We find a lonely place -- Jogi part 2

The story of Kannipau is about deception and pollution. It is an explanation. Every time I try to learn the story, I become exasperated and confused. The names and details keep changing and for weeks I fool myself into thinking that they are important. I know so little about the Jogis, but more than almost anyone in Jaisalmer, they stay with me for weeks after I leave.

Everyone wants me to understand. Old men argue amongst themselves. Imam runs in circles trying to translate between Hindi, Marwari and English. Still there are words that only the Jogis understand. I ask questions in Hindi whenever possible even though these old men don’t catch it. We stumble through four versions, hours of tape and too many questions. The story resembles all of the important things I am told while travelling – I hardly understand the words, but the meaning is clear.

The story begins with a great teacher, a guru (Goraknath) and his two disciples (Jalandernath and Kannipau). One day while travelling, the guru sends out his two disciples into the desert to collect alms for his daily meal. Who will bring me flour for making the rotis? Who will bring me dhall and namak for the subzee? Jalandernath wanders for hours with his bowl, begging a handful of lentils here, a few chillies there. The desert is full of empty stomachs and clean thalis and he has a difficult time finding anything for Goraknath. He continues to walk all day.

Kannipau meets the same difficulty. After a few hours, he comes to the hut of a farmer, or maybe it’s a banjara camp, or the cart of some Raikas, or a destitute Bhill. The site of confrontation, the object of Kannipau’s indiscretion shifts with each telling of the story. But each time, Kannipau is offered a choice. He is asked to do a service in exchange for something he can bring back for his guru. He chooses pollution in secret under the guise of duty and charity. There is always the best of intentions and always some element of altruism and self-interest. Jaldernath is a non-character, only existing as a place maker for the obedient and unchallenged. His descendants become saddhus, wandering holy men. Kannipau is cursed to remain an outcast, a beggar and a wanderer without a teacher, shroud in ignorance and poverty. He failed a test he did not know he was taking and is sent out into the desert.

Imam Deen and I are sitting at the museum with a young Jogi talking through this story and his memories of growing up the only Jogi in his dang who could read and write, who could speak Hindi with confidence. He stayed as a boarder in various small town government schools while his family wandered, sending word of where they might meet up on weekends and festival times. He wants nothing more than to see all of the Jogis settled, to built a school where he can be a teacher. All his stories and explanations carry the aftertaste of this conviction.

We cannot live in the villages; no one will give us land. It is terrible to earn food from begging.
But Diwana provides a way for all people. We have learned to live even this difficult life.

Each family wanders alone, but knows the location of other families. They organize so that they cross paths only when desired, but never visit the same homes. Groups are constantly breaking up and meeting again in other locations, setting up camp together, where there is water, but walking towards different villages to beg.

In the older days, Jogis would travel with dogs, donkeys and hens. The few possessions a family had was piled on the donkey – some cookware, a quilt, maybe a charpi to load everything on. A lucky family had some chickens riding on top of the whole lot. Jogis are famous for breeding fierce fighting dogs. They hunt with the dogs and use them for protection against hostile villagers who might try to rob them or forcibly drive them away.

We find a lonely place.
There is no space for us in the villages. So, we remain hidden.

Families moved slowly and regularly -- always on foot. I am told that for years they were prohibited from riding in trains or busses. Food is whatever is given: some left over grain, old bread, a few wilted vegetables, some tea or milk, salt, chillies. They would return at night to shelters made from a few sticks, some branches, an old disintegrating sari. Some families might fashion some sort of dera, a shelter made from odds and ends, all sorts of plastic sheets, newspaper, shrubs, glass, sticks. During monsoon, they might make a more stable hut, a jhoperi or tsupera with mud and sticks and a plastic tarp if possible. But Jogis can build homes out of anything.

There is no one solution for surviving a life of constant motion. Different Jogis find different means of feeding themselves. Sometimes the men would enter towns and offer to play music or sing, to do some pujas or work with snakes. Some say that all the folk songs of Rajasthan came from these people. For a long time Jogis were barred from traditional wage labor and rarely received any monetary compensation for their skills and wisdom. I am told most Jogis lived on begging alone.

You find beggars in all of India. What differentiate the Jogis from the many other landless people in Rajasthan are this story and this practice of movement -- this way of moving over the land and finding resources in a barren landscape.