From behind a partition I addressed my brother’s Hasidim, commanding them in Rebbie-ji’s name to contact the Israel government to set in motion their master’s extradition. They had wanted him so badly, the Israelis, now they could have him, with our blessings. They were experienced professionals well versed in handling the ashes of dead Jews. Come and get him. Let them do with him as they saw fit. Wear gloves and a mask, I advised. Should they require some DNA for identification purposes, here it is. And I tossed over the partition a grotesque clump of my own hair that I had broken off—dry as straw, matted and twisted into ropes, gray like soot. I had considered offering them the gift of a bag of my excrement, now already prepackaged, since I had read somewhere in a magazine that hunted terrorists were traced by the DNA in their droppings deposited along their flight paths. But to avert the possibility of making a mockery of my brother’s memory, I opted for my hair instead, which I had let grow out in anticipation of this very hour, when no one would need me anymore and I would be free to renounce everything, close my book of life, and set out as a sannyasini.

As a sannyasini, I was as if dead. The first person no longer was present to continue my tale, and this brought it to an end. All that remained for me now was to enact my own funeral to achieve liberation. I set out walking on the Grand Trunk Road from Kolkata to make my way on foot to Varanasi. Moksha awaited me there in the lap of Mother Ganga. My only garment was an ochre-colored robe. In my right hand I carried a single staff, a sign of my penance, for surely I had sinned in the confusion of my heart.

I ask you to forgive me.

In my left hand I carried a pot with a handle that contained a cup for water, and also my bag of excrement filling constantly, proof that I was still alive, tethered to the nipple of the new stoma in my body by a long translucent tube passing through a slit in my robe. I had cut off all my ties to the world, detached myself from everything in this life, except my excrement. This I would carry with me in a bag in my pot every step of the way as I walked along the Grand Trunk Road. The pot also held a little bell that I would take out to ring like a leper, like an untouchable, whenever I saw someone approaching, to warn of oncoming defilement and pollution.