Faith and tobacco, perfectly blended

Till the other day, the smoking saint who had lost a leg in an accident was a permanent nudist fixture near the Nampally railway station. Muttering to himself and mostly silent, the bearded man of uncertain age who lived on Charminar cigarettes and tea soon acquired a halo. People called him Nampally Baba.

Cigarettes apart, he has a peculiar way of blessing the devout — with a slap across the face. This divine physical rebuff, however, wasn’t enough to keep him undisturbed in his natural wayside habitat. An enterprising motor mechanic finally managed to shift the reluctant baba to his house.

Since then, the house in Gowlipura has been renovated around an air-cooled smoking shrine. The baba reclines on his snake-shaped bed and sits up every now and then for a puff. Nothing much has changed for him except that his beard is being regularly trimmed and his nails have been given a shiny red polish. But the world around him is changing.

The trickle of devotees is growing in number and snob value. A High Court judge turns up with his wife. An engineer comes offering a pack of State Express cigarettes and goes into an intense trance. There are rumours of politicians making private visits. With polls in the air the visits are likely to get more frequent and less private.

As is customary with living godpersons, the baba is projected most secularly. There is a Hindu devotee sitting at his feet and writing the name of Allah repeatedly into a notebook.

Such spiritual property rights are unlikely to go uncontested. Already, a group that describes itself as the original devotees, is out to free the smoking saint from the motor mechanic’s hospitality. They allege that no less than Rs 45 lakh has been collected in this ascetic’s name. They want a proper ashram for the baba with free access to all. Meanwhile, one more spiritual freelancer is getting institutionalised.