'FILLING' AA JAAYEGI! with Aloo Baba

Few kilometers away from Pushkar, on a random road, resides Aloo Baba. The sadhu who eats only aloos and nothing else…he came highly recommended by our hotel manager Narendra Singh, who in his style said “sir ek baar Aloo Baba ko dekh ke aao…filling aa jaayegi”…I tried correcting him once…but then Narendra continued selling many other spots around Pushkar that have a lot of ‘fillings’. So I decided to shut up.

Anyways…after gazing at bored camels and hungry horses for more than 2 days Aloo Baba sounded tempting. So without thinking much, we hired a scooter (that won't pick up pace) and a motorcycle (that won't ride straight), and the four of us went ahead to meet to our god man.

Riding in the middle of Aravalis, half eaten by stone companies and half spared for later, we reached a white regular looking temple that had a strange and big Aloo Baba graffiti on top!...and I thought…oh god it’s a set up!...aloo baba is a gimmick to keep bored tourists interested in pushkar…he will be another fraud, who is doing this for money and not for finding the greater truth and shit like that…I feel like kicking narendra’s ‘fillings’...in fact i’m gonna… before my cynical thoughts could get any more violent, Richa interrupted with a shriek… “oh Aaloo baba!”…I looked at what she was looking at and found a frail, not-so-old man with long hair staring back at us.

He looked a little shocked. Obviously who wouldn't after hearing his name in such a shriek voice….but still “aao aao” he said welcomingly. He opened the gates and walked back inside the temple complex. Within seconds he laid out a mat for us to sit on and asked us to go in the kitchen and prepare tea if we felt like “apna hi kitchen hain…chai peene ka man hain toh bana lo”.

‘Kitchen!’ this word means a lot to Shivali, my wife, she just loves 'the kitchen', in whatever travels we have done so far, she has been in almost every kitchen that would not throw her out…it wouldn't matter if it is a hotel or a restaurant or a camp or a homestay and now a-feather-in-her-cap!...a temple too!....so straight she went into the kitchen to make tea…

But what happened after the tea came…was a wonderful experience that I cannot write about…because we just smoked {not marijuana (but you can if you carry it along)} and sipped and spoke with Aloo Baba, and so would you when you go….cause he is a chiller and in Narendar's words 'filling aa jaayegi'. 

Jai ho Aloo Baba!

The main entrance to the temple

Aloo Baba - Mr. Sweet love himself

Nowhere else would you see Kaali like this in a temple

This is the actual Hanuman mandir where devotees pray and do pooja

Richa & Shivali making the 'tea' that started it all

Rajat 'filling' it with Aloo Baba

Richa & Shivali 'filling' it on the top of the temple