` Go in hope , little brother , ' he said . ` It is a long road to the feet of the One ; but thither do we all travel . ' Kim did not feel so lonely after this , and ere he had sat out twenty miles in the crowded compartment , was cheering his neighbours with a string of most wonderful yarns about his own and his master 's magical gifts . Benares struck him as a peculiarly filthy city , though it was pleasant to find how his cloth was respected . At least one-third of the population prays eternally to some group or other of the many million deities , and so reveres every sort of holy man . Kim was guided to the Temple of the Tirthankars , about a mile outside the city , near Sarnath , by a chance-met Punjabi farmer -- a Kamboh from Jullundur-way who had appealed in vain to every God of his homestead to cure his small son , and was trying Benares as a last resort . ` Thou art from the North ? ' he asked , shouldering through the press of the narrow , stinking streets much like his own pet bull at home . ` Ay , I know the Punjab . My mother was a pahareen , but my father came from Amritzar -- by Jandiala , ' said Kim , oiling his ready tongue for the needs of the Road . ` Jandiala -- Jullundur ? Oho ! Then we be neighbours in some sort , as it were . ' He nodded tenderly to the wailing child in his arms . ` Whom dost thou serve ? ' ' A most holy man at the Temple of the Tirthankers . ' ` They are all most holy and -- most greedy , ' said the Jat with bitterness . ' I have walked the pillars and trodden the temples till my feet are flayed , and the child is no whit better . And the mother being sick too ... Hush , then , little one ... We changed his name when the fever came . We put him into girl 's clothes .
There was nothing we did not do , except -- I said to his mother when she bundled me off to XXXXX -- she should have come with me -- I said Sakhi Sarwar Sultan would serve us best .
Ay Benares Jandiala Jullundur Jullundur-way Oho Punjab Punjabi Sarnath Tirthankars