The Baba Downstairs

The Life Story of a

Misfit Indian Saint

The Baba Downstairs
The Life Story
of a Misfit Indian Saint

Shortly after Vikram moved in downstairs and started telling me his life story, he told me the rule by which he lived his life:

“Live such that no one can make an adjective stick to you. Accept no one’s label. Confuse them. Act one way one moment, and another way the next. Make them wonder. Make them guess. Is he a good man or a bad? Could he really be a saint? Or is he a rogue? What is he? Is he a mystic, or is he just a fool?”

From my side, I felt as if I’d entered a scene I’d sometimes imagined as an opening for an as-yet unwritten piece of fiction...