Travel Reference
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still house Hinduism's living gods. The idol is not God, Hindu
scholars will tell you, but God is the idol . . .
The road curved along one side of Arunachala's steep and sacred
slopes, heading up an incline that soon slowed our festive bullock to
a standstill. The driver steered by twisting the animal's tail. Now he
cheerfully inserted two fingers into its anus, as well. This action
caused immediate and sprightly acceleration, the beast fairly dancing
off over the crunching gravel, shaking the tonga so violently my
head took several savage cracks against the roof beams before I found
a plank to anchor myself with.
I saw no light save that which came from within my heart. Much
as I battered my head in the mosque and looked for it in the
temple.
- Bahadur Shah Zafar
Sri Ramana ashram, a collection of low buildings and a small
mandir
bunched at the foot of the mountain, glowed palely in the swarming
night. Its gates were shut, and it seemed utterly deserted. Perhaps
the place had closed? Since its guru, Ramana Maharshi, had died
back in 1950, I did not expect to find crowds, but I certainly expected
to find the place open.
Happy to have the driver's fingers out of its anus, the bullock
yawned, proceeding to chew the ashram hedge. Leaping from his
perch, the driver shouted something that sounded like
Beestiwallah
Pa !
and rattled the compound gates violently.
No matter where you are in India, someone is always around.
Soon an old man with a lonely white tuft of hair sprouting from the
crown of his skull, wearing only a ribbon of material held over his
loins by a string belt, staggered from the shadows, muttering irritably.
The driver explained things in a cantankerous tone, and the old
man shone a feeble torch at me. He then grumbled at the driver.
'This old man, he priest-man,' the driver explained cogently. 'You
go with him for you sleeping, hah?'
'Hah.'
I followed our priest, who looked like the world's oldest Venice
Beach boy hobbling around in that jockstrap. Instead of heading
