Chapter 14 - Sadhu in the Mountains of India

Thousands of miles away, a young man lying like baby Krishna upon a Himalayan bed of daisies is also oblivious to the Happening Sixties.

It's the first sunny day after a week of late monsoon rain and D is making the most of it. His thin beard wisps down almost to his belly button and the wind tugs at it playfully as if to say 'Why is a handsome young man like you wasting his youth away in such isolation, eh?' Or perhaps the breeze is simply bestowing strokes of congratulation on his escape from the vicious circles of money-making and despair that plague civilization down below.

B likes to take it easy in the afternoons. There's no point in trying to focus the attention when the belly is full of bananas and anyway, there's only so much mind control that he can take before his spirit rebels like a sulking child with arms crossed in defiance.

He's a lot calmer these days, after a year to explore the inevitable reactions within to his voluntary solitude. The previous Spring he had prowled around the orchard like a wildcat, cursing his absent guru and the meagre provisions he had been left with. The need for sociality had suddenly flared up in him after the insipid dormancy of a winter that had largely consigned D to sit within his bracken-covered cave, the snow piling up in ever-higher drifts outside as he nervously eyed his diminishing stocks of firewood.

But humans can adapt to almost any situation and D eventually became accustomed to the savage misery of taking a shit in the snow. Squatting in the howling winds D can be forgiven for developing acute constipation. Though his anus never quite forgave him for being cleaned with ice. His teacher had spent quite a lot of time with him through the worst part of January and that had given him some solace, although many of the days were spent in uncomfortable, grumpy silences. All at once, though, his guru would cackle with an erupting grin, taking up his seat by the fire to stoke up the ashes with the metal tongs as a long-forgotten story furrowed its way to the front of his mind.

"You think you've got it hard, eh?" M asked him rhetorically, "There are some babas who have to hold their hands in a fist until the nails grow through the other side! And some sadhus consume their own shit and piss in the search for immortality!" He cackled at the evident insanity of such an undertaking, "But these people aren't really serious about looking for truth.

"For instance, in a temple near here, there was once a yogi who stood on his left leg for five years with his right tied up behind him. Do you know what he was really hoping for, beneath all his pious talk?" M grinned in anticipation as D could think of no answer and then stage whispered "He was hoping his third leg might grow to full size to support him!"

The winter had otherwise been a test of discipline, waking up from under a few blankets at 4am to coax a stubborn fire into doing the right thing. If and when the flames reluctantly set about whatever charred stump of wood was surviving in the dhuni, he'd have to resist the temptation to thrust his feet straight into the fire - A sacrilegious act that would cause any other sadhu to brain him there and then with the tongs. Instead D persuaded his lungs and lips to attempt some sort of coordination as he'd chant the warming mantra given to him by M as protection against the cold. Although the spoken formula always took a while to kick in, eventually a light perspiration tentatively emerged through the outer layers of his paling skin, allowing D to feel remotely human again. M had the infuriating knack of being able to internalise the mantra so that he unconsciously repeated it while he slept - Whilst D was wrapped up in every available garment of warmth in the evenings, it was a bitter sight to see his teacher snoring away in the corner: Naked apart from a loin cloth and radiating more heat than the embers of the fire that slowly cooked the chai.

When the sun did break through the snow clouds outside then it could be quite pleasant, provided the wind decided to keep a merciful distance. But January and February were mostly long. dark months of sustained bombardments of snow that obscured everything in a ludicrous beauty. All sins were daubed with a cool innocence and the cascades of falling white brought the shimmer of the heavens to each branch and leaf that reached out to play host to the sparkling flakes of snow.

But even a world of pristine brilliance lost its charm after a while and, on an unvarying diet of one bowl of bland rice and dal a day, life became more dull than mantras could say. With the trails virtually impassable outside there was no one to see and nowhere to go and the days and weeks lost all relevance save as academic steps towards the advent of a kinder season. So deep was the snow that all paths were obscured and it was dangerous to stray too far from the cave unless without warning the solid ground gave way to a fifty foot abyss. D could not have left his retreat even if he wanted to. Of course, a little thing like a Himalayan winter didn't prevent M from coming and going on whatever missions it was that occupied him. Although he did make the token concession to the conditions by wearing sandals on his feet.

That winter, D discovered that the external conditions weren't all that far from the internal. Meditation itself was intensely boring and for all the books and prestige surrounding it, it was about the least interesting activity to which someone could dedicate themselves. This was a truth a little contrary to the fashionable paradigm that half an hour's Omming was bound to reveal spectacular vistas of Tolkienesque astral planes with levitating dragons and tap-dancing Shivas. M taught D the ancient wisdom that what most people called meditation was actually just an act of concentration. Meditation was the state of mind that one might reach if the surface consciousness could be bored to sleep by chanting, staring at a candle flame or beholding with wonder one's breath as it infallibly came in and out again - Through lungs that yearned for a chillum.

B hardly smoked these days, though but M sometimes left him small piles of bhang to take in minute doses - The smaller the better. When consuming these lower leaves of the marijuana plant, D was instructed to take so little that he would feel nothing, increasing the dose each day until he reached the minimum level of effect. He'd continue on that intake each day and the light buzz was just sufficient to lift him above the austerity of his living conditions.

B's practice progressed until he could find himself with a comfortable floating feeling not long after taking up his sitting position in the mornings and evenings. So little new or of interest happened to him in his cave that there was almost nothing to stir his mind into small talk imaginings. In this relative vacuum of stimulation, he could bypass the mental monologue and begin to unlock the peace of mind, caged for so long by the continual pressures of living with other people.

There were reservoirs of unhurried calm just waiting to release their unrippled waters through this young man. It was only now that he was seriously taking his time to find them and thus invite peace into his life. Though he was only stepping into the shallows, it was a relief to feel that he might actually be progressing. It was also vastly reassuring to find that there was some point to pursuing the practice of concentration up to the very Chasm edge of Tedium.

But serenity proved to be a capricious mistress. As the snows melted and the paths became visible again, if clogged and slippery with mud, D found himself possessed with a restlessness that prevented him from sitting in focus for more than half an hour. He awoke in the morning with throbbing erections but could not remember the contents of his dreams. He roamed hours distant from his hated cave abode, scrambling up difficult trails that seen very few human feet as he searched for new horizons. Sometimes he was sent dashing back down again as brilliant sunshine transformed to scathing hail in the space of a hundred meters; But other times he was rewarded with mountain views made more beautiful than ever before by their tasteful dress of snow, just as a woman may suddenly seem more beautiful in new clothes.

M returned from his absence a week after the snows melted with more sacks of rice, red beans and chapatti flour. He was thoughtful enough to also bring sugar, coconut and dates to bring a taste of luxury to the usual routine. It was all donated by the villagers, of course, to invite blessings upon themselves and to preserve the venerated tradition of spiritual renunciation to which any householder might (but probably wouldn't) one day turn. The best provisions were always given to M as not one family in the area hadn't turned to him for healing at one time or the other.

As abruptly as he returned M left again without much to say by way of encouragement or advice and D was filled with a fury at the eccentric old man who was just as likely to be mad as he was wise. D began to climb trees with a passion and swung from the branches recklessly until his common sense chimed in with the appalling vision of what misery it would be to nurse a broken limb alone. He reconsidered all that he was doing and whether he really shouldn't just call it a day. He could just stumble back down the mountain to the nearest freak hang-out, assume his masterful place in the chillum circle and win wide -eyed respect and awe from all and sundry when they learnt that he'd just spent the entire winter in a cave...the mere thought of it was enough to keep him where he was.

As the good weather rolled in then so did D relax again and his clamouring limbs lost their tension. The first shepherds emerged and they were happy to satisfy their curiosity about the new white sahib sadhu who'd chosen to live in their neck of the woods. With bucktooth grins and chewing on snuff they asked him about cars, television and money in England. Once the usual barrage of questions had been dispensed with in satisfyingly fluent Hindi, their interest usually faded and they'd drift off with barely a farewell.

It became still more pleasant and even hot. The orchards showed signs of life and creatures from the heights descended to see what was new below. First there were the vultures that cast huge, menacing shadows across the plateau that belied their cowardly character. They wouldn't dare attack anything more than a lame mouse with Alzheimer's. Still, they commanded a kind of renegade majesty with bad head crowns and white shoulder epaulets meeting black feathered wings that scarcely bothered to flap if a thermal could be found. They swooped and circled in a bored supremacy that only the crows were impertinent enough to disturb. They too had descended from above the tree line, probably for the sole reason that their sparring mates the vultures had and life was just too dull with no one to bother.

More troublesome were the monkeys who roamed the valleys like gate crashers who couldn't care less about needing an invitation. They caroused their way down the slopes without the slightest regard for anything in their path, snapping branches and sending rocks flying without a thought as to where and on whom they might land. The minute they showed their faces on the plateau D pelted them with stones from a catapult as M had instructed him to do. The message spread through the community of long-tails that although bananas tasted good, stones hurt more.

Apricots came into season and geckos ran amok, perching on slabs of rock about the same shade of grey as themselves. They jerked their heads up and down as if giving Egyptian dance lessons. D spent many hours trying to make sense of the endless posturing and pursuits as they crashed into bushes and landed in his rice bowl when he sat very still.

The monsoon arrived with predictable gusto, confining D once more to his cave for days at a time. Then it would abruptly disappear as though it had forgotten something down South. It returned in the middle of the nights drowning every midnight but leaving the days sunny and the mountains glowed green with the nourishment. Then the monsoon would tire of the nice-guy routine. Changing its pattern to throwing out all of the sunlight, it hammered the hills all day with an intensity to provoke disbelief that there could be so much water up in the sky. The rivers turned a thick brown and doubled in size , bursting their banks in many places and making many ways impassable. Colour was banished from the world and a monotone dampness prevailed. Summer became icy with the crystal clear nights that the rain vanished. But then it returned just a little while before the dawn might get any ideas about issuing some warmth into the valley.

Armies of mist came marching up the sloes in flowing determination that then slowed to take on an aesthetic tilt, mixing with the tall cedars and oaks in a cool, pastille effect. The trees took on the look of small clusters of lost and disorientated soldiers, struggling through the fog to work out which side and line-up they were supposed to be on.

Migrating flight parades of intensely red and black birds shot rebellious flashes of pigment through the grey valley at regular times each day. D organized his routine so as to be free when they passed through though they paid no attention to the titbits of food that he left out for them.

The monsoon made half a dozen final farewells, allowing in the odd week of sunshine that enticed local marijuana growers to climb the hills in search of their secret patches of plants. They began the laborious task of lightly rubbing the heads of each bud to produce a sticky resin on their palms. This they could then scoop up and roll into fingers of charas to sell as their ancestors had done for centuries. They came by to offer D the odd piece that was too fresh to smoke for anyone with a throat thinner than leather. But then the rains called by again and the harvest halted once more.

But now it is to be expected that the skies will remain clear until the first snows of January and D feels a little like Krishna as a little boy, having discovered the lands of delight on high and seeing no good reason to come down. He props himself up on his elbows and sees a woman from the village who has climbed up here with her cow. She grins nervously at him with teeth of perfect white, shining out from under her smooth brown skin. She is dressed in about a hundred layers of headscarves, blankets, shirts, skirts and petticoats. They fold in layers of autumn browns and reds that flash crimson and yellow on the edges. A brass stud in her left nostril indicates that she's married.

She pretends to busy herself with the cow but continues to cast coy backward glances at D who is less than content with the situation. Despite himself, he feels dormant instincts rising that have been redundant for more than a year and his hormones make brief battle with his pride. Refusing to even admit the potential of this encounter D turns and marches into his cave where he begins to tidy food stuffs that are not in disarray.

Eventually she departs with her cow, a bell jingling around its neck and D comes out to watch the sunset reflection in the Southern sky. As the peaks turn a radiant pink, raucous cicada attempt to break the sound barrier from their roosts in the surrounding trees. D is obliged to acknowledge that however much meditation he does, he will still be human with all the according needs and wants.

Now that monsoon has died the first fangs of cold have crept into the evenings and D starts to make the evening fire. With typically good timing, M turns up for the first time in two months.

"I need to be higher." D tells him straight away and relates the afternoon's encounter.

"So your paradise was wrecked by a single woman?" M cackles "Isn't that what happened in your Bible? Don't you white people ever learn?"

This notion is so appealing to M that, before he commences to really shake with laughter. He lies down so that he won't injure himself with its intensity. D waits impatiently for the joke to pass. "Okay! Okay!" M splutters with a palm raised in placation "I was thinking to move you anyway - My fruit trees will need time to recover from your appetite! But maybe we'll make some social calls first!"