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Kheerganga. Parvati Valley. May. 1968.

Lukas is walking barefoot across the steep meadow, away from the log cabin. The first bright spring morning makes the short grass shine. It gleams in his rock crystal prayer beads. Babaji is sitting at a distance, cross-legged and erect on a smooth, flat rock that the sun has dried of night dew. Around him, he has laid out to dry: two dark khaki, woollen shawls and three, white cotton loincloths. He washed them in the holy spring, Kheerganga. When Lukas comes closer, he can see that the sadhu is polishing the copper snake bracelet with ruby eyes. His two strings of gnarly wooden beads are stretched out, dark and damp, on top of the shawls. The air is filled with the scent of wet wool and wood.

This is everything the sadhu owns.

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