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 day’s 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 narrator’s group leaves the Sadhu to fend for himself
after seeing that he is well enough to throw rocks at a dog that was bothering him. Later,

however, the narrator’s 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 wasn’t enough, that he should have been more adamant about how to treat the

Sadhu. His friend offers that he couldn’t do anything by himself, and that he needed at

least one other person to help with the Sadhu (the Sherpa had said they wouldn’t 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 someone’s life”. When I heard

this, I immediately thought ‘duh, I would save the person and give upon the mountain.

Even if I’m 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 there’s a will, there’s a way”, and if his friend had
really cared that much about the man, and felt that strongly, then he could have done

more to help him.

HYPOCRISY

FRIENDSHIP

TRUTH

PRINCIPLES

MY CHOICE