JULY 29, 2018 • THE WEEK 67Ramaswamy
baba came to
Hampi from
Koppal in
Karnataka 50
years ago and
says he enjoys
being the last
baba of Hampi.BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRAabout him gave him an ethereal air. He had a sal-
low face and bloodshot eyes, the wind tunneling
through his wispy beard.
“Th ere were more than 15 wandering babas
like me in Hampi, but they’ve all left or died. I
don’t miss them because I enjoy being the only
one,” he said with bewildering honesty. He said
that ever since Hampi became a heritage site,
it has lost its character. Earlier, many foreigners
used to settle here. Now, hardly any of them are
left. One could come here and do anything. Now
there is a watchman standing near every monu-
ment. “Th e ruins,” he said, “are getting ruined.”
It was the kind of existential mumbo-jumbo that
probably made him a good swami.
He came to Hampi from Koppal in Karnataka
50 years ago and lives on one meal a day that a
nearby family supplies. His guru taught him the
few mantras he knows while he worked for him
fetching water from the river six to seven times
a day and doing other odd jobs. Th ere are only
his rolled-up bedding and a few knick-knacks
next to him. “You come with nothing, you go
with nothing, so why hoard? And anyway....”
His intended soliloquy peters out mid-way,
probably an eff ect of the alcohol. He used to
smoke ganja but now restricts himself to drink-
ing, he says.
Now it is probably only the hippies who
smoke up to get the unvarnished feel of Hampi.
If you want the stoner experience without
getting stoned, go up to the sunset point at the
Hemakuta hill and stay there until dusk starts
to seep into the sky. I had never seen anything
like it—ruins of shrines and rock-cut lingas
half-drowned in shadows; swarming yellow
butterfl ies lending everything the gossamer feel
of a dream; sugarcane fi elds in the far horizon
irrigated by the Tungabhadra river; stone horses
cantering out of temple walls and 14th century
nymphs stilled in dance poses. And then it start-
ed raining, and my reveries grew wet.