As a wandering monk
"I saw many great men in Hrishikesh. One case that I remember was that of a man who seemed to be mad. He was coming nude down the street, with boys pursuing and throwing stones at him. The whole man was bubbling over with laughter while blood was streaming down his face and neck. I took him and bathed the wound, putting ashes on it to stop the bleeding. And all the time with peals of laughter he told me of the fun the boys and he had been having, throwing the stones. 'So the Father plays', he said."
"Many of these men hide, in order to guard themselves against intrusion. People are a trouble to them. One had human bones strewn about his cave and gave it out that he lived on corpses. Another threw stones. And so on. . . ."
"Once I was the guest of a Police Inspector in a place of pilgrimage. He was a religious man, and had some devotion. His salary was only Rs.125 per mensem, whereas his monthly expenditure went up to two hundred or three hundred rupees. When we became more intimate, I asked him, 'Your expenditure seems to exceed your income. How do you manage it?" 'Men like you manage it, sir,' said he with a smile. 'Don't think that all the monks who come to this place of pilgrimage are as good as yourself. Whenever any suspicion arises. I search their belongings; and often enough, much money is found. When any one of them is suspected for theft, he at once takes to his heels leaving behind everything, which then comes to my possession. I do not resort to any other illegal means of satisfaction like bribe.'"
(Source: Reminiscences of Haripada Mitra)
"Once while travelling in a train. I had in the same compartment some four or five Europeans as my fellow passengers. In the course of a talk, I remarked that the best way to enjoy tobacco is to smoke it from a hookah full of water at the bottom and having at its top a lump of flavoured tobacco prepared with spices and molasses. I had some such tobacco, and I showed it to them. They smelt it and said, 'It emits such a bad smell, and you call it good flavour!' Thus, opinions about smell, taste, beauty, etc. differ among men according to time, place, and social environment,"
Hookah
(Source: Reminiscences of Haripada Mitra)
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