Crazy Baba

Serious travelers tell you that the most memorable moments, good or bad, are the unscripted ones.

With international travel off the radar, I am sometimes nostalgic about travel from earlier, less complicated times.

Desperately wanting to pee, a holy man on a hill, an explosive stomach - these are just a few memories from Nepal, December 1988.

But it all started with a broken axle ..

A broken axle

We’d completed an 8-day trek in the Annapurna range and were driving to the embarkation point for a 3-day rafting experience on the Trisuli River. That was when I noticed a large wheel, complete with tire and axle, hurtle past my window.

An axle on the tour bus had snapped in two on a curve on the steep mountain road.

The wheel bounced then rolled towards the edge of the road where it paused dramatically, waited for applause, then collapsed.

Nobody cheered the tire’s performance, but more importantly nobody was injured.

A prolonged discussion followed amongst the driver, the guide and a growing crowd of locals who came to stare and offer advice. A decision was eventually made that the snapped axle was not (unsurprisingly) fixable. Our group of about a dozen hikers was told to walk a few kilometers and find some lunch in the nearby village.

Dal

So, there we were, standing just inside the doorway of a dark cramped restaurant, staring at a board with at least 30 different dals on it.

I picked one randomly. It came quickly and was delicious, the best dal I have ever eaten – still.

The need to pee

Soon after, we piled into the back of a large open truck which just happened to be passing by. The driver had been paid handsomely for taking the stranded tourists on the next leg of the journey and cheerfully helped us all in. The next four hours were a blur of bouncing, engine noise and wind through the hair in the milky weak sunlight.

The unplanned parts of a package trip are often the highlights, especially in the retelling. But it takes some skill to recognize this while the events are actually unfolding.

A fellow passenger called John tried unsuccessfully to pee into his own water bottle when the driver refused to stop for toilet breaks. I still recall the unfolding agony on his contorted face as he initially tried to just ‘hold on’, then the worsening pain as he tried unsuccessfully to discreetly pee into his water bottle while sitting next to me. The situation was resolved when the bus finally did stop and John sprinted down a nearby lane, yipping like an extra in an American Western.

It was a relief to finally get out of the back of the truck, wave the driver goodbye and settle on the sandy edge of the river for the evening. The tents arrived eventually and were quickly erected. We talked and relaxed in the tranquil setting, complete with gentle bird noises and the other sounds on the impending night.

A guru on a hill

Towards midday of our second day of rafting, in a similar peaceful setting downstream, the guide looked at the group quizzically before deciding.

‘Would you like to meet Crazy Baba?’ he politely asked.

We had no idea what he was meant.

Apparently, there was a spiritual guru living just up the top of a nearby hill. He was somewhat of a legend in Nepal. His own particular brand of protest when the government disappointed him with its policies was to remove body parts - for instance, a part of his finger - to get the action he strongly believed was necessary.

Or so we were told.

‘He is very old and has been doing this for a long time’, the guide warned, eyes bulging dramatically. ‘So, if we arrange for you to meet him, you must be polite, as he now has many body parts missing’.

The group was both enthusiastic and skeptical to meet such a person, so the guide disappeared up the hill to see if he could arrange something.

In hindsight, perhaps this was a regular thing. Money possibly changed hands. Why else would this man, nicknamed Crazy Baba for reasons I was curious to see, possibly want to meet western tourists?

The guide returned soon after, and cheerfully told us all was arranged.

‘Come!’ he gestured dramatically, and we fell into a rough queue as we made our way up a dusty hill nearby.

I stopped in disbelief.

It was a classic ‘guru on a hill’ scene that I’d seen in so many of those illustrated story books that we used to read as children.

The top of the hill was a small flat area, maybe 8 meters by 8 meters. It was swept grey dirt, perfectly clean and compacted like iron. In the middle was a small pagoda, which in turn provided shade for an ancient dark man who sat near naked and cross legged on a rug in the center.

This was Crazy Baba. Another man wearing crisp white cotton clothing stood stock still off to one side.

Crazy Baba was unbelievably small and looked ancient. His skin was brown parchment, and he wore thick Gandhi style glasses. Various parts of his body were, indeed, missing. Quite a few fingers and toes were gone, and parts of other digits were stumps. One arm was gone below the elbow, I’m sure.

He radiated spirituality. He was positively beatific.

In one hand he held onto the biggest joint I’d ever seen. It was like a baseball bat. Smoke curled lazily up from it. Every now and then as he perused us, he took a healthy long suck of it. No hurrying, no rushing. He held it, then sighed with undisguised pleasure as he released the smoke.

There may have been a scent of incense in the air as well – it was hard to tell, such was the heady aroma of marijuana.

Finally, it was my turn to be introduced. I shook his stumpy hand – he had just the one - while he gazed deeply into my soul.

I briefly felt that I was in the presence of a great man, but maybe I’d just inhaled too deeply.

Then it was back down the hill and to the temporary campground.

As I write this 33 years later, I feel like I’ve both imagined and exaggerated the meeting.

Out of curiosity, I ‘google’ him.

I find several references to this now deceased holy man. According to these sources, he was the Aghori Baba, better known as Crazy Baba. The aghori group is described as ‘ascetic Shaiva sadhus’. Amongst other things, he cut off an arm after being instructed to in a dream. An Ashram commemorates him at that spot today.

He merits just a couple of lines in these sources, but I feel a little bubble of pleasure at that brief, sensory meeting all those years ago. He was, after all, a real person.

There is no mention in these sources of marijuana.

My explosive stomach

We returned to our rafting after meeting the holy man and went to Chitwan.

My main memory of Chitwan National Park is illness. I still can’t be sure whether it was food poisoning from the buffalo steak or whether I accidentally imbibed some bad water. Regardless, the onset was dramatic. I had a headache like a band was being tightened around my skull and wished I could die as nausea followed.

Ultimately, both ends were firing at once, spattering all parts of the bathroom like a Pro Hart carpet painting*.

This was embarrassing in shared accommodation.

Back to reality

The events of just a few days in December 1988 survive in my memories, at least. Like a recurring theme in Wordsworth's poetry, no doubt they are more enjoyable in the recollection than they were in reality.

It is too early for me to seriously contemplate international travel again. I’d prefer to wait until the pandemic settles before embracing the ‘new normal’ and booking an adventure somewhere (well, anywhere, really).

But I am anticipating that one day I will start looking forward again rather than looking backwards.

*Australian artist (mainly famous for 'carpet painting' TV advertisements which looked like ‘both ends’ had fired at once)