Gone to Pot

Gone to Pot




Almost floating as the result of a few joints, Gyan and his friends shouldered their way through the multitudes on the street leading to Pashupati temple.  Cacophony ruled the environment.  The sounds of thousands of live voices clashed with the raucous bhajans – religious songs – emanating from several loudspeakers suspended from lamp posts and trees.  Other loudspeakers blared out announcements about missing persons, while some offered free first aid, free drinking water and free food.  On a smaller scale of pandemonium were hawkers who were peddling flutes, plastic whistles, rattles and other orchestra items.

It was Shivaratri, the “night of Shiva”, a major festival for Hindus that generally comes along in March every year.  Shiva is the Destroyer in the supreme Hindu Trimurti, or divine triad.  The other two are Brahma the Creator and Vishnu the Preserver.  These three are responsible for the cycles of creation, sustenance and destruction.  They are the supreme alpha males in the Hindu pantheon of a few million gods and goddesses.

Pashupati is another name for Shiva and at least one visit in a lifetime to the temple, on the banks of the river Bagmati, is a must for Hindus seeking salvation.

A few hundred thousand pilgrims, most from India, pour in a deluge into the Pashupati Temple in Kathmandu on this day.  The worshippers stand in line for several hours to reach the sanctum sanctorum and get a glimpse of the deity.  The line crawls with the speed of a tortoise with arthritis.

The throbbing mass includes thousands of sadhus – ascetics and hermits – some clad in sackcloth, some in animal skins and some entirely naked except for bead strings, usually made of sacred blueberry and crystal beads.  Almost all of them smoke pot, as do thousands of worshippers on this day when legalities are tossed to the wind and the authorities make like the three monkeys.  They see nothing, say nothing and hear nothing.  Most of these sadhus possess some peculiar skills.  Their bodies are smeared all over with ash and sandal paste and they have long tresses of matted hair coiled in high cones on their heads.  Most of them are squatting in the lotus position while some are in various yoga contortions.

The gang reached the outer limit of the temple wall and turned right down a lane leading to the river.  At the banks of the river, they passed the funeral ghats, where two corpses were being cremated on wooden pyres.  They watched the pyres for a while dreamily, discussing the belief that those who were lucky enough to die on Shivaratri and get cremated at Pashupati were bound to achieve moksha, release from the onerous cycles of rebirth.

They crossed the river over a small bridge to the wooded hill on the other side.  There were no loudspeakers on this side and the crowds, though still substantial, were thinner.  They climbed broad stone steps to a clearing where a large gathering of sadhus was sitting around a couple of enormous bonfires. 

Some of the sadhus were reading palms and faces and telling fortunes to a generally rapt clientele.  Some were selling amulets and charms and medications and cures for every known and unknown ailment on earth.

Several sadhus were in apparent meditation, completely motionless in the classical pose.  They were squatting, eyes closed, in the lotus position, with their arms stretched and wrists resting on their knees.  The thumb and forefinger of each hand were joined in a circle, and the other fingers were stretched straight.

One sadhu stood in front of a crowd, with a husky python hanging from his shoulders, and a large cobra wrapped around his hips.  He would wrap his python around the neck of anyone who was bold enough to submit.  Gyan and his friends were surprised at the stillness of the two snakes, and wondered if they had also been doped.

“If the cobra gets hungry, will it eat his nuts?” Pravin asked, and they all laughed.

Every now and then, the sadhuI would extend his hands, palms out and fingers spread to show there was nothing in them, then close his eyes, puff out his cheeks, fist his hands and shake them in the air.  When he opened his fists, there were small metal statuettes of Hindu gods in his hands, which he gave away to the dazzled members of his audience.  At irregular intervals, he would produce flowers instead of statuettes.

The gang stared for a long time at this sadhu, trying to make out if he was resorting to some sleight of hand.  They could not make anything out.  The sadhu was wearing a sleeveless vest, and his arms were completely bare except for bead strings tied around the biceps, and a bracelet of what looked like hair from an elephant’s tail around his right wrist.  Bracelets of elephant’s hair are much in demand in Nepal and India.  They are supposed to bring good luck.  Presumably there is a swap involved, for they surely bring bad luck to the elephants.

When he fisted his hands and shook them in the air, the sadhu did not bring his hands anywhere near his body.  They jostled forward to face the sadhu and waited patiently till he went into his routine.  He shook his fists and manifested little statuettes of Ganesha, the elephant god and Hanuman, the monkey god, which he gave to them before they moved on.

A little further away, Gyan and his friends gaped as a sadhu with bent knees straddled a large stone tied to his penis.  The thin nylon rope was held firmly in place by some metal rings tight around the penis.  The sadhu appeared to concentrate with his eyes closed.  His penis became erect and the rope stretched taut.  The sadhu slowly straightened his legs and the stone, which looked like it weighed at least 20 pounds, rose off the ground.  The sadhu, bow-legged with the stone dangling between his legs, walked around slowly, as the spectators clapped and cheered.

“If he keeps that up, his organ will stretch as long as a rhesus monkey’s tail,” said Arun, and they all laughed again.

A little further on, they came across a sadhu in a yoga position, lying face down with his ankles locked behind his neck and his arms stretched out straight in front of him.  His hands, fingers straight, were joined together in a traditional gesture of salutation.

Pravin sniggered.  “Have you guys heard about the bandarasana?” he asked.  Bandar is monkey and asana is a yoga position.  The others had not heard of it.  “It can only be done by a very proficient yoga expert indeed,” continued Pravin.  “You end up with your right big toe in your left ear and your left big toe in your right ear, and your two thumbs up your ass.  This asana improves your digestive process.”  They all found it very funny and guffawed.

“How about some more boo, guys?” Arun asked.  The others nodded.  Boo was code for marijuana.  “Come on then,” Arun continued, “I know just the place.”

They followed Arun down a dark path to a small brick cottage, opened the door and entered.  The room was full of smoke and the reek of pot, and was lit by a single naked bulb.  There was no furniture.  The floor was covered with straw mats.  Some sadhus and westerners were among the people lying around supine, like a surrealistic painting.  There was a large linga in the center of the room, in a rectangular trough, with a heap of flowers on it.  The linga is an erect cylinder with a rounded top, usually of stone.  It is a phallic representation of Shiva and is worshipped by Hindus.

Arun shook hands with a bearded man sitting by the door.  “Just brought over a couple of my friends,” he said.  The man nodded and smiled dreamily at them.

The gang stumbled over to a corner of the room and flopped down.  They leaned back against the wall.  When the circulating chillums came to them, they inhaled deeply several times before passing them on.  A chillum is a stubby hollow clay pipe with a broad bowl at one end for loading and burning marijuana.  It is gripped in the coned straight fingers of one hand, around which the other hand is wrapped tight.  The smoker applies his mouth to the rough “o” formed by the first finger and thumb of the hand holding the chillum and drags.

They were silent for a long time, as the chillums went around the room and came back to them periodically.  Every so often a match flared into life as a depleted chillum was loaded and fired up again.

Then one of the westerners stirred.  He removed the cassette from a tape recorder on the floor, flipped it and loaded it again.  He pressed the play button, and the room filled with Solar Fire by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.

After a couple of hours of grass, Manfred Mann and Pink Floyd, they felt weightless, like astronauts in space.  It was time to go home.  Arun floated over to the man by the door, and directed a question at him.  The man gestured at a bowl on the ground by him.  The bowl was full of money.  “Just give whatever you consider okay,” said the man.

Arun put his hand to his hip pocket, frowned and checked all of his pockets.  He turned to his friends and said, “My wallet is missing.”

“You must have forgotten it at home,” said Gyan, putting his hand to his own pocket.  He stiffened, groped in all of his pockets.  “God,” he said, “my wallet is missing, too.”

Pravin stared at them for a moment and then patted himself down frantically.  “We’ve been hit,” he said.  “My wallet is gone, too.”