Asan was a philosopher, but nobody called him that during his lifetime. Humanism was his preferred ideology. He often used to say: “It is man who is Brahma; it is man who is Vishnu; it is man who is Shiva. There is no god beyond man—I do not believe in any power beyond humanity.” We never paid much attention to his sayings; we did not really concern ourselves with philosophy. The only people we feared were our fathers, teachers, and the police.

Still, we idolized Asan. We followed him around like shadows, swarming around him, spending all our time with him. No father could bring himself to like Damodara Asan. No young man could dislike him. At home we were scolded for hanging around with Asan, and our teachers were visibly upset about it. Some nights, when we came home late after chatting with him, our families refused to open the doors, and we had to sleep on the front steps. Yet, enchanted, we always met him the next day.

There was a reason for our infatuation with Damodara Asan; it was not as if he had bewitched us with some magic potion. He was an incredible storyteller. How could one person carry around so many stories? So many stories, and such strange characters! With such crooked and twisted natures! We would listen to him for hours. Then, when we came home and slept, the thousand characters from his tales would rise up to dance in our minds. Asan’s voice would whisper in our dreams.

And so each day after secondary school, we’d rush home, fling our books aside, and by five o’clock we’d all be walking down Asaripallam Road. That was where Joseph’s laundry shop was in those days. Asan would be there too, sitting on a bench in front of the shop. He would always be in the same position. His staff—six feet long, thick as a club, steel-capped at the end—would be planted between his legs. His hands would be wrapped over one end, which came to a good two feet above his head, and the other end would be sunk three inches into the dust.

The moment he saw us, Asan would get up and start walking, his veshti folded so high that anyone could see his loincloth from behind. He never spoke when he walked. We followed him obediently, entertaining ourselves with idle chitchat.

We’d walk two miles down the road to the ruins of an old mandapam where they used to hang murderers in the olden days. The place still had this aura of a bygone era, as if we had leaped across half a century in just two miles. We often came across a madwoman there, always standing still, poised as if to jump into a swimming pool. She seemed to live in that mandapam.