Runaway American Sanyasi Looking for ‘Family’
The story of an IIT-graduate becoming a sanyasi has been doing rounds in the current Mahakumbh, a hint of controversy notwithstanding.[1] In 2013 Kumbh, my first story was about Baba Rampuri. He was from America. He had moved to France; and from there, through a series of events, he reached India and found peace in spiritual. He was initiated in the Naga Sampradaaya.
The story of finding him, at that point, was surreal for me. I had begun going around the camps of sanyasis. But I was also highly apprehensive of two things: 1. I did not know what to expect from them—will they be welcoming; or will they get angry; 2. I did not want to be seen as somebody intruding in their spiritual space and being seen as a disturbance/ irritant.
Nevertheless, I managed to talk to a couple on the sidewalks of a few camps. All this while, I had seen quite a few sadhus, who were different from the usual: I had seen a hathayogi, who was standing for the last many days. He would not sleep. Whenever he felt tired, he would lean on a prop hung from a hook in the ‘portico’ of the camp. But he would not sleep lying down. Several others had ‘bhasma’ all over their body. Seeing me getting inquisitive, one of them opened up a bit and asked me what I wanted to know. I told him that I just wanted to know about their lives: How they live, what they do, what they eat, how they chose this kind of life, etc.
The sadhu pulled out a visiting card from an inside pocket of his saffron half-kurta and gave it to me. “Go to the Facebook. You will find everything,” he said, and moved on. I was left wondering. Are Sadhus also on social media? And which Sadhu keeps a visiting card?
Nevertheless, I took the card and tried to figure out what to do next. It was already evening time and I had to head back to my home to file the story for the day. But somehow, I could not figure out what to write. I did check the Facebook page mentioned on the visiting card. There, I found some information about Baba Rampuri.
The next day though, I did not follow up upon it for the better part of the day. I started meeting more and more people, sanyasis and visited camps. In retrospect, I feel I had stopped looking for any specific story. The whole atmosphere of Kumbh had taken me over.
But then, I had a salary to earn. So, towards the fag end of the day, I felt that I should try and get hold of Baba Rampuri. I had some idea of his address in the Kumbh Mela (Yes, there were nearly 15 Sectors, at that point; this time, it is much-much more).
I succeeded in meeting Baba Rampuri and talked to him about his journey. Whatever information was available on the Facebook helped me build a rapport with him. He gave his answers, I noted them down. But, although I was carrying a digital camera, I forgot to click pictures.
You see, I was a print journalist, who was used to having a photojournalist accompanying him. It was only towards the latter half of my career that I was expected to click pictures also. So, I had begun carrying the digital camera, but I had to make myself habituated to it.
That evening my boss called me to ask what I was filing. He got angry when I told him that I am trying to figure out. “How can it be? So many people are there and you are not able to find a story?” He said. I then told him willy-nilly that I had found one American Sadhu from Naga sampradaaya. My boss jumped for joy. “File this story now; and send a picture of him,” he ordered. I meekly said that I have the story, but not his picture. That was a miss. I was asked to go back the next day, get his picture and file the story.
Next morning, that was the first thing I did. When I reached his camp, some ritual yajnas were being performed. I waited. He was amused that I had turned up again. But, he agreed to talk. In hindsight, I feel he too was interested to talk because he had planned a huge bhandara on one of the Amrit Snana days (in those days, it used to be called Shahi Snans; the royal bath). So, he hoped that his word would spread as far as possible.
As we veered towards the end, I asked him what was it that he felt was the best thing about India, or more specifically, the Sanatan. “Family,” he said as a one-word answer. He said that I care for my fellow sadhus, because they are like family for me. That is why, he argued, they needed donations. “We have to perform various rituals, yajnas, bhandaras; I need to take care of my family,” he said.
I took some pictures and filed the story, which was displayed on the main page of the main edition.
To be sure, the joy of covering Kumbh lingers still somewhere within me. So, when the dust on covering it had settled down and I happened to reflect on all kinds of people I had met there, I could not help remembering what Baba Rampuri had said.
And I thought: Is it not strange that a man, who had run away from his family, to another country, and then happened to reach so far away in India—and that too getting initiated in one of the most mysterious sampradaayas among sanatani sadhus; i.e., the Naga—was saying that the best thing about India was a ‘family’. Was it a case of life coming full circle for him? Or was it his desperation to find a family that ended with him treating his fellow sadhus as family? And, now that we are all concerned about depleting family-values, I feel, Baba Rampuri’s words hold a lot of significance.
[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/iit-baba-abhay-singh-clarifies-he-was-asked-to-leave-16-madi-ashram-at-maha-kumbh-mela/articleshow/117356726.cms?from=mdr