The Morning Walk, the Godman, and the Unspoken Fear

Morning walks are curious little theatres of human behaviour.  People rarely arrive there with just walking shoes and fitness goals. They bring along anxieties, loyalties, ideologies, unfinished arguments, and occasionally, carefully disguised agendas.

A friend known to me for nearly three decades occasionally joins me on these walks. Over the last week, he had also been accompanied by a young relative visiting from a neighbouring metro city.

I knew the youngster only loosely, mainly as someone deeply attached to my friend and fond of spending time with him whenever he was in Bangalore.

My friend, on the other hand, was passionately inclined toward photography, cartooning, and caricature, the kind of man who found more joy under trees than under ceilings. Naturally, his mornings were usually spent around lakes and parks, forever chasing birds, butterflies, squirrels, and anything else that paused long enough for a photograph.

He is one of those fiercely committed photography enthusiasts who can abandon an entire conversation because a bird somewhere has cleared its throat. Which is why that particular morning felt unusual from the beginning.

Even after I warned him that I wouldn’t stop every few minutes while he chased chirps with his camera, he calmly said he would simply walk along with me. That alone should probably have alerted me that something larger than photography was unfolding.

As we walked, he began speaking glowingly about a relative, a gifted mimicry artist who could imitate almost anyone within moments. 

Interesting. Completely random. Mildly entertaining.

And then, almost seamlessly, the conversation drifted toward a well-known Godman.

That transition was smooth enough to make me suspect it had been rehearsed.

My friend started describing how a small item sold by the organisation had reportedly fetched ten lakhs. He spoke of massive land holdings owned by the institution. The youngster casually added that such land was perhaps necessary to accommodate the growing number of followers.

I deliberately stayed silent.

Silence, however, can sometimes irritate people more than disagreement.

Finally, my friend asked why I had not commented at all.

Not wanting to sound harsh, I replied that while I generally did not trust anyone,  especially a Godman whose beard was longer than mine,  I also had no desire to interfere with anyone else’s beliefs.

The youngster, himself bearded, instantly laughed and said he would ensure his beard always remained shorter than mine so that he could retain my trust.

That one line dissolved the tension beautifully.

But my friend persisted.

He then began categorising the followers of the Godman into three types:

a) those driven by blind faith,

b) those affluent enough to spend lakhs on memorabilia, and 

c) youngsters full of “energy” who were willing to serve and propagate the movement.

Since neither the youngster nor I seemed eager to participate in the classification exercise, my friend added, with the satisfaction of a man revealing a crucial plot twist, that the youngster belonged to the “energy” category.

By now, the youngster seemed to sense that the morning had quietly turned into something more than a walk.

Quite suddenly, he announced that perhaps they should leave for breakfast because he was feeling tired.

Whether it was genuine exhaustion or tactical retreat remains one of the unresolved mysteries of that morning. Personally, I lean toward the latter.

Ironically, the man who had arrived primarily for photography now seemed to have rediscovered his briefly abandoned enthusiasm for it and suggested “just one more round” around the lake for a few clicks, perhaps unwilling to let his trip to the lake end without accomplishing either the photography or the attempted discussion involving the two of us.

I then offered the youngster an escape route of sorts. Since he was tired, I suggested we return to our usual bench area beneath the trees where we could simply sit and chat.

He agreed, though with the visible hesitation of someone uncertain which among the two older men beside him posed the greater threat for the morning.

Once seated, I felt compelled to restore some balance to the situation.

I told him that while I held strong personal opinions on self-styled spiritual figures, I also believed deeply that faith was an intensely personal matter. I had my own forums to express my views and saw no virtue in trying to convert someone away from what they believed in, just as nobody could convert me toward it.

I further added that the moment two people begin trying to forcibly alter each other’s convictions, the original objective of the conversation is lost. What follows is not understanding, but justification. Each person retreats deeper into defending their own position.

That thought seemed to strike a genuine chord with him.

To explain why I had arrived at such a position, I narrated a deeply personal example from my own family.

A cousin of mine, slightly older than me, had become deeply spiritual during his third year at IIT Madras. Despite every attempt by the family, including what many would consider a successful professional life in the United States, he eventually returned to India decades ago and has since spent much of his life moving within an Ashram around the Godman he followed.

And suddenly, the entire morning became clear to me.

The conversation had never really been about philosophy, faith, or even Godmen.

It was about fear.

The quiet fear families experience when they sense someone they love slowly drifting toward a world they themselves do not understand and cannot control.

My friend, beneath all the casual storytelling and classifications, was perhaps not debating spirituality at all. He was simply worried that they might lose the youngster one day, not physically, but emotionally and existentially, to the orbit of a Godman.

Stories, not instructions. Experiences, not advice—medical or otherwise. Data, only what the internet quietly gathers anyway. Proceed with equal parts curiosity and common sense.