Bareilly and Ganesh Baba

Very, very early on my second morning in India, Roxanne and I met our French friends Martine and Christian at the train station in New Delhi, a miracle in itself. A five hour train ride took us to Bareilly, where the guru we four share, Ganesh Baba, is buried. In India, if you are expected not to have another life, you are buried sitting up and a small building is erected around you. It's called a samadhi, in reference to the advanced state of consciousness in which you died.

Ganesh Baba's samadhi is at the akhara, monastery, of one of the sects to which he belonged. We found his samadhi rather neglected and forlorn and his picture ruined.



Ganesh Baba was not hanging around there as far as I could tell.

But I did have an experience "seeing" Baba.

Much later in our journey, we were in Rishikesh waiting for the lighting of the lamps that takes place on the riverside every sunset. Roxanne was at a stall buying CDs and I was taking pictures. I noticed a particularly dapper Indian gentleman at the top of the street and pointed him out to Roxanne. "There's a proper Victorian Indian gentleman," I said. "Doesn't he remind you of Baba?" but she was in the midst of negotiating the price and just glanced at the man, whose back was turned at that moment.

I walked off to get a better shot of the sunset, where I discovered that my camera's batteries needed changing. Fortunately I had another set with me so I popped them in. When I turned to face the sunset again I was most surprised to see the Indian gentleman right next to me, not more than a foot or two from my face. He smiled broadly and his eyes twinkled before he hurried away. He looked EXACTLY like Ganesh Baba.