Often are tales told of handsome Warriors of Light that traverse the world on daring spiritual quests. Or wealthy noble men who forsake their all to search for truth. Let this tale of a poor and ugly derelict also be told, for his like are often overlooked…

Kappa was a rolling stone. He rolled with the punches and lived by the great life philosophy once famed by Baz Luhrmann’s epic hodgepodge Moulin Rouge – “Come what may”.

He would hover above the footpaths of the teeming city streets apparently oblivious to all the important things happening around him, such as stocks being brokered and the like. He busied his mind with more philosophical debate, such as outsourcing for his next meal and procuring an inconspicuous spot where water may flow over his stained and pungent body and purge it from what he considered the evils of civilisation. Yes, car exhaust, construction dust and the like. Though he morally contended with these things, he slept with them out of necessity - in the subway tunnels and below tarpaulin-covered scaffolding, wherever he could lay his hat.

Kappa’s baseball cap was his kippah – a constant reminder of the Presence above his head. Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you. This was his mantra, alongside Come what may. It displayed the slogan “NY” which despite his not being cognizant of its etymology, Kappa wore with pride as he had seen other respectable people adorned with “I love NY” on their T-Shirts. He would sometimes spend hours listing the permutations of words that it might represent; Never Yearn (An anthem for all revolutionaries devoted to living lives of material detachment), No Yeast (A dietary warning for the immunologically hypersensitive), Not You-Again (A mental note that would scroll through his mind when glancing upon many of the daily passers-by with their cappucinos-to-go and Financial Reviews), Non-Yiddish (Self-explanatory), and so on.

The back of his cap was a (torn) plastic mesh. He knew this made it a truckie’s hat, as he had once been a truckie. He had once crowned his head with dreadlocks and bobbed to off-beat rhythms, but as he aged and led a life without music, they eventually became deadlocks and now, by nature of their sparsity and lack-lustre presentation, they struggled to camoflage the geographic balding patches on his scalp.

Though he wasn’t a church goer, he frequented two places of religious significance and maintained what he considered a devout life. The first of these was the vegetarian Hindu restaurant where he could eat a hearty meal and after paying respect to Annalakshma the Goddess of plenty, give whatever meagre offering he had at his disposal, be it none. He liked the food but did not enjoy the stares of other patrons who came there for a cultural experience. The second was Centennial Square, where every day at 10:00 a.m. Tommo would give his lively sermons. Tommo’s pulpit was a square milk crate and his microphone was actually a megaphone with speakers booming out of his backpack. His congregation was a rapidly pacing multitude of non-believers who shook their heads, now and then pausing for a picture. He would speak of fascinating themes such as the end being nigh, who begat who and the like.

After his sermons, Tommo would offer Kappa a cappucino-to-go (that’s how Kappa got his name, and since Tommo was the only person to refer to him by a name, he had come to forget his original). They sat on the footsteps of the city cathedral (which they had never been allowed to step foot into) and discussed politics. One day the conversation took a turn towards the unexpected, as Tommo began to discuss the inherent mystery latent in love. He had become (Alas! As he would frequently exclaim during his speeches on love) a vagabond of love who was now as immersed in the beauty of physical love as he was in the divine. You will love too one day my friend, Tommo would assure Kappa, resting his tattered sleeve on Kappa’s shoulder.

Soon Tommo’s sermons were drawing a crowd, as they were fast becoming fascinating dissertations on physical love, both bold in their frankness and thought-provoking in their philosophy. Now and then a reference to a begatter would sprout unnaturally into the flow of the sermon, catching many off-guard. It was still important to be a shepherd to the lost fold, Tommo believed, even if that shepherd be himself lost in the throes of a woman’s love.

Feeling more isolated from Tommo by the day, Kappa began to question the merit of this teachings. “You’ve changed!” Kappa would mutter to Tommo, at times when Tommo was nowhere to be seen, probably busied in the arms of his lover. Kappa felt inept in the ways of love, and one evening he decided that he would escape the city bustle and embark on a marathon walk across the continent. Only then could he conquer the demons of his self and tread, no matter how long or painful, the path of the righteous.

This is where the adventures of Kappa the mystic begin - not with a flourish against the backdrop of a rising sun, but one morning rising from a rat-infested alcove beneath a rail platform, hailed by the toot of the 6:45. What follows are vignettes from his story (if an ear is found for them).

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