Chillum with the babas

Almost went to konark, went to Siva temple for festival instead...lokarnoth temple I think for spelling....and that was just utterly insane...winding through bikes and stalls, auto and pedal rickshaws, cows and dogs, an occasional cat and the whole thing always managing to find another notch on the dial...turned up to eleven? Buy two of them and here's a turbo charger.....two temples down the road the have a supercharger...you can barely hear the horn behind you as you are scythed down and trodden on by the devoted herds;-)

I'd forgotten about these things, the utter heartbreak as you see the beggars asking alms; the deformities, the helplessness... the knowledge that you, as an individual, are unable to make anything but the slightest difference and that to few of them. It's a bit of a head fugh...and yet they still have their gods, thy can justify this within the bounds of a belief system. I don't know...I struggle, again, to comprehend why we as humanity finds this level of poverty and struggle an acceptable cost...

But....on the way back from the madness of the temp.e and its markets I passed by the jaggernath temple to be hailed by these babas, waving their chillum in my direction. "Hey baba, boom!" I wandered over, as you do and sat down awhile, with a couple of policeman standing laughing at the scene..(puri is a holy city of Shiva, bhang is legal here, can be bought from the government shop, am sure that, beach and temples brought the hippy trail this way)...whilst a group of Europeans looked on in disapproval....to the amusement of the babas....

Its not that unusual I think there were a couple of mad sadhus who, kind of, vaguely seemed to I've just outside gorkana who would wave their chillum at you as you passed with shouts of boom...a few odd hours were spent with them...but that was a long time ago...

Later it was a most interesting walk home....

And I thought in the anachronistic spirit of the afternoon I'd try the photo through the llmo function on his tablet and this is how it came out. Very apt:-)

Now to hope that escapes the censors...