Chaai, Chat & Clicks with An Aghori
I was on the lookout for Aghori Sadhus all the four days & nights I was in Varanasi, but to no avail. I would visit the cremation Ghats of Manikarnika & Raja Harishchandra at midnight, as they were known to visit the cremation sites but no luck. I found this Aghori Sadhu in the last hour I was there on the Ghaats, but what a meeting!
I saw this intense person sitting on a small temple near the Ghaat & surreptitiously tried to take his pictures from afar. Immediately he saw me doing it & snarled a negative. On my apologizing, he gestured at me to sit next to him & he calmly told what every photographer should imbibe: "Don't take a photo, take the "SMS" behind it!" He repeated in chaste English with a thick Tamil accent & then elaborated that you should take the quintessence of the subject & not just a superficial snap.
He went on to tell me that he hailed from a good family with his father & brother being engineers, but left his home & a comfy Bank job in Tamil Nadu & came to Varanasi to become an Ascetic. He found a Guru & joined the Aghori Sect of Sadhus here.
Now those who are unaware about the Aghori sect's extremely disturbing practices to achieve salvation, should Google them at this point of reading.
After he told me a bit about himself & his sect & looked little relaxed, I asked it point blank: " Do you Aghoris eat human flesh, urine & feces?" I was sitting too close for this question, to a person who practiced these abhorring acts. He stared with his piercing eyes & replied after a poignant pause drawn too long & too uncomfortable, he quietly replied with his finger close to my eye: " You are also an Aghori!" I listened in shock, as he added:" You drink the Ganga,water, calling it Holy, do you have any idea how many dead bodies are left uncremated straight into the river? Do you realize the untreated sewage that ends in the Holy Ganga Maa, that you drink?"
He performed a small Shiv Tandav ritual, not unlike a Karate "Kaata" for me, after which we had a cuppa Chaai at a stall, with the stall wala's number & a promise for a full fledged photo session on the Ganga bed with is entire set of accessories & his attire of an Aghori Sadhu, when I would revisit Varanasi.
Strange are the ways of an Ascetic Aghori.
Chaai, Chat & Clicks with An Aghori
I was on the lookout for Aghori Sadhus all the four days & nights I was in Varanasi, but to no avail. I would visit the cremation Ghats of Manikarnika & Raja Harishchandra at midnight, as they were known to visit the cremation sites but no luck. I found this Aghori Sadhu in the last hour I was there on the Ghaats, but what a meeting!
I saw this intense person sitting on a small temple near the Ghaat & surreptitiously tried to take his pictures from afar. Immediately he saw me doing it & snarled a negative. On my apologizing, he gestured at me to sit next to him & he calmly told what every photographer should imbibe: "Don't take a photo, take the "SMS" behind it!" He repeated in chaste English with a thick Tamil accent & then elaborated that you should take the quintessence of the subject & not just a superficial snap.
He went on to tell me that he hailed from a good family with his father & brother being engineers, but left his home & a comfy Bank job in Tamil Nadu & came to Varanasi to become an Ascetic. He found a Guru & joined the Aghori Sect of Sadhus here.
Now those who are unaware about the Aghori sect's extremely disturbing practices to achieve salvation, should Google them at this point of reading.
After he told me a bit about himself & his sect & looked little relaxed, I asked it point blank: " Do you Aghoris eat human flesh, urine & feces?" I was sitting too close for this question, to a person who practiced these abhorring acts. He stared with his piercing eyes & replied after a poignant pause drawn too long & too uncomfortable, he quietly replied with his finger close to my eye: " You are also an Aghori!" I listened in shock, as he added:" You drink the Ganga,water, calling it Holy, do you have any idea how many dead bodies are left uncremated straight into the river? Do you realize the untreated sewage that ends in the Holy Ganga Maa, that you drink?"
He performed a small Shiv Tandav ritual, not unlike a Karate "Kaata" for me, after which we had a cuppa Chaai at a stall, with the stall wala's number & a promise for a full fledged photo session on the Ganga bed with is entire set of accessories & his attire of an Aghori Sadhu, when I would revisit Varanasi.
Strange are the ways of an Ascetic Aghori.