen, nor even imagined, such multitudes. In the early morning the campground looked serene. But even in its silence, the size of this gathering beggared belief. Here was the very heart of the Hindu faith. A belief in the governing influences of planets and in the sanctity of rivers, so that to bathe at the confluence at the auspicious moment was to cleanse away earthly sins. Its presence, in the early years of the twenty-first century, was an unforgettable reminder of the world of the spirit.

A complete confidence in the spiritual realm is all well and good, but the navigation of the material world remains to try us. With the polluted lanes of Allahabad crammed to bursting, traffic sat bumper to buffalo. Carts overloaded with holy men. Maruti people-carriers bringing high-ranking civil servants behind tinted windows. Whole families on single wheezing scooters. Bus drivers leaning from the windows to spit great Jackson Pollock spurts of
paan
. Matriarchs clasping woeful hands to their brows. From the bullock cart, the holy men smiled and looked down on the scene with detached amusement.

Conducting all this, a scrawny traffic policeman clamped his lips around a penny whistle and waved his stick as if this were the defining battle of his life. Perhaps it was? He looked too young for the job. His moustache hung limply from his upper lip. Around him, the world spun past, disregarding his instructions. Horns blared derisively. Abuse rained down on him in several different dialects. His white gloves grew black with dust.

Next morning, as the sun rose weakly over the Mela ground, I entered the
kumbhnagar
, the tented city. I was dressed simply, with a brown
khadi
shawl around my shoulders, but nevertheless felt remarkably out of place as I walked amongst the colourful throng. Everywhere, long bearded sages wearing orange or white strode purposefully about. Tired-looking pilgrims, many of whom had travelled hundreds of miles to get here, moved towards the
sangam
, the confluence of rivers. Uniformed police, street sweepers, electricians and sanitation experts went about their business, keeping this makeshift spiritual metropolis running smoothly. In the air, the smell of cooking fires and sweet incense. Beneath my feet, an ochre carpet of dust.

Stretching over thirty-five kilometres, the Mela ground is the largest campground in the world. More than 25,000 tents had been erected, their tent poles fluttering with flags and banners. Building had started the previous July, as soon as the rivers started drying up after the monsoon. Some 20,000 workers had laid water pipes, sanitary facilities and electrical cable. The irrigation department, the public works department, the bridge corporation, the waterworks department and the Ganga Pollution Control Board had sent delegates to lay the ground for the impending onslaught. Devotees had begun to decorate their makeshift temples with garlands of flashing lights and devotional images, some of them hand-painted in primary colours, others lit up in electric neon.

Two months later, the first holy men began to arrive. A ragtag army, clad in robes, some carrying archaic tridents or broadswords, on foot, by jeep, bus and sacred elephant. One of the
sadhus
’ rights in India is to receive a pass that guarantees free travel on public transport. Despite their minimal worldly possessions, this
sadhu
ID card is a valuable part of their livelihood, legitimising their way of life. While police may harass beggars, they leave the
sadhus
be, allowing them an almost free rein to move through society at will.

Early morning still and an air of calm over the Mela ground. I moved gently through the throng, my eyes boggling at every turn. Spindly old men stretched out in contortionist yoga positions. Barrows of fresh flowers. One
sadhu
walked past me dressed in a leopard skin, another wearing nothing at all, but with a heavy stone strung from his genitals. Much of India is now as modern as anywhere else but, save the odd detail, this was to step back a thousand years.

Several passers-by, stained with crimson and yellow powders, stopped and welcomed me. Others merely raised their hands in a friendly
namaste
, both surprised and pleased to see a foreign pilgrim. Already the night chill was lifting and a mellow sun casting pools of light over the ground. Swarthy crows jostled each other on their tent poles. Above me, a vast lambswool sky.

In the seventh century, the indomitable Buddhist monk Hiuen Tsang, apparently following the call of a dream, made a journey to India and back that would take him seventeen years. As the guest of Harshvardhana, the last of the Hindu emperors, he attended a Mela in just this spot, and remarked upon its ‘ageless’ bathing tradition. Even in his day, the festival was an ancient one, whose origins stretched right back to Vedic times.

In my mind, as I picked my way carefully through the sea of tents, was the notion of the Mela as the living embodiment of Hindu
dharma
, or universal law. In the East, religion has always been more about practice and experience than dogma, and nothing so illustrated the fact as this gigantic confluence of humanity. What was important for these pilgrims was not so much the written scriptures or the canon of any specific tradition. It was the idea of religion as practice, as lived experience bringing one closer to God. Perhaps no Hindu saint so expressed this concept as Ramakrishna, the Bengali saint of the nineteenth century. For him the scriptures were ‘a mixture of sand and sugar’ and science ‘mere dirt and straw after the realisation of God’. Learned people, to him, were like wanderers in an orchard, who count the leaves and fruit and argue over their value instead of plucking and relishing the crop. These people here were the living embodiment of this belief, intent only on the fruit, and indeed racing in their millions through the dust to taste it.

At one particularly busy crossroads I noticed a crowd of people who seemed to be arguing furiously. Were they fighting? They were huddled together in a scrum like conspirators. Curious, I went over to investigate, when suddenly, as if from nowhere, a cup of something warm and sticky was hurled across my back. It hit me hard and exploded. Instantly, I spun round to find two men sprinting towards me, their hands stretched out, seemingly about to attack.

Holding my ground as tightly as I could, I prepared for a fight. But just as they came within grabbing distance, a tall
sadhu
leaped out from one of the tents, holding a wooden staff. With his pale, angular face bearing a ferocious expression, he looked like one of the Tibetan demons. The two assailants stopped in their tracks, shot each other a look of abject horror and then broke for the cover of the tents. Behind them the
sadhu
roared a terrible stream of obscenities in their wake.

‘What the hell just happened?’ I fumed, catching my breath ‘Those bastards!’

‘They’re thieves,’ said the
sadhu
in English. ‘They throw food on to you and while you’re disorientated, steal your bags.’

As I turned to look at the
sadhu
who’d helped me, I realised that beneath the matted beard and dreadlocks, he wasn’t Indian at all, but a Westerner.

‘You’re not Indian?’ I said, still panting.

He walked behind me to examine my back, which was dripping with the sticky condensed milk ice cream known as
kulfi
. I felt like killing someone.

‘I’m an Aussie,’ he said. ‘Or I was once. Wow, they really covered you. Did you lose anything?’

I shook my head.
Kulfi
was in my hair, running down my back and all over the back of my trousers, but I seemed to have all my possessions. I hoped there were no swarms of bees around, or I might be diving into the
sangam
somewhat sooner than expected.

‘I’m sorry you’ve experienced that kind of behaviour here,’ he said. ‘Pilgrims make rich pickings, I guess. Anyway, I’m Ram. Why don’t you come to the
Juna Akhara
camp with me and clean yourself off. It’s not far.’

I thanked him and we walked, side by side, through the maze of tents. Despite the annoyance of what had happened, I realised that this might actually be a stroke of good luck. The
Juna Akhara
are amongst the most feared and respected of the
sadhus
. Also known as the
Naga Babas
, the warrior ascetics, they subject themselves to more austerities (with many of them forgoing clothes entirely) than any other of the
dasnami
, the ten Saivite sects (the oldest of the sects of Hinduism, whose followers revere Shiva as the Divine Being). Perhaps meeting Ram might be a means of introduction.

As we walked he told me about himself. He was indeed Australian but had been a
sadhu
for some ten years. He came from a middle-class background; his parents owned a garden centre. On a trip to India in his mid-twenties, he had met some
sadhus
and had a profound spiritual experience. It changed his life for ever.

‘I liked the way they lived,’ said Ram, whose accent was now a strange mixture of Strine and Hindi, ‘and how peaceful they seemed. But it was really when I met this one
baba
that the most shattering realisation came. He seemed like an incarnation of God to me. I was this typical Westerner with all these deep questions that I wanted to ask him but when I stood in front of him they disappeared. There were no questions left. He was simply a living manifestation of the divine. So I went home and got my affairs in order, and told my parents I was moving here. I never gave it a second thought.’

I found his tale extraordinary. To see him now, with his long dishevelled hair, sun-dark face and only a small pouch of possessions, was to see a
fakir
from story books, albeit one born in a suburb of Cairns. I envied him the certainty with which he’d left the past behind. Now he wore a long string of
mala
beads, and his possessions were only his clothes, a begging bowl and a small chillum pipe. I wondered how many Westerners like him had chosen such an unlikely path for themselves. Perhaps, had things gone differently, Ram might be sitting in an Australian boardroom, even now, brokering some million-dollar deal.