The attention embarrassed him, but the publicity was good: the same reasoning that led him to appear in 2011 on the reality-tv show “Bigg Boss”, where he hoped he could bring peace to the other contestants in the house. In that role of peacemaker, he also trekked in 2011 into the forests of Chhattisgarh to oversee the handover by Maoist rebels of five abducted policemen. (In general, he thought the Maoists had been driven to violence by injustice, and urged the Indian government to talk to them.)

He saw nothing but calamity in the growth of that ideology in India. His work with bonded labourers also caused him disappointment. Relatively speaking, he had rescued few, and the practice went boldly on. He might have taken heart, though, from the number who came to his funeral, shyly recounting to reporters the horror of their work before, and their hopes now. They, in particular, were glad he had not made his sanyasa in some remote mountain or forest but with them, in the weariness and pain and dust.

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