Well, O.K. Marija - here's a little dissertation on sadhus - just for you.

I hadn’t thought much about sadhus before. I wish I had, in retrospect.

A sadhu is an ascetic holy man dedicated to the search for God; they renounce the world; abandon possessions, family, home and relationships, turn their back on sex, wear few clothes, if any at all, eat little and only what is given in charity. This is the way of the sadhu; no fixed abode, floating from season to season, living by themselves on the fringes, spending their days in devotions. Each sadhu seems to have a different and unique set of prayers, religious tics collected over time, each seems to exist in his own sadhu space. Some are friendly, some remote, some in the tourist centres are more photo opportunity than sadhu but, even for all their grasping, all their posing, all that blather and cod-mysticism the sadhu remains a powerful and all-embracing constant in India, a living touch-stone of divinity. It’s a shame there aren’t a few sadhus on my block.

There are thousands of them in the sub-continent, wandering the roads, sitting in the caves, on the ghats, lolling in temples, fleecing the tourists in Goa – revered by Hindus as representatives of the gods, often worshipped as if they were gods themselves.

It would be fair to say that not all of them have attained their personal Nirvana as yet – which is probably why they need to keep puffing at that endless chillum. I think once you’ve attained Nirvana you probably don’t need a chillum for breakfast – but I’m no sadhu. Don’t listen to me.

My latest young friend was just the sorcerer’s apprentice. He was a sadhu-lite. This lad was about as low down the sadhu ladder as you can get; barely fourteen, I’d say, poised somewhere right on the greasy end of puberty. If he had a name I never knew it. Probably he never knew it, either. He lived all alone on the ghats, slept rough under a piece of bright yellow plastic sheeting, dressed in a filthy pink sleeveless shirt and bright orange pants. Round his waist a bind of red string, a yellow turban on his head with a vast pink tika in the centre of his forehead, bangles made of prayer seeds on his wrists and elbow, around his neck a mini-galaxy of necklaces and amulets. He made a small living selling religious dingle-dangles and tat to the pilgrims, somehow eked his way from day to day. He was living the sadhu life.

Right now, all he wanted was for me to take his picture. My pleasure. I took the shot, showed him the image, smiles all around – then one sadhu led to another.

‘Come,’ he whispered and led me over to the temple. I followed and looked in.

‘Him...’ he indicated with his glance. ‘Take his picture.’

Sitting, leaning against the wall, was a very stoned little man with a laugh in the back of his eyes. He wore a huge orange turban twice as big as his head.

‘Come!’ said the second sadhu with a big, gap-toothed smile. ‘Sit, sit. Sit here. Sit down.’

I liked him straight away.

‘Soon, baba, soon,’ I said and waved, ‘I’ll come later.’

He wiggled his head. That giant orange donut swayed violently in the air. He reached out languidly for his chillum.

‘No-o-o-o tension,’ I heard him say as I walked away.

‘No-o-o-o tension,’ I agreed and started to smile.

We'll have a little intermission.

We can all go off and make a cup of tea now. You'll need a warming beverage. I'm afraid from here on in there are numerous drug references.

For any children reading: Kids, I want you to know that I do not condone any of the behavior in this report.

Dogster, however, is an old hippy, a lush of the worst degree - I can do nothing but stand in horror and watch. Do not behave like him. Do not aspire to be Dog.

I am duty bound to report on his activities, no matter how horrid they may be. Tomorrow will begin the downward slide.

That last entry is too funny AND why we keep coming back for more. The Dogster is the drug!

Okay I'm off for intermission and to make a cuppa. I'll even go and do some work.

However I expect the reward of more of your writing when I check back tomorrow.

This is exactly why the Dogster has captured us all. The reference to the smile in the back af that Sadhu's eyes was masterful.

Ah, what a treat!

You know your sadhu with the white skin may not have been Indian. I met a saddhu in Kathmandu on my last trip who grew up in Chicago... who knows? Maybe it was the same guy.

It's great to see someone is out there. Thanks everybody for checking in.

Craig: as you've discovered Maheshwar is two hours outside Indore and Indore is - err.. kinda between Mumbai and Udaipur [and to the right] - a Google map search will get you there - or you can do like gpanda and not fuss.
Either attitude is fine by me.

I'd use Google every time to find where Doggy is - he's fallen off the traditional tourist map.

Kathie: I think all those sadhus from our crazy youth are probably dead - or so terminally stoned by now they might as well be. Look in your KTM report.

If y'all look at the first photograph on the Ahilya Fort websire that tells you all you need to know. Look at the slab of wall on the left. Look for a tree up on the wall. Above the tree a white building, on the left of the white part, a top curved balcony window; voila - the dog's kennel.

Everything else happens down on the ghats below.

I'm realising that this is really meant to be read all as one big chapter - go to whoa - but, I'm trying out the limitations of this art form [why not make Fodor's Asia Forum a work of art?] so bear with me.

Now, a brief change of channel - then back to the sadhus. Kids - do not do what Uncle Dog does. He's a fool.

Christopher appeared in a neon-green shirt with a bright pink jumper thrown lazily around his shoulders.

‘Gawd,’ he said in a plummy London accent, ‘what a bloody nightmare.’

Sebastian followed him through the door. His shirt was lollipop pink with an orange scarf loosely draped around his neck. Both had white Bermuda shorts on, hairless sun-bed calves and snazzy white loafers - I think, it was quite impossible to see past the dazzling array of colour that had just walked in the door. They wore matching panama hats, cream, narrow brim – that may, or may not, have come from Panama.

“I’ve just bumped my head,’ moaned Sebastian, ‘really, really hard.’

Christopher and Sebastian had just arrived that afternoon, fresh from London.

Ahilya Fort was the kind of place where people always arrived ‘fresh from London’. It’s a boutique-y, Conde Nast-ie, Mick Jagger-y place, a not-for-the-common-folk kinda place, an ‘I’d-tell-you-where-it-is-but-I’d-have-to-cut-your-tongue-out’ kinda place; quite the most remarkable place in the world. But even that is too much information.

The lads had just endured the drive from Hell. In their eyes, anyway – everything was amazing, everything was incredible, every cow, every farmhouse, every wave. They gushed with all the predictable, the ‘they have no money and how could we glide right by in our limousine and the poverty, oh, my god, I’ve never seen people living like that and ah! And oh! And o-o-oh!’

‘Well, my friends,’ I said kindly, ‘you must learn how to be king.’

Sebastian’s eyes lit up. This was a concept he could run with.

‘What a very interesting thing to say...’

He was a tall man, very British, very arty London. It occurred to me that Sebastian might possibly be gay.

‘Do you know where I can get something to smoke?’ he said in a stage whisper. He didn’t quite lean over, pat my knee and say, ‘darling,’ but that was his tone.

‘Mmm-m-m-m,’ I said, a slow smile growing in my eyes, ‘gosh, that might be difficult...’

‘What do they call it here?’ he said being cute, ‘ganga?’

He was on his absolute best behaviour, oozing charm and wit; urbane, flamboyant, in-your-face – he was exactly who he was – no apologies, no favours. Christopher and Sebastian were behaving with ‘gay abandon’ – in the true sense of the words. They didn’t give a rat’s arse.

I laughed.

‘It’s awash with ganja, Sebastian. Just go down on the ghats.’

But then I realised that if Christopher and Sebastian went down on the ghats dressed like that they would be the object of such luminous amazement that they would score nothing but hilarity. They were a most remarkable sight.

Sebastian was a counter-tenor, Christopher an interior decorator and they blithely carried with them the aesthetic of that tribe, a range of socks and shorts and hats and shirts that branded them as surely as if they had the words ‘Big London Fag’ tattooed on their forehead. They were either blissfully unaware that this local fashion might not apply to the rest of the world or, in their own strange revolutionary way, using their disguise as a weapon. I rather suspected the latter.

Both men were self-made creations; a particular amalgam of girlish trill and heart of steel, savage fruit who could murder with a phrase, kill with an upturned eyebrow. They were ‘we’re here, we’re queer and we’re not going shopping’ kinda guys. That only added to their attraction. The boys were like two exotic flowers, cast down by fate to my side. A sudden attack of kindness came upon me.

‘Let me help you,’ I said gently. I knew just where to go.

In Sebastian’s eyes I was a man of such antiquity that I was of another species – but he was kind to me and gracious, awash with ooze and flow.

‘Oooh-h-h-h, that would be lovely,’ he exclaimed, ‘and so, so terribly kind.’

‘Come, come!’ said the laughing eyes, ‘sit, sit!’

My second sadhu patted the stone floor in front of him. That gigantic orange turban shone in the afternoon sun like a great glowing mango stuck on his head. He sat quietly, a look of benign amusement on his crinkled face. All day, every day, every week, every year; smiling, smoking and sipping, serene, self-contained and as stoned as a newt, my second sadhu sat cross-legged in his special spot beside the temple door.

I slipped my shoes off, stumbled up the ten steps to the temple floor and joined him.

‘Mm-m-m-m,’ he smiled.

‘Mm-m-m-m,’ I smiled back.

Realizing that language was not going to be a problem, in that neither of us spoke the others, we simply chatted away regardless from then on in. He didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand him, but that was fine. My body language was eloquent enough, the twinkle in his eye so expressive we had no trouble at all. He looked over his shoulder at the chillum.

‘Mm-m-m-m-m...?’ he said.

I wiggled my head and raised one eyebrow. We both smiled together.

He called for chai, reached under his mat and produced a bag of ganja.

‘No-o-o-o-o tension,’ said the sadhu. It was the only English he knew.

One by one more men joined us. One man with a face like Jesus and a terrible cough spoke some English. His beard was black and thick and long, his eyes a piercing black. He was a kind of sadhu too, but that took me a long time to work out. He was a wise man, that much I knew, full of kindness. He had that ‘thing’.

We ran through the predictable questions until we got to the ones I dread.

‘Do you come alone? Where is your family? You have a wife? Children?’

For once my answer was easy.

‘All dead, my friends - gone to Shiva Heaven.’

I left time for translation. Heads wiggled seriously.

‘Now I am a free man, like you.'

Simple, direct, look them in the eye.

‘No wife, no children, no mother, no father. Finish. I am free.’

This answer satisfied them completely. It made the rounds in translation, chai arrived and soon the chillum was packed. Everybody was happy. With a gleam in his eye the Turban held the pipe aloft. Swami Jesus leant over and struck a match.

Vw-o-o-o-o-mph! Sparks and flame crackled from the chillum then thick clouds of smoke billowed around his head. Sss-s-sw-ttt! He sucked in noisily then two great columns of smoke poured out his nostrils. He was like a chimney stack, belching fire.

Gawd, I thought, it’ll be my turn soon.

Oh good - I didn't check the board last night, so this went very well with my morning coffee and OJ! Warming beverage now disposed of I'm ready for the next installment - although it's going to be hard to top the orange snake I feel sure the dog is up to it

Craig - I found a page on Maheshwar in my way-out-of-date Rough Guide, too, but back then there wasn't anywhere even RG would recommend to sleep. The Ahilya Fort looks fabulous - did you see the picture of the gorgeous reading/writing window nook?

thursday: that gorgeous little nook was where I was at the beginning of this story - and where you'll find me sprawled at the end.

On the assumption that Dogster survives, that is. Lordy, lordy - he's getting into trouble now...

Oh great Dogster - can we have a little more today please? Coming back to check fruitlessly all day is so depressing. Your writing helps my day's happiness level amazingly.

I don't check during the day (US EST time). Because of the time difference from where I am to where Dogster is, I realized Dogster will post according to Dogster time zone which is my late evening.

P.S. Dogster, you slipped us a little more personal info about yourself. Expand on that when you feel the urge. :)

Your wish is my command Mary - just for you, here's the detail of Dogster's disgrace. I'll bung it all in so you get the flow. I'd better apologise in advance.

Remember kids, do not try this at home.

It’s a long, long, long time since I smoked a chillum. I’m talking Kathmandu 1971. I never really fancied the chillum as a means to an end; too acrobatic, too clumsy, too prone to disaster - but I discovered, like riding a bicycle, it’s a skill you never really lose. It took a few tries and some gentle instruction but soon I was puffing away like a pro. I quite surprised myself.

For the chillum-challenged, I’d better explain. Take a small carrot. Cut the top and bottom off. Hollow it out. You got a chillum. Now make that same shape in clay. Fire it. Now, you really got a chillum. Stuff it with marijuana, tobacco, bird’s droppings, bits of dead beetle and, I think, lime - light it.

Here comes the hard part: how to hold your chillum. Take one hand, open the fingers. Stick the little end of the chillum between two fingers then close the hand into a fist. Hold fist to face. Suck hard at fist. If you’ve got it right, you’ll have sufficient suction to get smoke from the chillum without your lips touching it. Then you puff and blow like a steam train. Here endeth the chillum instruction.

The pipe went round and round, was repacked, restuffed and relit, around and around the widening circle – conversation ranged freely; some I understood, most I didn’t. I just kept smiling and smoking and sitting and smiling and smoking and smoking and sitting and smiling – and somewhere around this time noticed that the world was a distinctly different place.

Golly, gosh, Doggy – you’re really quite stoned.

I had to take a little moment to look around.

Dogster sat on a small mat on the raised stone floor of an ancient temple, a stick-insect in repose; all angles and jutting knees, balanced there on the point of his cadaverous bottom, calmly juggling camera, chillum and conversation. Around him on three sides a dozen thick stone columns, up above a high stone roof crammed with nesting birds; they swooped and twittered in counterpoint, a high trill and a flutter – occasionally pausing to pooh on the tourist, just to make sure he knew who was boss.

In front of the mellow mongrel the warm glow of the inner sanctum; a flutter of butter lamps, a flash of pink, gold and red in the dark. Dogster swivelled his head slowly round his newest best friends, as ramshackle a collection of reprobates as he’d ever seen in his life and smiled a secret sadhu smile. He was in the thick of it, doing what the locals do, having a private Dogster moment, doing what Dogsters do.

They passed the chillum one more time. Everybody smiled.

Huge clouds of smoke wafted around. He sipped his chai.

He was happy at that moment.

Life was fine.

Another sadhu joined us, a gentle young man with long, long hair piled up on top of his head in a bun. He was all in red and purple, a host of dingle-dangles round his neck, fine boned, ascetic, looking a lot more like a sadhu should look, wispy beard, warm eyes and perfect English. We chatted for a bit. I was relaxed, chatting away as if they were rather eccentric hippies who’d taken the dress code way too far. Really, I should have been more respectful.

I hadn’t thought much about sadhus before. I wish I had, in retrospect.

A sadhu is an ascetic holy man dedicated to the search for God; they renounce the world; abandon possessions, family, home and relationships, turn their back on sex, wear few clothes, if any at all, eat little and only what is given in charity. This is the way of the sadhu; no fixed abode, floating from season to season, living by themselves on the fringes, spending their days in devotions. Each sadhu seems to have a different and unique set of prayers, religious tics collected over time, each seems to exist in his own sadhu space. Some are friendly, some remote, some in the tourist centres are more photo opportunity than sadhu but, even for all their grasping, all their posing, all that blather and cod-mysticism the sadhu remains a powerful and all-embracing constant in India, a living touch-stone of divinity. It’s a shame there aren’t a few sadhus on my block.

There are thousands of them in the sub-continent, wandering the roads, sitting in the caves, on the ghats, lolling in temples, fleecing the tourists in Goa – revered by Hindus as representatives of the gods, often worshipped as if they were gods themselves.

It would be fair to say that not all of them have attained their personal Nirvana as yet – which is probably why they need to keep puffing at that endless chillum. I think once you’ve attained Nirvana you probably don’t need a chillum for breakfast – but I’m no sadhu. Don’t listen to me.

‘Let’s go,’ my sadhu said softly and I wiggled my head. My spiritual instruction was in train.

Just a few feet away a raggedy flight of nineteen steps led up to a rough concrete building on a rise. There was nothing ethnic or attractive about this building, just a wall that was once painted white, two tiny windows and a blue door swinging ajar. On the right of the doorway were three tiny hand-painted symbols. Each one stood for the sadhu that lived inside.

Indoors was even less impressive. Against one wall the sadhu’s bed, a blanket laid tidily over the concrete floor, a thin orange eiderdown and, at the head, a small square of brightly coloured material with all the sadhu possessed neatly laid out on top. There was a religious book, another with a photo of a temple, a tiny brass Ganesh in one corner, an equally tiny Shiva, a string of beads and a couple of other knick-knacks I couldn’t identify. Just across from his bed were two other blankets, a couple of ragged bags and an upturned bucket with an electric fan. That was about it.

We were joined by a solid man in his late fifties with a huge white moustache, evidently of such a lower caste that he was servant to the sadhus. They treated him appropriately.

‘He’s a very dirty man,’ said my sadhu with a curl of his lip, handing over a bag of marijuana he’d retrieved from under his bed. The Grub produced the chillum and began, laboriously, to separate the seeds, mix it up with tobacco and some other substance, probably lime, and stuff it into the pipe. This took an inordinate length of time – but then, time was not of any essence, not in sadhu-land.

‘No-o-o-o-o tension,’ said my sadhu.

‘No-o-o-o-o tension,’ I echoed and sighed.

Swami Jesus joined us. An eternity went by, but I was pretty damn relaxed. Just as well, time had slowed to a crawl up here in the concrete bunker. The Grub was taking an age to get things together. He was not the smartest slice in the loaf. I passed the time by handing my camera over to Jesus and encouraging him to take pictures.

What I get back is blurry pictures of my sadhu, piercing eyes staring crazily back, a streak of necklace, a flurry of purple, orange and pink, a swoop of wall – then, as he is handed the chillum, a dense cloud of smoke, a smirk, a laugh – and those pictures sum it up; in their own very slow way, things were happening very fast.