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that beneath the matted beard and dreadlocks, he wasn’t Indian at all, but a Westerner.
    ‘You’re not Indian?’ I said, still panting.
    He walked behind me to examine my back, which was dripping with the sticky condensed milk ice cream known as kulfi . I felt like killing someone.
    ‘I’m an Aussie,’ he said. ‘Or I was once. Wow, they really covered you. Did you lose anything?’
    I shook my head. Kulfi was in my hair, running down my back and all over the back of my trousers, but I seemed to have all my possessions. I hoped there were no swarms of bees around, or I might be diving into the sangam somewhat sooner than expected.
    ‘I’m sorry you’ve experienced that kind of behaviour here,’ he said. ‘Pilgrims make rich pickings, I guess. Anyway, I’m Ram. Why don’t you come to the Juna Akhara camp with me and clean yourself off. It’s not far.’
    I thanked him and we walked, side by side, through the maze of tents. Despite the annoyance of what had happened, I realised that this might actually be a stroke of good luck. The Juna Akhara are amongst the most feared and respected of the sadhus . Also known as the Naga Babas , the warrior ascetics, they subject themselves to more austerities (with many of them forgoing clothes entirely) than any other of the dasnami , the ten Saivite sects (the oldest of the sects of Hinduism, whose followers revere Shiva as the Divine Being). Perhaps meeting Ram might be a means of introduction.
    As we walked he told me about himself. He was indeed Australian but had been a sadhu for some ten years. He came from a middle-class background; his parents owned a garden centre. On a trip to India in his mid-twenties, he had met some sadhus and had a profound spiritual experience. It changed his life for ever.
    ‘I liked the way they lived,’ said Ram, whose accent was now a strange mixture of Strine and Hindi, ‘and how peaceful they seemed. But it was really when I met this one baba that the most shattering realisation came. He seemed like an incarnation of God to me. I was this typical Westerner with all these deep questions that I wanted to ask him but when I stood in front of him they disappeared. There were no questions left. He was simply a living manifestation of the divine. So I went home and got my affairs in order, and told my parents I was moving here. I never gave it a second thought.’
    I found his tale extraordinary. To see him now, with his long dishevelled hair, sun-dark face and only a small pouch of possessions, was to see a fakir from story books, albeit one born in a suburb of Cairns. I envied him the certainty with which he’d left the past behind. Now he wore a long string of mala beads, and his possessions were only his clothes, a begging bowl and a small chillum pipe. I wondered how many Westerners like him had chosen such an unlikely path for themselves. Perhaps, had things gone differently, Ram might be sitting in an Australian boardroom, even now, brokering some million-dollar deal.
    ‘I appreciate your finding a valid path to God,’ I said, ‘but why such a difficult one, with so many hardships and austerities?’
    ‘How much of the stuff you own do you actually need anyway?’ said Ram lightly. ‘Besides, I really felt so disgusted with the world I came from. I wanted no more to do with it.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Almost every way.’ Ram stopped walking suddenly, his bony face lit up by an almost messianic fervour. ‘The West has become obsessed with trying to seek fulfilment through the external world. We think if we get that car, that house, that stupid electronic gadget then we’ll be happy. But each time the bar raises. Even with ten houses we’re still not happy. And yet we don’t come to our senses. We idolise those people most in our culture who are the most deluded.’ He grinned. ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’
    I nodded. I understood well enough, but nevertheless I was a