After a spate of phone calls for directions I was able to finally locate Limbaji. I had somehow managed to land right in the middle of groundnut fields on my trusty Yamaha RX135, so hopelessly lost that a concerned farmer passing by had promptly relayed my coordinates to Limbaji.
‘Are you the one on a black motorbike, carrying a huge sack on your back?’ he asked in confirmation after he had spotted me in the distance.
I then swerved to the left towards a giant peepal tree under which there was a little tent of bamboo scaffolding and tarpaulin. Next to it stood Limbaji: tall, dark, mildly bearded and robust, with a healthy looking paunch. His head was wrapped in a white turban that had aged with him, his left wrist adorned with a thick, silvery bracelet and his light-brown coloured eyes had the glint of a ten-year-old.
I found a small patch of shade right next to the lambs' pen and parked. A few of them came to sniff me, and then ran away.
I took my helmet off, put my backpack down and allowed Limbaji to take a good look at me – exhausted, with disheveled hair and dusty glasses. He asked me to make myself comfortable on the blanket that he had laid out under the peepal tree and hollered at his little niece to get us some lemon water.
I had been in touch with Limbaji over the phone for many weeks now, curious to understand what the life of a shepherd with a large flock was like. I intended to document slices of his everyday life and understand shepherding in the current times. After a lot of inquiry into my intentions, he finally acceded to my idea of having me around for a few days. I caught up with him near the hamlet of Jade, some 30 kilometers from the town of Banavasi in the verdant district of Uttara Kannada.
Another round of casual quizzing and more lemon water later, I began to feel that Limbaji was warming up to me. ‘You took so much effort to get here,’ he said with a concerned look, ‘I hope you get what you want.’