Nepal's Boy Yogi Mystery

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yellowing wood. He sits cross legged in the lotus pose, eyes shut as if in

meditation. Not a muscle moves. Standing 20 metres away, behind a wooden

barricade put up by villagers, it is difficult to tell if he is even breathing.

Sitting in the hollow of a peepal tree trunk in Nepal's Charkoshe Jhadi forest,

15-year-old Paldhan Dorji is being worshipped as the latest incarnation of Lord

Buddha. In the seven months that he has been here he has spawned a business

fuelled by a penchant for miracles. Hundreds of people daily turn off the

national highway at village Nigard in Bara district, drive about eight km into

the forest along a ribbon of a river and then walk two km of dirt track to see

him. They buy flowers and offerings sold at the numerous stalls that have

sprung up along the way. Tea and snacks help the weary along. There is brisk

sale of

his photographs and CDs containing stories about the boy who was till recently

known in his village, Ratanpur, as Ram Bahadur Banjan. The boy, it is claimed,

has been meditating without food or water since May 17, the day he sat down at

the spot. He was bitten by a snake but nothing happened to him, goes another

claim. Since last week, one can spot at times a small glow of light on his head

and hands. It lasts from a couple of minutes to an hour. He is left alone at

night but has never been attacked by wild animals or robbers. His cousin and

childhood friend, Prem Lama, is the only one who goes near him. “He told me

that he will meditate here for six years”, Prem says. Prem says he has touched

his friend only once in all these months, to change his clothes. Now the boy

sits draped in a mud-coloured shawl, his feet covered by it. While the boy is

attracting all this attention, his father is away working on his small

landholding. His

mother Maya is speechless when asked about her son. Tears stream down her face

and she folds her hands, it is hard to tell whether in greeting or as a plea to

be left alone. At the monastery where Prem and the boy studied, the teachers

have no comment. All the speaking is done by Bed Bahadur Thing, a member of an

18-member committee constituted by the villagers of Ratanpur to protect Paldhan

or Ram Bahadur or Little Buddha, as he is referred to now. Both Prem and Bed

recall the boy as a cheerful child who never quarreled and was a strict

vegetarian. According to Bed, the boy left home one midnight in March. He was

found by his younger brother four days later in the forest. He refused to

return home even when his mother pleaded with him, and asked to be left alone

for 75 days. The government has decided to investigate the whole affair. While

the probe is yet to begin, devotees pour in, though the numbers have dwindled

because of an impression that

the security forces have declared the place out of bounds.

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