Close Encounters with the Sadhu Kind: Part I
Or: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance in India’s Holiest City
Archie hides his eyes in shock, squirming like a slug doused in salt. I wince as if I’m undergoing surgery without anesthetic, a painful shudder convulsing through my body.
In front of us, an old, naked Indian man is twisting his penis around a stick, contorting his reproductive organ like a magician ties a balloon animal at a children’s birthday party. His gaze drills into ours, pneumatic and severe. The horror. The horror.
Truthfully, absolutely everything in Varanasi has been jarring and intense so far. But this. This takes the biscuit. Forgive my ignorance, but bizarre, graphic and outwardly explicit experiences were not what I expected from India’s most holy city.
I was prepared for the endless parade of beeping motorcycles down cramped alleyways. I was prepared to see millions of pilgrims, given the once-in-a-lifetime Maha Kumbh Mela festival is taking place nearby. I was prepared to witness hordes of worshippers take their sacred Ganges dip from our sunrise boat ride. I was even prepared for a tour through the Manikarnika Ghat, the deeply spiritual cremation ground for Hindus. I wasn’t quite so prepared for the smell of sizzling flesh or the sight of a priest smashing the skulls of dead bodies to release their souls. But, that just comes with the territory.
However, I was not prepared for this…
Archie and I are wandering through Varanasi’s crowded streets. Our attempted visit to the famous Kashi Vishwanath Temple was quashed, the queue is 24 hours long and almost a million strong.
Instead, we stumble upon a sadhu.
Sadhus are Hinduism’s holy men. These cave-dwelling ascetics – sometimes dressed in orange, sometimes dreadlocked, sometimes naked and covered only in ash – have renounced the material world. Instead of pursuing sex and money like the rest of us mortals, they seek spiritual enlightenment and liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, otherwise known as moksha. Most worship Lord Shiva, the destroyer, a deity representing the transformative power of destruction and renewal. Varanasi is the place Shiva dropped the head he ripped from Brahma, the creator god, which makes the ancient city a stomping ground for his followers. As you’d expect, these destroyer-worshipping sadhus are interesting characters.
Draped in a loose-fitting orange robe he approaches us, eyes tarsier wide. “Hello,” he says. “Hello,” we respond.
His head is a bald brown mirror of Varanasi sky, tangled nests of hair sprout from his elephant ears, his teeth a broken glockenspiel. This sadhu seems kind-hearted and lacks the unpredictable edge of many others roaming around the Ganges ghats, a motley crew of Hindu pirates.
This polite sadhu leads us through the streets, muttering various tidbits of holy advice, audible only through a barrage of phlegmy coughing fits. “Come to my temple,” he suggests.
We follow through the colourful crowds and crouch through the narrow arch to his orange temple residence. His fellow sadhus are lounging around as he splutters, inviting us over to sit by a small fire in the corner.
“We each have ten holes,” he coughs. “There are five elements,” he rasps. “We are all one,” he hacks. Archie and I, unaware of where this interaction is going but appreciative of the numerical nature of his narrative, politely nod along, glancing over at each other bemused, quietly devising when and how we can make a subtle exit.
After two minutes of what sounds like a particularly unpleasant pulmonary edema, he stands up.
“I must go and clean, I must go and clean,” he laments, scuttling away into the shadows. “Stay, stay here.”
For the next five minutes, we sit cross-legged and confused, awaiting his return. “I think it’s about time we get out of here,” says Archie. They will be the final words he speaks in this temple.
Eventually the old sadhu emerges, presumably now clean, his lungs empty of unwanted fluid. The orange robe is now only sloppily cloaked over his slender body. Again, he sits down slowly and he resumes his ramble.
“You see, I am known,” he says. “I have many followers on YouTube.” We feign excitement, nodding along but become quickly distracted. His clothing, once secure, is slowly parting. Every time he moves, his skeletal brown leg makes more of an appearance: a calf, a thigh, a groin. Eventually, his aged penis is wholly liberated from his modest orange gown, drooped generously for all present to see.
Suddenly, like a civet cat on methamphetamine, he jumps up. “Would you like to see something?” he queries, his eyes burrowing into our souls, a pair of round, determined weevils.
We’re left with little choice but to acquiesce, our English temperament unable to resist the well-meaning, if bizarre, invitation of a stranger.
“Yes, absolutely Sir, please do” I utter. Archie’s eyes burn a hole into the side of my head, fiery with contempt at my curiosity.
Lights, camera, action. The old sadhu sheds his orange robe, waving it away with his twiggy arms like a Spanish matador. He pirouettes and grabs a nearby stick, the prop for his infamous magic trick, eyes locked deeply into ours.
He pauses, splutters, then lifts the stick next to his now-entirely exposed phallus. With his empty hand he grabs the end of his shaft, stretches it down as far as he can, then bends it over and around the horizontal stick like a fleshy elastic band. He slowly rolls the stick upwards, once, twice, three times, his tortured member now coiled like a snake thrice around the unfortunate piece of wood.
Archie gasps. I flinch, but can’t rip my eyes away from this unfortunate spectacle, his bulging eyes still locked with mine. But the old sadhu, somehow, is not yet satisfied with his depraved exhibition. Were our aghast expressions not enough?
He grabs both ends of the flesh-coiled stick and gradually turns it leftwards like a captain at the wheel of an old schooner. Once, twice, three times – surely this ship has altered course enough? Veins pop from his shining head, his pecker tied thrice vertically and thrice horizontally around the stick, his pupils glued to ours.
For thirty seconds, an eternity, he holds this excruciating pose, closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Then, finally, after an uncomfortable grimace briefly crosses his face, he lets the stick fall to the ground, his schlong snapping back into natural form like a tape measure recalled too quickly. In a final, unforgettable flourish, he lifts his arms above his head like a gymnast post-vault and bows, a sadhu Simone Biles.
Unsure whether to stand in ovation, run away or report this heinous act to the authorities, Archie and I can do nothing but sit. We gawk at this crazed man in front of us, paralysed in complete shock. Processing this abominable feat of penile flexibility will take a lifetime so, as you’d expect, for a few seconds silence sits stagnant and awkward, like a poorly timed fart at a funeral.
Thankfully, at least for us, the old sadhu’s next coughing onslaught breaks the emptiness before he continues his aimless lecture, as if nothing out of the ordinary ever took place. Archie and I look over at each other, gesturing our intention to escape from this wretched circus of cock contortion.
But the old Sadhu senses our desire to flee, splutters, looks deep into our souls and asks that fateful question again. “Would you like to see something?”
Archie looks at me, desperate. His expression pleads with me to say no, the signs of PTSD sewn across his face in a tragic tapestry.
The old sadhu, his eyes fastened into mine, his cough a casting spell, has seized control of my vocal chords. The words “yes, of course Sir, please,” erupt from my mouth, my lips unable to prevent them from bursting out.
The wily old sadhu is pleased. He clicks his fingers and beckons over a spindly junior sadhu, presumably the temple intern. Again, he grabs the nearby stick.
“Oh no,” sigh Archie’s eyes, hands approaching them in preparation for the next development.
As before, the sadhu grabs his shaft and stretches it over the horizontal stick, rolling his appendage over thrice. But this time, the show is different. He steps his left foot over the stick, then his right, and pulls the piece of wood far up his back, stretching his own piece of wood far up towards his anus.
Then, the old man rocks back and dances on the spot from side to side like a crazed, syphilitic jester, his eyes demented twin moons. “Look gentlemen, I have a vagina!” he shouts.
Archie and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but trauma has rendered our legs immobile, our mouths unmoveable. Once the brief jig is complete, we presume it’s over, but our attention quickly turns to the fate of the sadhu prodigy. The poor intern on the cusp of a terrible hazing ritual.
The old man clicks his fingers again and the junior sadhu circles behind his boss, as if this is all regular procedure. The sight of a septuagenarian close to stretched self penetration can’t be the best perk of the job. A ping pong table or free fruit would suffice.
The unfortunate fellow places his hands on his boss’ shoulders and jumps up so both feet are placed on the stick, all the weight of his body concentrated on the old sadhu’s balloon-tied wiener. We writhe, sheltering our eyes in desperation. He stares forward in frenzy, clearly pained for the first time, his nostrils flaring, his bloodshot eyes like those of a crying deer enroute to the abattoir.
For thirty seconds – the longest of my life – the young sadhu balances like a tightrope walker on the stick, eyes lifeless, expressing nothing but disappointment at his place in the world. The old man below him grunts his way through the agony, an aged mule carrying too much weight.
Finally, the apprentice sadhu removes himself from his unfortunate platform, and with shared relief, the old sadhu releases his disturbingly distorted dick from self-inflicted torment. He bows as if we’re Olympic judges. We applaud, confused, our lives forever altered by this sordid exhibition of penile depravity.
Now, it is time to escape from this circus. No more chances. We throw the old man a few rupees for the show then hastily make for the door. Crazed coughs and echoes of “would you like to see something?” follow us through the busy streets, and perhaps the rest of our days. We are convicts guilty of no crime but curiosity. Free, but not from the distressing sight permanently etched into memory.
“I’m permanently scarred,” sighs Archie, face weary with recognition that nothing will ever be the same. I simply shake my head, mouth open but no words emerge, unable to process the debauched display we have just subjected ourselves to. A show too intense and personal for Bangkok or Berlin.
“I’m not sure I ever need to interact with sadhus again,” I say later to Archie, my words finally freed by the nectar of the only beer-selling establishment in Varanasi. He nods, takes a large, therapeutic gulp and nods in agreement.
If only I was to keep my word…
Hahaha. Okay. Subscribed.
shouldn't have read this whilst eating my breakfast.