The Week India - July 29, 2018

JULY 29, 2018 • THE WEEK 61

Gajender

Sharma was

the priest at

Samode, a small

village near

Jaipur, who used

to be a Jockey

underwear

salesman for 15

years.

But Sharma was not the only enterprising
man I met during my travels across the coun-
try. In fact, India, I found, was teeming with
oddballs—an ex-weightlifter from Jaipur who
becomes a guide during the tourist season
and an “expert in stone evaluation” during the
off -season; a monk in Dharamshala, Himachal
Pradesh, who wanted to know whether people
from Kerala communicated in Sanskrit; a man
in Hampi, Karnataka, who ran away and be-
came a sadhu because his mother wanted him
to marry her brother’s daughter and father, his
sister’s; a waiter-cum-healer-cum-bartender in
Varkala, Kerala, who asked me whether I was
feeling angry because I ordered a “screw the
driver”.

PHOTOS: SALIL BERA

GARB OF TRADITION

A few Rajasthani women

in front of Jal Mahal in

Jaipur