I used to complain that I had no shoes until….

The other night at a restaurant I got rather peeved at a local boy who simply would not staring at me. Staring is big in India as any tourist will attest, and it’s something that takes some time to get used to or at least immune to.

Anyway this night I was in no mood to be stared at while I ate my meal so I left my seat and went to a dark corner to eat while Om Baba sat at the fire with his friends and The Starer. On the way home I started moaning about how tired I get of being staared at all the time and then stopped.

Om Baba had polio as a child, back in the not so distant days when children in India were not immunized against it.As an adult Om Baba lives his life on his hands. That is to say that he walks on his hands with his legs folded and tucked in front of him.

The first time I saw Om Baba was years ago when I lived in the temple with my Guru ji in the wilds of Omkareshwar. I was walking from the market down a very steep flight of stairs and through the crowd came this man hurtling sideways down the stairs so fast that a woman screamed at the sight of him. I felt a moment of wonder that someone could even do that and then a moment of pity for him.  I didn’t know him then and it was years later and in another town that we met through friends.

The fact that his legs don’t work does not hold Om Baba back from life experiences. I have seen him climb mountain passes to get to a party and away again when the police raided it, ride horseback and ride pillion on a motorbike from the mountains to the desert. In between times he stitches and collects Baba Bags to sell in his shops in Manali and Pushkar. He is independent without being fierce about it and humble in ways that make us forget that his legs don’t work.

Om Baba has a theory on life that goes something like this. That the world is only part of Gods Creation and when God created the world he had in mind a kind of huge disco ball. The ball mirrors all the differences that we see and which we think makes us separate from each other. But inside the disco ball is the whole human spectrum of life everything else besides, and we are all at a big festival. The festival of life.

The only thing we have to do is enjoy the festival and realize that in some way we are all on show and if you think nobody is watching you, then you are wrong, Because God is always watching.