As the day’s heat began to climb, I cooled myself under a fan, listening to music and drifted into a siesta. There are few better ways to beat Kathmandu’s heat than napping away the afternoon sun. With the soothing music calming my mind, I began to inch towards blissful dreams.

Then suddenly, the calm was rudely arrested.

“Jai Sambhu!” a hoarse, unpleasant voice, rang over the music I’d been listening to.  I waited for it to pass, but it rang out again, louder than before. “Jai Sambhu!”

Irritated, I tried burrowing my head deeper into the pillow, wishing the rude intrusion away. But to no avail. My mother burst into the room in a hurried frenzy. “Do you have some change or pennies?”

“Change?” I asked, pretending I was half-asleep.

“Yes, change, there is a Jogi at our door,” Mother repeated, peeking out the window, checking if he was still outside. “I don’t need money, I want food,” the voice boomed in a coarse Hindi dialect.

A strong scent of marijuana wafted into the room from downstairs. Alarmed, my mother rushed off into the kitchen to find some food to offer—not out of devotion, but because it should send the Jogi on his way. A few minutes later, I heard my mother’s footsteps head downstairs.

“May Lord Shiva bless you and your family,” the voice said, “Now, get me a clean page.”

“Babu,” My mother yelled out. I could sense desperation creeping into her voice. With my would-be siesta rudely interrupted, I begrudgingly headed downstairs with a sheet of paper.

In my mind, I was expecting a “traditional jogi”—old, weather-beaten and haggardly. But to my surprise, the man at our door was not your every-day mendicant. Young, with a freshly shaved face, a sturdy body, he looked more like me than a jogi! To add to that, he had enchanting eyes that couldn’t hide the cunningness they were brimming with. He wore a pair of slippers and draped himself in clean white clothes, including the turban on his head. He had a small chillum hanging from a cord across his neck. He carried a conch-shell, a trident and a black wooden case.

Seeing that I (and my mother) was amused by his demeanour, he smiled and bellowed out again, “Chela,” he said and motioned me to sit down, before going off into a monologue about how blessed I was to have Lord Shiva in my life, how loving my family was, and how everything was ethereal. “Hail, Lord Shiva,” he boomed once more, signaling his blessings had come to a close.

My mother, who had been listening intently, chose to butt in, “Uh, we respect Lord Shiva, but my family practices the Pranami religion,” she said meekly, afraid that she might offend.

He smiled, “No matter,” he said, nonchalantly, “Hail, Lord Shiva-Kanhaiya,” annexing the name of another god to his blessing. Convinced, my mother had now bought into his act as well, he took the sheet of paper I had brought, put two grains of rice into it and asked us to grab at it will all our fingers.

We did as we were told; the man sure did know how to keep people fixated! When he knew he had us hooked, he proclaimed, “I have faith that something good will happen.” Then he added a few more grains of rice to the paper, crumbled it and handed it over to my mom and asked her to open it.

When she did, lo and behold, the grains had magically transformed into Rudrakshas. We were both taken aback, the sadhu sure had some skills. Seeing that we were both in awe, he turned to me and handed me three coins.

“Do you believe in losing money or multiplying it?” he asked. Naturally, I picked the latter.

He touched two coins, patted them and asked me to clench my fist. When I reopened them, suddenly there were seven coins in my hands!

Satisfied he had won both our favour, he slowly said, “God will be pleased to have more offerings,” pushing away the plate out of which he had just eaten what my mom had offered him. Then, as if rudely awoken from a trance, we both realised where all this was going.

Seeing that we were not reacting to his request, he boomed once more, “Bring me half the money in your home.” Half the money! I thought. Didn’t he only half an hour ago refused to take money, just food? Now how easily he asked for money. Not just a few pennies, but half of what we had in the house!

My mother refused.

“You’re lying. How can you have no money? God will not forgive you for this travesty,” he demanded as if we were not giving him alms, but that we owed him the money. My mother kept refusing. Her gods were already happy that she had given food to the mendicant.

Then changing his demand he asked for a blanket. She refused again.

“Do you have shoes?” he downgraded his demands. My mother, amused by his antics grabbed my old converse shoes and waved it in front of him. But to her surprise, he refused to take it, saying they were too old.

Having had enough of this ‘saint’, my mother retorted in a loud voice of her own, “Go to a store if you want nice and new things,” before pushing him towards the door and shutting it.

I had heard tales of Kathmandu’s residents getting duped by these ‘fake’ babas, but for the first time I had a run in for myself. As a citizenry that continue to remain devout, it is not hard to understand why we are so easily hoodwinked by these sinners in saint’s clothes. Adept with fast hands and honey-dew tongues, these bad apples bring a bad name to an entire religion. I, for one, (and my mother for two) have learnt our lesson.

Next time you hear “Jai Sambho,” at your door. Think twice. Think twice.

Shah is an A-levels student at St Xavier’s College, Maitighar