by Karan Bajaj
They stopped for tea at a riverside restaurant an hour into the journey. A Hindu priest in saffron robes shooed away stray dogs that had collected around a burning pyre on the river bank.
“Mother Ganga. Very holy river. People cremate body here and put ashes in river,” said the cab driver.
Max nodded. More people spilled onto the river bank. A pregnant lady washed her clothes. A couple splashed water on each other. An old man took tentative steps into the river, shivering and shaking as he dipped his prayer beads into the water.
Birth, marriage, old age, death, the whole cycle played out before his eyes.
They finished their tea.
“Should we go, sir?”
Max nodded. A dog grabbed a dry human bone that had fallen out of the pyre and scampered away.
They drove off. The Ganges and the mountains receded in the distance.
As the last of the Himalayas vanished from view, Max said. “Can you stop for a minute?”
The driver braked on the side of the busy road. People packed in buses, cars, and trucks passed them, all going in a frenzy from one place to another.
Their smiles are hollow, their eyes are hungry. The yogis’ faces were different.
Max massaged his temples, thinking of Viveka’s words. Andre was wrong. Max felt no anger, no particular grief about his mother’s death. All he felt was a detached, objective curiosity. What lay beyond this charade of life and death? He couldn’t go back to his empty, dissatisfied life just yet. Not until he gave it his all to see if a different life was possible.
“We have to turn around,” said Max. “Can you take me to Dehradun instead?”
“Anywhere you want, sir.”
11
Max knocked on the door of the wooden house on a small street packed with houses in Dehradun.
A tall, thin, middle-aged white man wearing a baseball cap opened the door.
“Anand?” said Max.
“Yes,” he said in a soft, barely audible voice.
“I’m Max. I emailed you about the doctor. Ishvara, the Brazilian doctor?”
The man’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes.” He stared at Max.
“Can I come in?” said Max.
“Yes, of course. I should have asked,” he said, his pale face breaking into a dimpled smile. “I’m sorry. I was a little surprised. I’m used to being called Marcus. Anand is my spiritual name. I don’t use it often.”
They walked into a small living room filled with pictures of Anand with a slim, dusky Indian woman and three boys.
Max sat opposite Anand on a cane chair. Soft, vaguely familiar music played in the background. Anand removed his baseball cap to reveal a shiny, bald head. He said something.
Max leaned forward, straining to hear his soft voice and understand his hard-to-place accent.
“Did I send you my address?” repeated Anand.
“It was on the email footer,” said Max.
“Ah, but sometimes even I can’t find my own house here,” he said, dimples appearing on his face again.
Max smiled. Indeed, the driver had circled around for ages. Again and again, they were told to “go straight and take a right” which Max quickly realized was a euphemism in India for “I don’t know”, perhaps because Indian people hated not being helpful. Finally, he had asked the taxi driver to park in front of a hotel. It had taken him an hour of walking through the maze of streets to find A-18. The streets followed no alphabetic or numerical convention. A-Block stood next to M-Block and #18 was next to #232. It was a miracle he’d found it.
“There is no method here,” said Anand. “People choose whatever house number they want for numerological reasons.”
“Have you lived in India long?” said Max.
“Yes.”
“Is that your wife in the pictures?”
“Yes.”
“Is she Indian?”
“Yes.”
An uncomfortable silence followed.
Max shifted in his chair. To fill the space, Max talked about his travels in India, his search for the Brazilian doctor and the trip up the Himalayas.
Anand nodded every now and then but his large eyes remained silent. Max didn’t know if he had followed his account.
“Where are you from?” said Max after another bout of silence.
“Slovenia.”
“How long have you been in India?” said Max.
“Fifteen years.”
“Those are your boys?” said Max pointing to the pictures of the three boys on the wall.
Anand nodded.
“Very beautiful family,” said Max.
“Thank you.”
“Do they live here?” said Max.
“Yes.”
“What do you do?” said Max.
“Web design.”
“Do you work from home?”
“Yes.”
Max sat back in the hard, cane chair. How could a man with such a warm, smiling presence be so shy? The soft beats of the surrounding music changed to a deep, resonant chant. Max was inexplicably pulled to the music. Even though the words were in Hindi, he was sure he’d heard the song before. Anand nodded to the rhythm and closed his eyes. Max forced his attention away from the chanting. 2.30 p.m. The driver was waiting outside. New Delhi airport was six hours away. He could still make it comfortably in time for the flight to London at midnight if he left now. One last try. Max leaned forward.
“Where did you meet the doctor?”
Anand opened his eyes. “The Tibetan Himalayas.”
“Recently?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Have you seen him since?” said Max.
“No.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No.”
“How can I find him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know anyone who might know?”
“No.”
“So there is no way to find him?”
“No.”
“Then why did you think you could help me?” said Max.
“Did I?”
“You wrote in the email you could be of some help.”
“Yes. I told you I saw him in the Tibetan Himalayas,” said Anand.
“That was twelve years ago.”
“Yes.”
Another false turn. Max’s heart sank. Maybe it was all for the best. Max would be back in New York the day after next. He was overcome by dread. The beats of the background music deepened, tugging at his heart again. Max closed his eyes. A sudden chill went through his body. He was falling into a deep, bottomless void. Blackness. A blinding flash of light. Max opened his eyes with a start. Goose bumps covered his forearms. He gripped the chair tighter.
“This music, what is it?” said Max.
“Hare Krishna chants,” said Anand.
“I think I’ve heard them before,” said Max.
“Heard them or felt them?” said Anand.
Max didn’t know if he was more surprised at the question or that Anand had asked one. He paused, considering. “Felt them, I guess. I haven’t heard any Hindi songs before,” he said.
The dimples returned. “I thought so,” said Anand.
“Why?”
“These songs express deep love for the divine, an urge to break free from the cycle of birth and death, this trap of nature, and become one with Him,” said Anand.
Again, something pulled at Max’s heart. “But why would I feel them?”
“You’ve heard this sound before, if not the song,” said Anand. “Your past lives have led you here.”
Max’s stomach turned.
“I don’t believe in reincarnation,” he said.
Yet he’d seen himself in the faces that roused him from his near-fatal sleep in the mountains—the same mountains that seemed to be calling him back.
“But reincarnation is pure science, isn’t it?” said Anand. “Thought is energy, desire is energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it just c
hanges form. So our thoughts and desires just find a new physical body when this one wastes away.”
He leaned back in the chair, seemingly exhausted by the long explanation.
“Shouldn’t there be more hard evidence for it then?” said Max.
Anand shrugged. Believe what you want to, I couldn’t care less, his expression said. He closed his eyes again and nodded to the chants. Max thought he had offended him. He changed the subject.
“How did you meet the doctor?” said Max.
Anand opened his eyes. “I have to go to the temple now,” he said softly. “Please make yourself comfortable here if you want to rest from your travels. My wife will be back anytime and kids a little later.”
“No, I must go . . .” Max stopped. The chants tingled in his spine. “Can I come with you to the temple?” he said, surprising himself. Usually he steered as far as he could from organized religion with its elaborate rituals and demands for belief.
“Yes.”
They walked down the narrow street with haphazardly arranged houses, some made of wood, some concrete, some one floor high, some five or six floors high. Rickshaws, motorcycles and cars zoomed past them. Anand seemed blissfully unaware of the traffic and noise.
They reached the ramshackle hotel at the end of the street where the cab driver was parked. Max paid him and let him go. They walked two more blocks and stepped into a small, brown, oval-shaped temple. Up a flight of stairs they went, entering a large room with a white marble floor surrounded by statues of gods and goddesses. One muscular goddess had four snakes sculpted around her thick neck, another blue-colored god had a contemptuous smile on his face, another a lion under her feet, yet another had a bow and arrow in his hands with his tongue hanging out. None looked calm or inspired peace.
A corpulent man with a sitar and a gaunt woman with disheveled hair playing a musical instrument that had a flap and piano like keys sat on chairs in front of the statues, belting out loud, toneless songs. The twenty people sitting cross-legged in front of them nodded to the melody. Or the lack of it.
Anand joined the group on the floor. After a moment’s hesitation, Max accompanied him. Fresh from the disastrous hike, his knees and ankles felt stiff and heavy like large blocks of stones. He crossed and uncrossed his legs.
Anand closed his eyes and nodded to the music.
Max tried to do the same.
He couldn’t. It didn’t take a musical genius to know that the singers couldn’t strike a single melodious note and that their instruments were badly tuned. They wailed and shrieked, their voices gruff and hoarse, sometimes so carried away by the melody only they could hear that they forgot to play the instrument, which was perhaps better.
Max waited a few songs for Anand to get up. He didn’t open his eyes.
The singers screeched on. Max fidgeted.
The singers moved from duet to solo performances. The sitar-wielding man in his tight sequined kurta shut his eyes and screamed, triple chin rolling, loose folds on his neck and waist flying in every direction. The spindly woman in her white saree looked on encouragingly, then sang in a low, whiny voice. Max’s skin crawled. A grating sensation went up his spine. He was in a medieval torture chamber.
Finally, a break. Everybody got up to leave—except Anand. And Max. Max stared at Anand’s closed eyes and peaceful face in disbelief. This sounded nothing like the deep, sonorous, oddly stirring music he had heard at Anand’s home. What was he hearing in it?
A fresh batch of unsuspecting listeners sat down on the floor. They too left after the next break.
Max excused himself two hours later when he thought he would burst out in tears and start throwing things around if another sound came from the fat man’s lips. Out in the busy street, he paced around. 4.30 p.m. He could still make it to the New Delhi airport just in time for the midnight flight if he left immediately. But something felt incomplete. Anand’s calm, silent face must have something to say. He had to give it another try.
Max walked back into the temple. Anand hadn’t budged from his position. Max sat next to him. The fat sitar-wielding singer was sweating profusely. Perhaps now he would stop from exhaustion. The woman kept her instrument down and wiped the man’s forehead with her handkerchief. It gave him a shot of new energy. He shouted even louder than before. Max listened to the lyrics. He could make out a few familiar words in the din. Ram, Krishna, Om. But they were being uttered so tonelessly that even the fierce-faced goddess riding a lion would likely recoil and cover her ears with all her ten hands. Perhaps that was the point. Scare God into submission. Force Him to grant all your wishes otherwise you’d never stop shrieking.
After two more hours of song, Max was in agony. He had missed his flight. The singing–shouting continued unabated. Groups of people came and left but Anand didn’t move. This was so much worse than being lost in the mountains. At least he could do something there. Here, he was helpless. He breathed slowly and stared at the statues, wishing he was sitting in front of his computer in New York instead. His fingers itched to write a killer Array formula that cracked open rows of Excel data, to set up a VLOOKUP that found missing variables in a large database, something, anything that spit out an answer when asked a question. Why was the path to truth so obscure, so clouded?
Anand nudged him. “Are you ready to go?”
Max hid his relief. “Whenever you are. I’m fine,” he said.
The dimples again. “You are enjoying it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then, just one last song,” said Anand.
They listened to three more songs before heading outside.
Anand smiled his big smile on their walk back. His shoulders swung. He put his baseball cap back on.
“The male singer is a trustee of the temple so they have to let him and his wife sing whenever they want,” said Anand. “He is a local businessman. The people who came to listen all want some favor or the other from him.”
“Did you want a favor as well?” said Max.
Anand paused. “I guess you could say that,” he smiled.
“Did you think they were good?” said Max.
Anand laughed. The creases in his face almost touched his eyes.
“They were good for my purpose,” he said.
“To express love for the divine?” he said.
“I don’t think God would be able to sit through that for four hours,” said Anand.
Max stared at him in disbelief. “So why were we there?”
Anand lowered his eyes. “My sincere apologies. Just a whimsical little test to check your patience,” he said. “Your eyes were very restless when you came.”
“Why does that matter?” said Max.
They reached the house just then.
The strikingly attractive woman from the pictures was sitting in the living room, reading a magazine.
Anand made the introductions. Leela’s face had an easy, comfortable smile and Max warmed to her despite his irritation with Anand.
“Max is looking for the Brazilian doctor. Remember him?” smiled Anand.
“How can I not? You’d leave me in a flash if you see him again,” said Leela.
“Now Max wants to be his disciple,” said Anand.
“What is it with you men and always looking to shirk responsibility?” she said. “All three of your boys are out playing cricket instead of studying now.”
“You have a minute?” Anand asked her.
They excused themselves and left the room. Max heard them talking in the other room. A door opened and closed. Anand came back with a piece of yellow paper in his hand.
“Here,” he said, handing it to Max.
Max looked at an address.
“His name is Ramakrishna. A great Sage. He is the man you seek,” said Anand.
Max’s spirits lifted. “Is that the doctor’s spiritual name?”
“No, I told you, I don’t know where the doctor is. No one has seen him for years. I don’t even know if he is alive or not,” said
Anand. He hesitated. “Besides, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you are not ready for him yet. You have passion, you have energy, but you are a wild elephant right now. Your mind isn’t tame enough to walk the glorious path.”
Max’s face flushed. Was his incompetence so obvious? He looked down at the paper.
“Where is he?” said Max.
“A long way from here in South India,” said Anand. “I have written directions on the back. Take a train from Haridwar to Madurai in Tamil Nadu. It should take fifty, maybe sixty hours. From there, a twelve-hour bus ride to a small town called Pavur. After that, a ten-kilometer hike to a village without a name, then another thirty kilometers or so through the fields to his home. There won’t be any rickshaws or taxis in the village, but you can find something, perhaps a tractor. If you can’t find a tractor, follow the mud trail from the village and keep walking until you see huts. It’s probably Ramakrishna’s place unless something else has gone up there, which is unlikely, since it’s all dry, fallow land.”
“How long is the course?” said Max.
Anand laughed. The shyness left his face. “This isn’t your usual Indian ashram with Guru Goons making foreigners shriek devotional songs in ecstasy,” he said. “It’s just a saint teaching what he knows and he barely speaks any English. There are no courses or programs. You live with him. He accepts no money or donations. You go there as a beggar, a monk, accept whatever alms he gives you in the form of his teachings and leave when your hands are full. All he’ll ask for in the end is that you never speak of him, and point people his way only if they are serious seekers.”
“And you think I’m a serious seeker?” said Max hopefully.
Anand shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, deflating Max. “I’ve been trying to figure you out. Most Westerners who come here want easy answers. That’s why I also fell into the Hare Krishna thing, chanting, love, all the simplistic stuff that gives you some happiness but doesn’t last. But something in your eyes, in your going to the high Himalayas in this crazy winter, makes me want to believe that you can be more.” He sat down on the chair opposite Max. “I asked Leela for her opinion as well. I haven’t given the address to anyone in some years. I guess I shouldn’t have without knowing you better but I told myself, if he passes my impromptu test, I’ll tell him.”
