I went with the Sadhu round the temple to his lodging – in through a low door, round some stone pillars, past a sleeping man and wife, a row of sleeping women, into a dimly lit room with lockers, rug on the stone floor and two old men sleeping. The sadhu opened a cupboard. There was old cloth, half a picture, a coconut shell bowl, an open paper bag of ganja – black and dry. He threw the things onto the rug, and offered me a plate of cereals to eat. I took only a tiny bit, to be polite. He picked up a small chillum, rolled up some ganja into a black ball, stuffed the chillum, and stretched a dirty rag across its base. We sat on his mat, facing each other cross-legged, and smoked. The smoke was very hot.

Normally, you couldn’t talk to him because he seemed to be deliberately unintelligible. I had thought he did this because he simply used travellers like myself to earn money getting them ganja and doing little errands, and behaved as they might expect him to behave. I had also suspected that his mind was somewhat jumbled, maybe because he had used western drugs. But now we were stoned together, we didn’t talk. I saw in front of me an intelligent man with intelligent eyes. We seemed to be on his territory now. His clear still eyes made me feel that it was I who had the jumbled mind. I had been charging about, mind skating over things, thinking “this is this”, “this is that”, without actually looking. Then, when stoned, I saw the dark room with its sleepers literally. I saw the temple and procession not as things of mystery and atmosphere, but literally as things just happening.

I thought it would be good to walk back to the temple procession, but we were joined by someone introducing himself as a friend of M--. He took out his chillum, and filled it with the sadhu’s ganja. He had perfect hair: combed, parted, carefully modelled greasy curls. He held his chillum with a lot of style, blowing out thick smoke. The sadhu muttered ”Saab, John saab. Good John saab.” I said “No ‘saab’! John – just John!”.’ But the sadhu said “Good John saab”. The stranger shook my hand and left.

We walked back. The images were coming into the temple, now off their wheels carried by men with spindly legs, very much into doing their thing. The light was bright and the music very loud, bouncing off the temple walls and floor. It was difficult to keep the images upright. The men seemed to bend under the strain, exaggerating the drama, each one shouted instructions. I felt I was missing the atmosphere because I was stoned. It could have no symbolic or emotional significance to me. That made me sad. I could see, understand, even record, the place but I could not taste it. I walked away through the crowd towards the hotel.

Next morning I was at the station to leave for Madras. The sadhu was there to say goodbye, maybe – impossible to tell with him. On the platform he asked me to take his photograph. I tried to explain that I didn’t have any film, but could not get him to understand, so I pretended to photograph him. He struck up dramatic pose after dramatic pose, egged on by the passengers. I was desperate not to have had a film – these were the best photographs I have ever not taken. I boarded the train, wondering if he had expected me to give him some money for the photographs. I was not going to give him any because I had not taken any. I felt very mean, I’m sure he thought I was, but he had done quite well out of me. He looked a comical pathetic figure standing on the platform as the train pulled out. I had never been able to communicate with him. That was another interesting conversation I never had.

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