Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Then, as if tipped from a truck, tumbled a hundred or so men
and women, all swathed in stridently new orange cloth, spilling
down the ghats, chanting joyfully, then plunging into the eternal
waters.
Is this what I should do? I thought. Take that sacred bath millions
travelled days or weeks to perform at least once in their lives - even
if it was the only trip they could ever afford? Faith doesn't just move
mountains in India, it runs the railway system, for a start. And it also
enables millions to leap into some of the most polluted water on the
planet without a second thought, and without many ill effects. Half
the population of Benares did it daily, and they seemed fine. It wasn't
just a bath, either, it was a mouthwash, an offering, and probably a
latrine, too. You needed faith to take a sacred bath - but then, why
else would you take one?
As I began to strip off my shirt, I noticed a sadhu standing on one
leg, like a flamingo, holding his left arm above his head. This arm
had a withered, atrophied look, its hand poised like a desk lamp
above his mangled head of hair. I made a few quick inquiries. This
sadhu was doing
tapas
, penance. He'd held his arm above his head
now for twenty-three years. He'd also stood on one leg for twenty-
three years, though not always the same leg. Once a month he
changed legs, the event apparently by now something of a festival
in itself. People came from miles to witness the Changing of the
Leg.
I walked toward him. He was not young; nor was he clean. His
hair looked like something that had been swept out of a yak's cage
and dumped on his head. Sheer dirt coated him, not ash, dulling his
skin to elephant-hide grey. He did, however, make one concession
to modesty in his nakedness: dangling from a bristly, filth-encrusted
piece of string over his groin was what looked like a fragment from
the Shroud of Turin. The fingernails on his left hand were a treat,
too. They had actually grown right through the flesh of his palm,
some protruding on the other side if they hadn't encountered bone
after their slow journey. His eyes were not quite closed, they were
just not there, the balls rolled up until only the jaundiced yellows of
his 'whites' showed behind lids like the halves of walnut shells.
I wanted to ask him why the hell he was doing this to himself.
