8/7/2019 In the Parable of the Sadhu
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College writing and reading Chris Ryan
Second Paper 10/06/08
In the Parable of the Sadhu, A man is taking a six month
sabbatical through the
mountains in Nepal, with his friend and also a couple of Sherpa,
natives who will carry
supplies with you for money, since they are used to the high
climate and oxygen level.
Midway through his sabbatical, the narrator and his travelling
companions come across a
Sadhu lying in the snow, presumably coming down from his journey
to the Holy place at
the top of the mountain. The narrator is then faced with the
difficult decision of what to
do with the man, and how much he is responsible for what this
man needs. His friend
advocates that they owe this fellow man help, and should carry
him down to the village, a
good days hike back to where they came from. However if they did
that, they risk losing
the chance to get across the current mountain, as the snow
melting will cause problems in
crossing the mountain. As they stay and try to decide what they
should do for the
freezing, hypothermic Sadhu, they are passed by two groups of
fellow travelers, a group
of New Zealanders and a group of Japanese mountain hikers, who
happen to have a horse
with them rather than Sherpa. The narrator and his friend try to
get the other groups to
help them, so that they can get the Sadhu to a safer location to
recover. However, both
groups pass them by separately, each denying their
responsibility to the hypothermic holy
man. They do however offer mild comforts, such as food and a
blanket, but then proceed
to leave him be, so as to get across the mountains in time (they
were following the same
route as the narrator). In the end, the narrators group leaves
the Sadhu to fend for himself
8/7/2019 In the Parable of the Sadhu
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after seeing that he is well enough to throw rocks at a dog that
was bothering him. Later,
however, the narrators friend chastises him for not helping more
with the Sadhu, and that
they should have brought him back to the village even if it
meant losing their trip across
the Nepalese mountains. The narrator retorts that the friend
should have done more if he
thought it wasnt enough, that he should have been more adamant
about how to treat the
Sadhu. His friend offers that he couldnt do anything by himself,
and that he needed at
least one other person to help with the Sadhu (the Sherpa had
said they wouldnt help
him). They go on with their journey, and years later the
narrator wonders what happened
to the Sadhu.
I chose the Parable of the Sadhu because it was the story that
most stuck out, that
it called out to me as an individual. When I first heard of the
story, it was spoken to me
it is a story about a person travelling across the mountains,
who comes across a choice
of whether to keep climbing the mountain or stop and save
someones life. When I heard
this, I immediately thought duh, I would save the person and
give upon the mountain.
Even if Im climbing the mountain for a story to tell people,
saving a life is a more
interesting tale to tell and is more humane. However, when I
finished the story in full, I
was much more conflicted than I had originally anticipated.
True, my softer side
screamed at me to save him, but on the other hand, I realized
that I owed this man
nothing, that it was his own judgment that had lead him to this
point in his life. So, in a
way, this story made me question who I am as a person, and how
much I really knew
about myself and how I would react to certain situations. I do
however think that his
friend was a bit hypocritical, in that if he really was worried
about the Sadhu, he would
have done more. The saying is if theres a will, theres a way,
and if his friend had
