A flowing yellow
robe half hid their ash-smeared limbs. A tall Sannyasi--the most
ascetic of sects--his lean yellow-robed form supported by a long staff
at the end of which swung a yellow bag, strode solemnly along with eyes
fixed on a book, the Bhagavad Gita, muttering, "Aum, to the light of
earth, the divine light that illumines our souls. Aum!"
To Barlow it was like a grotesque pantomime with no directing head.
Nautch girls tripped along laughing and chatting, bracelets jingling,
and tiny bells at their ankles tinkling musically. It depressed him;
it was such a terrible juxtaposition of frivolity and the gloomed
shadow of idol worship that lay just the bridge's span of the sullen
Narbudda: the gloomy, broken scraps of the long since deserted forts
that cut with jagged lines the moonlit sky; and beyond them again the
many temples with their scowling Brahmin priests, and the shrine
wherein the god of destruction, Omkar, sat athirst for sacrifice. He
shivered as though the white mist that veiled the river crept into his
marrow.
The Gulab seemed at home amongst these gathered ones.
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