About a week ago, I arrived to Rishikesh -- a bonanza of yoga and relative peacefulness nestled into the foothills of the Himalayas. I came here with the intention of attending a four week yoga course with a school called Agama. My course is certainly not the only one on the block, though. You can't walk more than a few meters without seeing a sign advertising a teacher or a class or a program related to yoga or Ayurveda. Rishikesh is considered a bit of an auspicious spot by Indian Hindus, and, now, with the explosion of yoga in the Western world in the last decade or so, it has also become a hub for travellers and enlightenment-seekers from all corners of the world to congregate. There is a cyclical nature to this that I quite like. One of the dudes who is credited with bringing yoga to the West (Swami Sivananda) led his adult spiritual life in Rishikesh. From this town, the wisdom of yoga flowed out to the rest of the world and now the rest of the world is flowing back in.
With this bit of background, you will have some context for a statement that I hear with some regularity amongst the yoga scene in Rishikesh: "this place has some really special energy." I can't say for sure what that means, but I can say that I have been on my Anna Skinner game in a way that I have not experienced in ages. One important amazing symptom of this is that I have been meeting some pretty awesome characters. The first nugget of note is Om the Jeweller with Diarrhea of the Mouth.
When I say that I am staying in Rishikesh, it's a bit of a lie. I am staying just outside of Rishikesh town in a neighborhood called Swargashram on the other side of the river from the hustle and bustle. It's a quiet (no cars allowed!) little stretch of one road with ashrams, restaurants, chai shops, bookstores, mini convenience corners, and a few street-cart salesmen. This means I pass by the same relatively small group of people several times every day. This might be annoyingly repetitive for some people, but it is ideal for me. It means that I already know the names of many of the shop owners and get frequent invites for a chai and a chat. It means that after only three days I was already feeling like this place was home. It's like my tiny Rishikesh version of Cuba Street in Wellington or Long Street in Cape Town.
On my first walk down this road, I had a brief exchange with Om the Jeweler with Diarrhea of the Mouth. I was still easing out of my tough-girl exterior acquired while traveling through the madness of urban northern India, so I was not open for conversation business. I immediately wrote him off as a likely asscrawler. Twenty four hours later, though, that Rishikesh energy must have been coursing through me because when he invited me into his shop for a chai, I very happily agreed. I let him unleash his tendency towards verbal diarrhea, which I mostly found fascinating, estimating only a 25% bullshit rate.
In one of his rare breaks in speech, I managed to ask a question about the large number of sadhus sprawled out on the benches along the road. (Quick note on sadhus: they are "renunciators" following a spiritual path. They are usually wearing saffron/salmon colored sarongs/robes, they often have wild hair, and they generally look really fierce/maniacal in this manner that I find awesomely intriguing.) "Are these saffron-wearing dudes really all sadhus...because some of them look like they are on drugs?" This led to another lengthy description, still upholding the same suspected bullshit rate. The important information that I believe to be true is that many of the sadhus are for real but some of them are sort of putting on an act to facilitate a lucrative beggar lifestyle. Some of them might have started out as sadhus with a genuine spiritual focus but they have become involved in drugs and lured in my modern electronics/conveniences. The most important part of his diarrhea of the mouth was this statement: "Do you want to go meet a 'real sadhu'? I can take you to meet one now."
My answer to this question couldn't be more obvious (although the idea was still given some sensible consideration because of the 25% bullshit rate factor and the still existing possibility that Om the Jeweler was an undercover asscrawler).
I followed my intuition, and I jumped on the back of Om's motorbike. We headed over the bridge and a bit out of town, down a bumpy dirt road to a new-ish construction site next to the Ganga. Just in front of the frame of the soon-to-be hotel was a simple but spacious three-walled hut. It had a wonderful view of the river and the green foothills that have not yet been taken over by guesthouses and restaurants. Bookending this meager living space was a large Shiva shrine at the front entrance and a big rasta-colored Bob Marley sarong on the back wall.
Shiva and Bob. Interesting combo.
Om the Jeweler introduced me to the small crew of men. I met Hut-owner Baba, Oldman Visiting Baba, Silent Young Baba, and the Babas' Domestic Worker. I sat in the presence of these babas, not entirely understanding what was going on but totally fascinated by everything I was witnessing -- the pimped-out aspects of this hut life (electricity and hotplate equipped), Hut-owner Baba's amazing dreadlocks that nearly reached his ankles when he unravelled the mass that usually sat like a crown on top of his head, the discussion of the flood that annually destroys the hut, the Babas' Domestic Worker brewing chai, Silent Young Baba playing with a smartphone, and then the bowl of hot water with a small bit of plastic wrap and some unidentified substance inside that looked a bit like sludge. It was this last fascinating item that gave me an opportunity to ask what I thought to be a socially appropriate question:
Me: "Hey, what's in the bowl?"
Om: "Opium. Do you want some?"
Me: "No. no. Definitely not. No"
Like I said, Shiva and Bob. Interesting combo.
So, I sipped my chai, walked down to the Ganga to say a prayer (as encouraged by all Babas involved), watched the ingestion of opium for the first time in my life, and then turned down a puff of the pipe of marijuana. Hut-owner Baba actually spoke decent English (another trait that made this lifestyle all the more suspicious), so we talked a bit about America and he told me a bit about how he had been living "the sadhu life" since he was seven years old.
After what I deemed to be a polite passing of time, I gently vocalized my interest in getting out of this weird vortex of sadhu-non-sadhu-possibly-drug-dealer life so I could return to my sweet little sober Swargashram atmosphere for some dinner. As a farewell and thanks for the visit, Hut-owner Baba offered me a blessing. Although I thought his spiritual path was largely bullshit, I thought he might have had a 25% authenticity rate. Bob might have been on the back wall, but the Shiva shrine was very impressive and surely much more of a permanent image than that of the sarong. Besides, there is hardly anyone whose blessing I wouldn't accept. So, he smudged some holy ash in the area of my third eye and mumbled a few words in a holy language. As I folded forward to meet my head to the ground, he patted my back, and, in a move that simultaneously boosted and lowered his authenticity rating, stated the words that a Charlie Skinner sort of sadhu would speak: "God bless you, baby."
And, God bless you, too, Baba/baby.
I chose not to ask Om the Jeweler any questions about what exactly made Hut-owner Baba a 'real sadhu' when we returned to Swargashram. He, however, insisted on paying for my dinner, and I could only assume that it was because he felt guilty about his own bullshit rate as well as that of Hut-Owner Baba.
Despite the absurdity of the sadhu-non-sadhu visit, I loved it and I am thrilled that I get to spend three more weeks in a place where such randomness happens with ease. This good energy might do me some real random good.
Rishikesh, let's rock and roll.
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