All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World (7 page)

About an hour later, finding myself once more ensconced in the
sadhu
circle, an appalling vision lumbered into view. More than anything I’d yet seen either at the Mela or in India at large, this sight was truly bizarre. He looked scarcely human – an amorphous monstrosity of deformed and elongated flesh. Ram turned and whispered to me: ‘It’s Ganesh.’

Struggling to pick my jaw off the ground, I tried to face the sight with equanimity. Ganesh was a man with elephantiasis – that much was clear. His head was double or perhaps triple that of a normal man, with a great elongated trunk of flesh protruding from the front that made the sobriquet an obvious choice.

‘He was thrown out of his village,’ explained Ram. ‘But for the
sadhus
he’s a living incarnation of the Elephant God. They revere him.’

Poor Ganesh, two black eyes peering out from behind these disturbing folds of flesh, seemed to be facing a difficult future. And yet at the same time, I couldn’t disregard the positive effects of the
sadhu
culture. Whereas conventional society had rejected Ganesh, another had welcomed him in. Whereas mainstream society saw him a monster, another saw him as a god. Since the
sadhus
spent their lives trying to detach themselves from any sense of ‘being’ anything or anyone, they took Ganesh as he was, and even celebrated him as a facet of the divine. With this in mind, I turned to look at Ganesh again, this time finding his misshapen face less disturbing and more a manifestation of the infinite variety of creation. Around me, the
sadhus
carried on their discussions, none treating Ganesh any differently from anyone else. Somehow the sight of this was intensely moving, and the brotherhood of their community seemed an immensely positive force.

‘What about magic?’ I asked Ram, when the opportunity presented itself. ‘Do you believe the
sadhus
can perform it?’

He looked thoughtful, and a slender hand drew itself through his beard. He moved closer, perhaps not wishing to have his comments overheard.

‘
Jadoo
is certainly there,’ he said. ‘But you’ll never see it outright. Not even I could see it. It’s seen as a display of ego to show off one’s powers. The only real reason people do it is to nudge the common man from his dream, get him thinking that there’s something else going on in the universe.’

‘Surely you’ve seen something?’

‘Nothing blatant. But there have been occasions, yes, when I have felt myself subtly manipulated, moved in various directions. There’s no doubt in my mind that powerful forces are at work. We call them
siddhas
, actually – the power to control, through yoga, the subtle energies.’

‘I’ve heard of such things,’ I said. ‘And I’ve heard that here, at the Mela, one can see
sadhus
making stones float on water, or lying on thorny branches, or casting out demons and throwing them into the fire.’

Ram grinned, exposing stumps of teeth. It was a peaceful grin, and one at ease with the path he had chosen.

‘You might be lucky,’ he said. ‘But if it’s the real stuff you’re after, you’ll have to become a holy man yourself, then dedicate yourself to the most rigid austerities under the tutelage of a guru. And the irony will be that when you finally gain the ability to perform these feats, you’ll realise how irrelevant they are.’

‘What
is
important then?’ I asked.

‘Merging with the Absolute,’ said Ram. ‘Nothing else.’

As the festival progressed, the crowds continued to pour in. At the end of the day it would take me two hours to travel from the Mela ground to my hotel in the town centre. Arriving back in my tiny airless room – all I’d been able to find given the onslaught – I’d wash my face to find the flannel black with dirt.

‘Population of India may be two billion by next century,’ said the Sikh concierge, when I remarked upon the multitudes that seemed to be stretching the town at the seams. Guruchuran was studying sociology in an open university course and was a font of useful information. I took to talking with him from the battered leather sofa in reception, glad to be out of my room.

‘Surely that’s not possible,’ I replied.

Guruchuran held a finger aloft. ‘Worst states will be Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, accounting for almost
half
the country’s population. If I am fortunate enough to be married soon, we will go north to Ladakh.’ He grinned nervously. ‘Winters will be inclement certainly, but population will be minimal!’

‘You’re a thinking man,’ I said. ‘I suppose that’s exactly the kind of forethought the future’s going to require.’

Guruchuran adjusted his pink turban reflectively, uneasy with compliments. ‘Quiet life is best, sir. City life is too competitive. Spiritual things are quickly forgotten.’

I pointed to the hordes of pilgrims, even now milling past the hotel door. Surely they seemed evidence that the spiritual was hardly on the wane in India.

‘Certainly, piety is there, sir,’ acknowledged Guruchuran in his sing-song voice. ‘But for how long! After Gandhi-ji was killed, the spiritual heart of our country went into decline. Great industrialisation process began. Nehru himself said that religion was a barrier to progress. Secularisation is inevitable.’

I was impressed by Guruchuran. At only twenty-four, his grasp of the developmental issues was remarkable, but more than that it was his clear-sighted vision of the future that set him apart. All his friends were taking call-centre jobs, he told me. Two hundred US dollars a month was good money for any graduate, and yet where did it get them? Punishing hours, little or no prospect of promotion. They spent their income frivolously to make the whole thing worthwhile.

‘But how will you use your sociology degree in Ladakh?’ I asked. ‘All this late night study you’re doing will be for nothing.’

He shrugged, part uncertain, part happy to let the future unfold. ‘Journalism may be there. Teaching may be there. Failing these things I will open a restaurant like my father. We have two
dhabas
in Amritsar. Family tradition is there. Whatever I do, I think I will learn to enjoy.’

I stepped out into the street, which was lit up with the roar of trade, the orange glow of
tandoor
ovens. Certainly, there would be room for thinkers like him in the years ahead. He had the quiet optimism of many of his countrymen, and the strict moral code of his Sikh faith. He wasn’t a saint, of course – he loved Punjabi cinema, the odd drink of ‘country wine’. But his ideas cut a path into the future. Hard work would help him get there.

Further down the street I found a suitable-looking restaurant, ordered two stuffed
paratha
and ensconced myself on a plastic chair. The night had grown cool, and I pulled the blanket more tightly around myself. Before the
tandoor
, an elderly bald man slapped breads on to a sort of cushion, then pressed them against the clay oven wall. Steam poured from the oven into the night air. ‘
Naan, kulcha, paratha
,’ he called out in his lilting voice. ‘
Tandoori roti, bhatura, puri
.’

Across the road a loudspeaker system started up, pumping tinny Bollywood fare into the night. Two rickshaw drivers swerved to avoid each other, that most salient Indian insult ‘
bhenchod
’ (sister-fucker) ringing in their wake. How many people were in my line of sight, I wondered. Five thousand, ten thousand; it was impossible to assess. It was like watching an ants’ nest through a magnifying glass: ever-present streams of life. All of them working, despite the odds, to reach the next rung of the ladder, and beyond that a moment of transcendence: secular, mystical or profane.

A few days later I ran into Ram again, just leaving the
Juna Akhara
camp. The Mela was now well under way, and I moved through the tents with both eyes open lest my attackers should reappear. After a friendly greeting, Ram invited me to follow him down to the
triveni sangam
, the confluence of holy rivers, where the second sacred bathing day would commence the following morning. I’d been heading that way myself, anxious to scout out a place to stand before the impending madness.

The sun was dipping over the Mela ground as Ram and I approached the water. A plethora of boatmen stepped forward to tout for trade, but whereas even my heartiest protestations wouldn’t have quietened them, a single head tilt from a
sadhu
left us in peace. Ram pointed out the muddy pale-yellow waters of the Ganges, meeting the bluer waters of the Yamuna in mid-stream. ‘Third river is invisible,’ he explained. ‘Some say the Saraswati is a myth, others that it springs from deep in the earth. She is mentioned in the Rig Veda as being a source of great purity and regeneration.’ He closed his eyes in reverence.

Within a few hours this very spot would host the largest gathering of humanity on the planet; it would be visible from space. How long would the Melas be able to continue in this fashion, I wondered. Pollution levels in the river were now so high that several holy men had threatened ritual suicide unless it was remedied. Thousands of police with metal detectors spent their days scanning for potential terrorist threats, an almost impossible task amidst so many millions.

I asked Ram how he felt about it all. For now, India remained the best place in the world to follow a mystical path, but wasn’t that all changing?
Sadhus
lived off alms, but what if Indian society became like the West: atheistic, more interested in the material than the spiritual?

Ram stared at me gravely, removing his glasses to reveal bloodshot eyes.

‘Even in the years I’ve been here,’ he said, ‘it’s altered beyond all measure. Traditionally, Indians from all castes have shown the
sadhus
great respect, even if they’re not particularly pious themselves. But these days some of the young Indians have no respect at all for us. They’d rather watch television than hear the old stories. And the Mela, too, is a reflection of what’s going on.’ Ram stretched out a bony finger to point west. ‘You know what I found over there the other day? Luxury tented accommodation for Indian tourists! I mean they’re not even here to
participate
. They’re part of a culture that’s splitting in two, one side embracing the West without any regard for their own belief systems.’

Ram was getting increasingly worked up now, and he clicked
mala
beads through his fingers at lightning speed. ‘Pepsi have put up
billboards
,’ he continued. ‘Honda has taken over an area displaying its latest tractors to tempt visiting farmers. What’s happening here is just the beginning, let me tell you. It’ll be like what’s happened to Christmas in the West – commerce will rob it of even the most basic meaning.’

‘What do the other
sadhus
think about all this?’ I asked.

Ram shrugged. ‘The real ones carry on with their spiritual practice. The other ones, and there are many, become embroiled in a battle for status and power. Time was this festival was the largest single gathering of the faithful on the planet! Pretty soon it’ll be a fairground like any other, a giant market for consumer goods.’

‘There’s always a Himalayan cave,’ I said, trying to make light of it.

‘No way, mate,’ said Ram. ‘The way I see it we have two choices in life. We can live in a cave and hide from the world. Or we can strive to be
in
the world, but not of it. I’ll be here as long as I’m standing. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep quiet. Any phone rep comes up to me, I’ll tell him right where he can stick it!’

After Ram had left, I stood on the river-bank for some time, staring at the multitudes who, even now, were wading into the holy waters. The
sadhus
I’d met were charismatic, certainly, but it was hard to ascertain just
what
it was they were seeking in their spiritual quest, let alone discern if any of them had found it. Rather, it was these simple acts of faith, such as villagers touching their foreheads to the
sangam
at the end of a long pilgrimage, which made me feel connected and just where I wanted to be.

Mark Twain came to a Mela once, during the journey which he would later recount in
Following the Equator
. ‘It is wonderful,’ he wrote, ‘the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys . . . It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination.’

In my own way, I too was on such a journey, born beyond the imagination. And yet, unlike these Hindu pilgrims, I had some way to go yet. For the time being at least, I remained on the water’s edge, unable to wade in.