(261) The water bearer

At 7.35 p.m. on May 10th 2010 I was approaching the summit of San Julian hill near my home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEwQItCOjKw
I found myself thinking of press announcements that an Indian holy man had been observed performing a paranormal feat - http://www.physorg.com/news192690076.html
I thought, rather whimsically, that I might semi-seriously use this story to apply for James Randi´s $1 Million - http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html Some years earlier I had crossed swords with Randi about his refusal to test a guy making a similar claim -
http://web.archive.org/web/20041023083501/www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm
He had written back that if they took such kooks seriously then they did not have time to deal with the "serious claimants".
the serious claimants.
That from a man whose raison détre is the stance that all paranormal phenomena are nonsensical. He had ended communications with " Thank you for your inane input."

My pleasure, Randi.

On April 25th 2007, he had written to me again, less sourly, noting that -
We since then opened the challenge to the Breatharians – and they all promptly vanished, after making acceptance noises. We agreed to set aside our rule that prohibits any dangerous practices in doing the challenge, just to put an end to the this eat-nothing farce, and they suddenly fell silent…
www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/122106wise.html#i12 and www.randi.org/jr/2006-08/082506yet.html#i2
James Randi.
I had already seen a documentary on this guy -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon - and he had made no claim for the $1 Million.
And I also knew that there was already an authenticated case of a guy surviving a full 18 days without food or water -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Mihavecz - and that, therefore, Randi might not regard such a feat, were it to be newly observed, as truly paranormal. (The challenge states that one need only draw attention to any paranormal event ever. And not necessarily to be the person who performed it.) I imagined myself being the person who discovered the hapless Andreas Mihavecz and who gave him his first, salvaging, drink of water.
I then rounded the penultimate curve and saw three men. One hailed me to ask for a drink of water from the bottle I was holding in my right hand. I gave him the bottle.
They shortly after all piled into a black Volkswagen Polo with the number plate 3046 GWT - or one very similar - and drove down the hill.

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