Young men who we first saw leaping off bridges into the churning current of the Ganges river in their underwear swarmed towards Rufus. Everyone wanted a "snap" or photo on their cellphone with the foreign boy. They wanted to see if his hair and skin felt different from theirs. They thought the mere sight of him was hilarious. Mom of course was very nervous he would be kidnapped or harmed by the horde of strangers but Rufus was delighted. Despite often refusing to smile when Mom or Nolan takes a picture he grinned broadly in the shots with his new friends. Eventually the police broke up the crowd to allow us to return to the plastic sheet on the riverbank the family was sharing with a generous Gujurati family.
After the ceremony, the purchase of a strange rotating fan and a quick foot dip in the holy river by Rufus and Nolan we scurried back to the car to mosey on over to Rishikesh.
From the man himself:
"We went to the ceremony. I don't know what else we did there. The guys were so underweary and they had underwear and water on. We dipped our feet in the holy river. I made one friend I don't know her name it was a little girl. We played with her bracelet. I was tired and she wasn't listening to me. I peed in an on the ground toilet. I did not like it cause there were some flies in it. I saw a cow eating food off the ground, all kind of different color cows. We see them next to houses and stores and there were two in the middle of the street And one on the side of the street it's so cool!"
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