11

Saddhus and Shadows

Before I left Dharamsala, there was one other person I had planned to meet, and to me he was just as important as the Dalai Lama. It was here that I was to be finally reunited with my old Nepali friend Binod Pariyar.

I hadn’t seen Binod for over five years. We had last said our goodbyes in Kathmandu when I’d been mountaineering in Nepal with the army, and I had promised to return one day. We had stayed in touch of course. I’d even convinced him to get an email address so that I didn’t have to wait six months for a reply to a letter. I mentioned to Binod that I was thinking of walking the length of the Himalayas soon after I’d chatted to Ash about it months ago in the pub. He replied straight away:

Hi Brother Levinson

We all are well in here. And how about you? it is so long time that we are not in tuch but how was your travelling to niel river I hope must be verry nice.

So brother Leve, whin do you like to come to Nepal? Of curse I am verry happy to wark with you brother across the Himalayas. But can you tell where and whin. Please write. This time I do have my Trekking Guide Licenses to do trekking, so is no any problems to do any trek. We rally like to see you.

Binod and family.

His email was confirmation enough. I took that to mean he was keen to come and so sent him a message along with some money, instructing him to make his way to India and meet me in Dharamsala. He had never been to India before and was excited at the thought of travelling in a foreign land. He wasn’t so much coming as a guide but as a friend, and with Ash leaving very soon, I thought it would be good to have another companion.

The following afternoon I received a message from my ‘brother’, asking me to meet him in the central square. He had just arrived. I found him standing outside the Western Union moneychangers. He was smaller than I remembered but also more muscular and lean. His hair was short and he was clean-shaven and didn’t look at all his thirty-four years. He broke into a wide smile as we embraced and I introduced him to Ash.

‘How was your journey?’ I asked.

‘Twenty hours on a train,’ he said beaming.

‘Oh dear, that must have been pretty draining,’ said Ash.

‘No, it was wonderful. I’ve never been on a train before. I stayed awake the whole time to see the countryside. It’s so beautiful. I can’t believe I’m actually in India. I’m looking forward to walking.’

And so together, the three of us walked east.

An old soldier with a twirling moustache and moth-eaten olive-green pullover stood to attention and saluted as we arrived in Shimla. His beret was faded by years of rain and sunshine and his faced showed no trace of emotion. His boots were gleaming though and despite not being a day under sixty, he stood ramrod straight.

‘What is this place?’ said Binod looking up at the white towers of the Woodville Palace.

‘This is the British legacy,’ said Ash. ‘It’s everything my great uncle fought to get rid of.’

‘It’s a bloody comfy bed, that’s what it is,’ I chipped in, giving Ash a punch on the shoulder. ‘I thought we should enjoy a bit of luxury while we’re here.’

We walked up the steps, through the manicured gardens and into another world. A pair of cannons guarded the veranda. A butler bowed as the doors were opened and we entered the reception. Wood panelling was decked with tiger’s heads. Black-and-white photographs of Hollywood starlets and European statesmen lined the walls. Looking down from above a grandfather clock was a vast painting of an Indian prince. He wore a turban and a sword and his steely eyes bore down on the guests to remind them of a bygone age.

A man was waiting for us in the hallway. He looked very casual in a pair of corduroy trousers and a simple white shirt, over which he wore a blue felt waistcoat. He was about my age and had a confident, friendly demeanour.

‘Welcome sirs,’ he said, shaking our hands. ‘Come through to the Imperial dining room.’ We wiped our feet on the mat and followed him, feeling rather scruffy amid all the opulence of the hotel. As he handed us each a gin and tonic he introduced himself.

‘Raja Divraj Singh Jubbal. This is my home. It was built by a British general in the 1860s but my family took over in 1926 and we like to share it with guests. Make yourselves comfortable and don’t hesitate to let my men know if you need anything.’

‘Thank you, your highness,’ said Binod.

He tilted his head graciously in the Indian affirmative and then left.

‘He’s a prince,’ said Binod. ‘One of the last royals.’

He took a sip of the gin and spluttered. ‘I can see why they have blue blood if they drink this.’

It was Ash’s last day. It had taken us a week to walk from Dharamsala to Shimla as we followed the twisting forest road from the north-west. It skirted the mountains but for the first time we caught sight of the Great Plains to the south. Here we were on the very edge of the Himalayas and the snow-capped mountains disappeared into a distant blur far to the north.

Ash had to get back to work but first was going on ahead: back to Haridwar to meet the family pandit, the priest who submerged his father’s ashes. He wanted to find out more about his heritage and try to discover why the family had fled Kashmir. There were so many unanswered questions, and his was a journey back in time.

I was more concerned about the future.

‘I’m glad we got to see a bit of India together finally,’ Ash said. ‘Be careful from here on in. The monsoon is late. We’ve been lucky so far but when it comes you’ll know about it.’

He opened up a newspaper that was laid on the table. ‘Look here.’ He pointed at an article. Torrential rain and floods had been ravaging the hills to the east and all across northern India. Hundreds of people had been killed. It had been a miracle that we’d escaped with only a few days’ drizzle thus far. But even then, as I looked out of the window across the lawn, storm clouds were brewing.

‘It’s already begun in Pokhara,’ said Binod. ‘I spoke to my wife last night. She says it’s big rain. Very big rain.’

‘It’s not the rain you’ve got to worry about. It’s the landslides,’ Ash said. ‘I have to say, I’m glad to be leaving. I don’t envy you boys.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘The roads will just turn into mush and disappear, and half the hills will come crumbling down. Keep an eye on those roads. I want you back in one piece, otherwise who will I write about?’ He winked and patted me on the back.

That evening we walked along the mall in Shimla. The fog had gathered on the ridge, shrouding the mock-Tudor mansions in a white cloud, which only added to their mystique. Binod was enraptured, asking all sorts of questions. I could see why–the whole town looked like a film set from a period drama: the cathedral, the crumbling library, the Viceregal lodge and the terraced high street with its post office and toy railway.

‘Is this what England looks like?’ said Binod, taking photographs of the church on a cheap digital camera.

‘I guess if you mixed up Birmingham, Blackpool and Brighton, with a bit of Lake District, then perhaps.’ Ash chuckled as a crowd of noisy Punjabis whipped out a selfie stick and asked to get a group shot. Binod just smiled vacantly.

Shimla used to be the British summer capital before independence. The whole Raj government would decamp from Delhi and make their way to the foothills of the Himalayas in order to avoid the sweltering heat of the north Indian plains. Grand colonial buildings, now falling into disrepair, sat alongside modern multistorey hotels. Nowadays, in place of the British ruling classes, the paymasters of Shimla are the wealthy Delhi tourists who amble along the mall, paying to hold rabbits and sit on horses, wielding designer handbags. The macaques perch on the railings waiting to ambush unsuspecting children and deprive them of a bag of nuts or corn on the cob.

The last I saw of Ash, he was waving goodbye the next morning from the open door of the Kalka narrow gauge train as it pulled off into the woods. It links the mountains with the plains below and was the same railway that his grandfather helped to run sixty years ago.

Now it was just Binod and me. It was sad to see Ash leave, especially knowing that what lay ahead was potentially going to be the hardest part of the journey. It had been good to have the company of a friend, and one who knew India so well. But I was glad too to be reunited with Binod, who I think had been a little shy in Ash’s presence. Now that we were alone it would be good to catch up.

We left the ghosts of history behind and walked out into the dewy, bright morning. The path wound downhill, further away from the mountains. The eucalyptus trees created a blue haze across the rolling hills. We were heading for Nepal and the only border open to us was in the Terai–the steamy, hot plains below the foothills. It was a long diversion away from the mountains, but if we were to walk all the way then it was the only option.

For days our route meandered through thick forest, where pines grew strangely alongside palm trees, and wild cannabis and cacti stuck out into our path. Pink rhododendron flowers basked in the sunlight and the petals of wild purple and orange flowers littered the ground. As we followed a ridge, we spotted a massive vulture soaring over the tops of the gnarly Banyan trees.

With every step we were moving further into the spiritual heartland of India.

Every so often we would see a little shrine, marked by the red ribbons and orange paint of Hinduism, set as an offering at the foot of a tree or the base of a rock. A deep sense of reverence for nature prevailed. Everything was holy.

‘The locals tie little red strings on them, and say a prayer to Shiva or Kali,’ said Binod, explaining that there are thousands, if not millions of incarnations of God. ‘Each village will have its own. Sometimes each house. It’s up to you who you worship.’

It seemed a world away from the strict doctrines of Islam that I’d encountered in the Muslim world.

Descending from Shimla we had finally reached the watershed of the Ganges. Until now, every drop of rainfall had flowed via the Indus into the Arabian Sea, but now the Gangetic plain was but a stone’s throw away. What that meant was that we were getting closer to the biggest challenge yet. Looking down from the ridges of Himachal Pradesh, the next Indian state on our journey, Uttarakhand, was a boundless blanket of undulating green. It appeared as a patchwork of agricultural land interspersed with thick tropical rainforest. The landscape was changing fast. If the brass-tacked railings and pretty little rose gardens of Shimla had given me cause to forget where I was, then the sight of an elephant being ridden down the road by a wizened Gujarati brought me very much back into India.

The closer we got to the plains, the more scorching hot it became. One afternoon, as we realised that the clouds were not going to burst that day, I became set on having a swim in the cool waters of the Giri river. We made our way down through the narrow jungle paths towards the water and eventually reached a small river beach with pristine white sand. It was beautiful and inviting. Gigantic boulders lined the water’s edge and a small eddy provided the perfect spot for a safe dip.

‘Stop,’ I heard Binod yell.

He came running up behind me and pointed to a dead cow, half-submerged, floating by the shore.

‘A dead cow is very bad. You mustn’t go in,’ Binod warned me.

In India a cow embodies all of the Hindu gods and goddesses. By the look on Binod’s face, he was definitely not going near it.

‘It’s a very bad omen. It’s unlucky,’ he said in all seriousness. Until now I’d almost forgotten that Binod, while being very bright, hadn’t had any education after his early teens; like many rural villagers, he wasn’t immune to superstition.

I’d discovered on previous trips to India that it’s bad news to be associated with the death of a cow. I’d watched as whole streets mobbed drivers for accidentally knocking one of the bovine creatures down, a catastrophic insult to the gods. I decided that I didn’t fancy testing our luck with the Hindu deities.

I put my shoes and socks back on and we traipsed upriver to find a more suitable–and less tainted–spot. A sliver of sunlight made it through the steep rocks and shone down onto a little beach. The water was brown, but cool, refreshing and just what I needed. After two months of walking at high altitude in the crisp air, the mugginess of the lowlands was draining. I looked up through the small window of the gorge to the sky above. Cloudy, but still no rain. The gods seemed to be teasing us. Only the chirp of cicadas broke the sound of water crashing over the rocks. On the beach, Binod had been joined by some curious langur monkeys, and was feeding a banana to one of their babies.

We walked east, following a group of singing pilgrims down into Rishikesh, where orange temples hovered on the banks of the river and the clang of bells chimed out over the mountains. This was where the mighty Ganga emerged from the Himalayas. Descending from a misty jungle ridge we found ourselves scrambling down a rocky scree slope towards the river. The sight of fossilised shell encased by stone took me aback. It was a living reminder of the ancient days when the Indian subcontinent, adrift on the earth’s mantle, pushed north to collide with the great landmass of Asia, driving the sea bed inch by inch, five miles into the sky. But the rise of the Himalayas, which began fifty million years ago and continues to this day, hasn’t managed to stop the inexorable flow of the great rivers, which flow south from the Tibetan plateau. The Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Ganges are all much older than the mountains that have risen around them, forging the great chasms that I was traversing.

I’d been looking forward to reaching Rishikesh just so that I could see Binod’s reaction. He had never seen the Ganges before, and as a Hindu, this was an important moment–second only to Haridwar. We walked through the bustling town down to the ghats, where steps led to the water’s edge. Binod knelt to say a prayer and trailed his hand in the holy waters.

‘Thank you, brother,’ he said, with an emotion I hadn’t seen in him before. ‘I never imagined that one day I could see this river.’

From my spot by the footbridge, I could watch the eclectic mix of travellers who found themselves in this little town. While scantily clad backpackers roared by on Royal Enfield motorbikes, hordes of Shiva devotees, all dressed in bright orange T-shirts, came down to the river to offer their prayers to the god of the Himalayas. Housewives wrung their laundry out and thwacked it down on the banks of the Ganges before laying it out to dry, as their infant children frolicked in the shallows. Monkeys made mischief on the bridge, holding up the tide of pilgrims.

Rishikesh has always brought in the crowds–an old favourite with the hippies since the 1960s for its laid-back vibe and cheap marijuana. Even The Beatles came here in their attempt to find Nirvana. But the town also attracts serious and disciplined seekers of enlightenment trying to fathom the reason for their existence. Its position on the Ganges and proximity to the holy Shivalik hills makes it doubly sacred. It’s said in Hinduism that saints and yogis have meditated in tranquillity on the banks of the Ganges since antiquity. Naturally, therefore, Rishikesh is also a haven for yoga practitioners–people come from all over the globe to meditate, offer their sun salutes and learn from the gurus who teach here.

The most devout of the Hindu religious gurus are the swamis. These are the preachers who set aside worldly pursuits to dedicate themselves to the service of God.

Of course, as Ash had found out halfway through scattering his father’s mortal remains, not all of these holy men have honest intentions. Every week the Indian newspapers report another fraudulent sadhu who has staged a fake miracle or absconded with great sums of money. I just sighed with resignation nowadays at the stories I heard from female travellers in India, who’d gone off to find themselves by doing yoga in an ashram. Lo and behold, it turned out the guru’s sermon was mainly about free love and the spiritual benefits of orgies. Usually involving him.

However, through an Indian friend from university, I’d heard about one man based near here who did have a clean reputation. His name was Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, or, less of a mouthful, just Swamiji to foreigners like me. He lived in an ashram on the banks of the river a couple of miles away. Having met the Dalai Lama and received some words of Buddhist wisdom, I thought it only right to get some Hindu guidance too. In doing so I also hoped to learn more about Binod’s faith, and get more of an understanding of just why this river, and the mountains it comes from, are so important to the millions of Indians who travel here each year.

I was ushered into the room by a tall man dressed in black, one of an entourage of stern-looking security guards. Swamiji sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged with a serene look on his face. Well, what I could see of his face. He had an enormous shock of black hair, which was greying at the front, and a long frizzy beard that reached his chest. He looked like an Indian Moses.

‘Namaste,’ he said quietly, and motioned for me to sit down next to him.

I glanced around the room and he must have noticed my perplexed look. It had been decorated to resemble a cave, complete with plastic flowers and imitation rocks.

‘Yes, reminds me of my days of silence in the forest. I used to live in a cave.’ His arms floated around when he spoke and his delicate, feminine hands hung in the air when he stopped for long dramatic pauses. I could tell he was used to performing. On the walls I noticed framed photographs of him holding hands with the Dalai Lama and Prince Charles.

‘I spent many years in prayer,’ he whispered. ‘I left my family when I was seven, and roamed into the mountains. I found a cave and decided to stay. I meditated. There are too many distractions in this modern India–big cities and fast life–but here I could just sit. And all around me was the natural glory of the Himalayas, the Ganga. The mountains have watched over mankind. They have been here since eternity and have seen every incarnation of every living thing.’ He stared at me with deep brown eyes. I couldn’t decide if it was sinister or not.

‘And then when I was eighteen I came back. I walked down, the same way you have, I hear. From the very same mountains, maybe you passed by my cave?’ He looked straight at me. I couldn’t tell whether it was appropriate to smile.

‘What made you come back?’ I asked him.

‘I realised that it was time to help. Swami means master, and after I had done self-mastery, I knew it was time to guide others. We look after many young orphans at the ashram, children who had no teacher, children who had nothing. The best way to honour God in our lives is through serving humanity. My ashram has space for over six thousand pilgrims and people come from all across the world to hear my teachings.’

‘Do you have any advice for my walk?’ I asked, wanting to come away from this meeting with more than just some visa tips.

He smiled. ‘It is easy to find peace in a cave, in the forests, in the jungle. When you are isolated you can start on the path to renunciation very easily. Walking can help, ‘For contemplation and calm.’ He nodded at me.

‘But harder, much more of a challenge,’ he continued, ‘is finding peace in the cities. One should be at peace always, not in pieces.’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘But it is hard amid the hustle and the bustle. Once, when I was in London Heathrow it was busy, so very busy. People were shoving and one man was so preoccupied and distracted, that he pushed me and I fell over and broke my wrist. I could have complained, or–what do the Americans call it?–sued him, but there is no good that can come from that. I was calm and I forgave him. Gandhiji said that we must be the change we wish to see in the world and forgiveness is a lot more effective than grumbling. If we set this divine example, of kindness and sacrifice, others will follow.’

He smiled a triumphant grin. His message was simple and benign. I still had some doubts but I could see why so many hundreds of thousands followed him. He preached inner peace, and in the modern world, that’s hard to find.

‘Do not wait for miracles to come to you, you are the miracle,’ were his last words to me as I left.

On the way out I was escorted by Swamiji’s personal assistant, who led us through to an office where she handed me a piece of paper.

‘Don’t forget to like us on Facebook,’ she said with a straight face.

I smiled, but she wasn’t joking. I looked down at the paper. It was a list of tick box questions asking me to rate the quality of service at the ashram and the level of spirituality I had attained. It was an actual feedback form.

It was almost dusk and the PA invited me to join in the Aarti, the evening prayer ritual on the banks of the Ganges. Outside, I found a throng of young boys all dressed in orange and sitting in lines on the steps of the ghats. I waited at the edge of the ashram and walked with Swamiji as he made his grand entrance. Silence fell and he took his place in the middle of the crowd with hundreds of rapturous faces gazing up at him. He patted the floor next to him and I sat down. He immediately began to sing.

Everyone quickly joined in and I clapped along awkwardly at first, slightly cringing at the gaudiness of it all. I looked over to Binod for moral support, but he was fully immersed, singing away too. There was no escape. I couldn’t do anything but join in the sing-song. Soon the whole crowd had become absorbed in their praise, and I saw how unselfconscious his devotees were. One girl, dressed all in white amid the sea of saffron, was in a deep trance. Her eyes were closed and she had a look of unashamed contentment on her face. Swamiji sat in awesome serenity in the middle his followers, legs crossed with his palms facing up to the sky. He was intensely charismatic and his message of peace seemed harmless enough, inspiring even. The heady aroma of sandalwood wafted over the crowd. One by one, each person advanced to the river, and once everybody had made an offering, the Ganges was alight with floating candles, like glistening stars in the night sky. The congregation continued to sing and clap in unison as the water lapped against the ghats and the sun set behind the Himalayas.

The trail of pilgrims continued south, fifteen miles to Haridwar. We joined the throng of orange leaving Rishikesh and followed the Ganges down onto the more open and accessible plains.

‘It’s called the Kavad Yatra,’ said Binod, noticing me staring, wide-eyed, at the pandemonium below. I could barely believe what I was seeing.

Hundreds of thousands of tents, shacks and huts packed the bustling fields along the banks of the river and the entire city seemed to be alive with action. It felt like we’d just arrived at a massive pop festival–minus the alcohol.

‘Each year they come to collect the water of Mother Ganga. Then they take it back to their village, to offer to Lord Shiva.’

‘How do they get the water home?’ I asked him.

‘In those kanwars.’ He pointed to a luminous orange construction that was passing us. A pilgrim in saffron robes and no shoes was carrying the bamboo pole, which had a water pot attached to either end, decorated elaborately with silk, tinsel and marigolds.

‘The pilgrims are coming from all over India. Sometimes they don’t eat for days and days on the way. If they have food they share it with the monkeys–it brings good luck.’

As we walked down through the masses the atmosphere was electric. Carnival floats with multicoloured images of gods and goddesses rolled between the makeshift huts. A woman dressed as the goddess Kali had her face painted blue and long needles pierced through her arm and cheeks. Naked sadhus sat in silent contemplation amid the chaos, as cows and buffaloes munched at cardboard waste. Children were dressed up as deities, adorned in jewellery, wearing crowns and the three stripes of Shiva on their foreheads. Rudimentary tightropes had been assembled and tiny girls wobbled their way across with golden pots on their heads. Touts weaved between the water carriers trying to persuade pilgrims to part with a few rupees in exchange for plastic trinkets or a good old-fashioned ear clean.

As we passed beneath the enormous statue of Shiva and reached the banks of the Ganges, the clamour rose; people jostled for space and the air was thick and hot. Devotees were singing hymns; chanting emanated from nearby temples and children shrieked as they splashed in the river.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. ‘You like shave, sir?’

A skinny barber brandishing a cut-throat razor, a towel and some shaving foam was grinning expectantly at Binod and me. My beard–bushy after weeks of trying to blend in across Afghanistan and Pakistan–was definitely in need of a trim, especially considering that here in India, and in Nepal, just across the Ganges, men tended to be clean-shaven. I agreed and was plonked down on the ghats while the man got to work.

Cows trotted along the banks, painted in shades of saffron and amber, covered in silver-and-gold jewellery. In front of us, the water was heaving with Shiva worshippers washing away their sins in the water. Elderly men, unable to swim, were grasping iron chains to prevent them from drifting downriver. They plunged their heads beneath the surface and washed their bodies in the filthy water. Women immersed themselves, some fully clothed, some bare-breasted, their red silk saris sparkling in the sunlight. They emerged with looks of faithful serenity and fulfilment, a miracle considering the commotion around them.

‘These rituals are the most sacred and spiritual in Hinduism,’ said Binod. ‘Some people waiting a whole lifetime just to come to the Ganga and take a dip.’

Next to us, a tiny, terrified-looking boy was having his first haircut, a Hindu rite of passage in a child’s seventh year and a symbol of purification. The pandit blessed him and then turned to Binod and me. He had overheard Binod’s excitement about being next to the holy Ganges for the first time.

He led my friend down to the water’s edge and blessed him in the name of Shiva, and then Binod submerged himself in the waters that had run down from the high Himalayas. He placed a banana-leaf basket, brimming with marigolds, into the water as an offering to Ganga and I watched as the camphor flame drifted off downriver.

As I looked on I wondered if all this holiness might just rub off and give us the luck we needed to carry on with the journey. As we’d descended from the hills it was all too easy to think we’d left the hardest parts behind, but I knew deep down that something had to give. I can’t explain what it was, except that I felt something ominous looming over the expedition. Maybe it was the thought of the oncoming monsoon, or perhaps it was just that I’d reached the halfway point without incident. The feeling remained that I was tempting fate. I looked at the peaceful joy on Binod’s face as he prayed in the river and I felt grateful to have such a good man with me. But I also knew that soon, as we headed north and into Nepal, we were walking into somewhere infinitely more wild and remote. I could only hope that my guide knew what he was doing.

Our day wasn’t over yet. Just outside the town we noticed rising plumes of smoke spiralling from the shores of the Ganges.

‘Cremations,’ said Binod. ‘Shall we go and see?’

I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t like the thought of just turning up at someone’s funeral but Binod assured me that it was fine, in fact it was a mark of respect and the families would be glad.

As we walked down to the stony beach, a crowd had gathered around the burning pyres. More were being built, out of wood that had been offloaded from the roofs of buses. The corpses, wrapped in cloth, were unceremoniously carried from the car park and lumped onto the stacks. There were no women to be seen, and male family members piled wood and rubber bicycle tyres on top of the bodies. As it started to drizzle, kerosene was poured on to help ignite the wet wood.

Men looked on. There seemed to be little emotion, and some carried on with conversations on their phones as the bodies sizzled away. It appeared to be a very matter-of-fact affair.

‘When we took my father for cremation, we had to wait until his head had exploded. We must make a hole in the skull, to let the spirit go and be sure it goes to the next life,’ Binod told me.

I noticed a wooden shack where an old lady watched the proceedings from afar. The rain was getting heavier now and I suggested to Binod that we go and take shelter in the shack. He agreed and we walked over.

The shack was draped with a blue tarpaulin to keep out the rain, but the frame was made of thick wooden poles. Inside the porch were three statues. There was a blue concrete Shiva holding a trident and two of the monkey god Hanuman; one was white and the other red with five heads. The old woman cackled as we approached.

‘Let us take shelter, sister,’ said Binod.

‘Who are you?’ asked the woman. She looked like a witch.

There was a distinct smell of shit all around us, and mangy dogs picked through piles of rubbish. A pig scuttled around the waste ground, snuffling among the human excrement. Flies buzzed around the unhealthy air.

We told her who we were.

‘He is not here.’ Her eyes glinted menacingly in the fading light.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘The Aghori baba, of course,’ she said.

Binod’s eyes opened wide. I knew immediately what he was thinking. I’d heard about the Aghori but had assumed they were a myth.

Binod looked at me. ‘We should leave. I don’t like it here.’

I looked at the woman. Her grey hair was tied back to reveal a wrinkled face that clearly came from the mountains of the north. Withered arms poked out of the faded turquoise sari. They were covered in badly drawn tattoos of various gods. She grinned, revealing terrible yellow stumpy teeth.

The Aghori were a mysterious sect of Shiva worshippers, known for their controversial rituals. Not only do they drink vast amounts of alcohol and smoke marijuana but they are also said to be cannibals; hanging around the cremation grounds waiting for bodies to float past, which they then devour in a bid to bring themselves closer to god.

‘They drink from human skulls,’ said Binod with a shudder.

The woman cackled again. ‘Who are you, sister?’ Binod asked her.

‘I am his servant,’ she replied with a sneer as she crouched down on her haunches, spitting into the mud, seemingly oblivious to the rain. ‘He likes to eat the bodies of people. I used to, as well,’ she added with a malicious smile.

Binod and I just stood gawping at the self-proclaimed flesh eater. She revelled in the attention.

‘I ate an arm, a human one, ten years ago. It tastes like salty chicken.’ She laughed.

I glanced at Binod. The Aghori are condemned by most Hindus for their unsavoury practices and I could tell he was uncertain about being here. I think he must have regretted offering to show me the ghats.

‘Come tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘He will return. Bring whisky.’

At that we left. All the next day, as we finished our preparations for the next phase of the journey I couldn’t help but think of the cannibal. Out of sheer curiosity I wanted to go back.

‘Let’s not bother,’ Binod said, eager to avoid the place.

But I felt compelled. After meeting all sorts of monks and princes, I didn’t see what harm one more could do. We returned the following evening, just as the sun was setting, to find the little stretch along the Ganges deserted. The shack looked empty and Binod and I put our heads inside.

‘Hello?’ I shouted, even though it was obvious nobody was inside. But I noticed the ashes of a fire were still smouldering. Someone was around.

‘Namaste.’

I looked around to see the monk standing there. He was a fat man in his early forties wearing a dark-maroon toga. His skin was almost black and he looked more African than Indian, especially with the nest of matted dreadlocks that was twisted up in a bun around his skull. On his forehead was painted a bright red tikka.

He grinned and walked past us and sat down by the fire. Out of a pouch he handled some powder and threw it into the embers causing flames to magically roar up. With a stick he prodded the fire.

‘What do you want?’ he said in Hindi. Binod translated nervously.

I sat on a filthy rug opposite him, the flames lapping my bare feet.

I handed him the whisky we’d brought for the occasion, which he took without a word and pocketed. What I really wanted to ask him was what on earth possessed him to eat dead bodies. But I thought it more prudent to see what advice he could offer about my walk and how it might compare to that of the other holy men I’d encountered.

‘I am on a journey. I am walking the Himalayas and have reached the halfway point. Do you have any advice?’

He looked at me down his flat, stubby nose and scowled. He reached out and touched my forehead.

‘Do you have a brother?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘How many?’

‘Just one.’

The Aghori shook his chubby head.

‘I think you have three. I can tell by the lines on your forehead.’

‘No I’m pretty sure it’s just one.’

‘Is he dead?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, taken aback.

The monk looked confused and shook his head again.

I looked at Binod. ‘Ask him why he said that.’ But Binod just lowered his eyes.

‘You will complete your journey. You are strong-willed. But first you will face something terrible.’

‘What is it?’

The monk said no more. He seemed to be uncomfortable and shuffled, and then looked at his watch.

‘It’s late,’ said Binod. ‘I don’t like this place. Can we go?’

I had so many questions and felt suddenly very uneasy, but thought it best to placate Binod. It was indeed getting late and I knew that with the night would come the rumble of thunder and the threat of rain.