Shivaratri, or Mahashivaratri, festival has been celebrated. I wrote an entry on my visit to the Pashupatinath Temple, the most important of all Lord Shiva temples, earlier. But to talk about Shivaratri without mentioning the sages (Sadhus or Babas) will be unjustifiable to all those charismatic Sadhus, who are considered main attractions of the festival at the temple.
The post displays a photo of a naked sage which may be offensive to some.
Sadhus, who come all the way from India (and some from Nepal), are famous for two things: the first – they bring with them marijuana which they distribute as Prasad or blessings (some ask for offerings in cash some don’t) and second, they are charismatic with the faces covered with ashes or other colors – some of them who are called Nagababa remain naked and displays various tricks showing the strength of their loins; some other simply tells the fortunes and more just enjoy marijuana, offerings and live quietly.
This Nagababa, as the photohjournalist Bikash Karki told me was from Janakpur, a city in Nepal. Bikash had asked me frequently how these Nagababas travel from one place to another. He got the answer with this one: “they travel wearing cloths”. Bikash told me then how can they called themselves ‘Naked Sage’. Off course, I had no answers.
For the photo, this Sadhu rolled his penis on a stick and asked his colleague to stand on the stick and he held the weight of a man on his loin. Such tricks are not rare among those Nagababas.
I liked this photo for one thing: the royal like posture of the Baba. The baba looked calm and enjoying, his posture somehow similar to ‘relaxed lords’ as we see on television serials. And does anybody notice the hand behind. His assistant is covering him with an umbrella making him even more ‘important’.
The baba actually took a little time with mirrors for putting colors on his face and went into the posture only after confirming he looked alright. Lord Shiva according to our religious texts lives in similar fashion – ashes all over the body, tiger hide to cover his loin, trishul as weapon on his hand and marijuana his favorite. These babas actually consider themselves the true followers of one the three top Lords who is considered the ‘destroyer’ – the other two being the ‘creator’ and the ‘mentor’.
This lemon baba performed a difficult act: pierced his tongue with a trihsul, the weapon of Lord Shiva. And notice how the lemons in a string are hanging. He probably believed there is no pain as such in worship of Lords.
Sadhus live a wild life, they consider they have overcome emotional feelings – grief / happiness / jealousy and all, including the urge for sex. They devote their lives to the worship of Lord Shiva and they are proud of that.
At Pashupatinath, each Shivaratri brings hundreds of different kinds of such Sadhus and not all of them are true devotees. Some of them try to deceive people for money – like the one who called me towards him so he would tell my fortune, but I gently declined, and he was not happy with me.
