Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
you, squire.'
Bum-bum bolo
, or something like it, was, I found out
later, a phrase popular with hard-core devotees of Siva. That
morning I was perfectly prepared to believe this apparition could
well be Siva himself, come to personally bring creation to an end.
But he swung on past, pale blue eyes flashing in the sun's first rays,
bearing down on an unsuspecting bazaar.
Kali Das was his name, although you could apparently call him
Klaus without getting a trident plunged through your heart. Never
allowed through the ashram gates - not just because he looked the
way he looked, but because he looked the way he looked
and he was
a Westerner
- he seemed not to mind this affront at all, hanging
around for many weeks and reportedly living in a cave up in the
hills, when he wasn't living in Joy's little gopi's cell, that is.
Klaus, unsurprisingly, turned out to be German. He'd been in
India since 1964, studying tantric yoga, apparently with a guru up
in the Himalayas. He'd then married a Bengali girl, made himself
a dugout canoe, and sailed down the Ganges. Somewhere along the
way he'd managed to lose both the canoe and the Bengali girl,
proceeding on by foot. He must have walked over two thousand
miles already, I estimated, but since he was in no hurry and not
going anywhere in particular, this meant nothing to him. Tantric
yoga has a lot to do with arcane sexual practices - which probably
explained why Joy was seen following Klaus Kali Das around the
village from the moment he appeared. She was also soon
announcing to anyone who'd listen that he was some kind of stand-
in for Baba.
I knew that Klaus, whatever else he was about, was definitely
into some fairly arcane practices when I stumbled across him up in
the hills one afternoon. He was standing on one leg with a large
rock tied to his penis, which hung well below his knee and was a
bright, mottled purple. His other foot was wedged into his groin,
his palms were pressed together above his head, and he was repeating
'Om Siva,' over and over in a voice that rumbled up from the
kettledrum of his belly like a military tattoo. I thought better of
interrupting him.
There is a pervasive belief in Indian mystical schools that male
semen and the life force itself are one and the same thing. Thus,
