by Smith, Skye
"So now you 'ave your first real audience," said Marique, "even if you don't put them on, at least let us see them."
His favorite outfits were all cocktail dresses. The kind that Grace Kelly would have worn a lifetime ago. None of them would have fit him correctly. He was too long and tall for them. They had been made for real women, not modern fashion models. "I bought them in Europe and had them shipped home. They are old, and the fabrics and colors are no longer made."
"Why Ajay, you are a romantic," said Maya kindly, "You are an engineer who is in love with the romance of women’s evening wear. Why don't you just get a job in the fashion industry? Mumbai must have a large one."
Marique was more practical. "May I try one on?" she said.
"Oh please, both of you must. I can no longer get into the best of them. Age is increasing the girth of my tummy." His sing song accent made him sound all the more innocent.
That was how the cleaning lady found them. All dressed up for a cocktail party. She mumbled something in Marathi, the local language, and Ajay laughed. "She says she will earn a week's wages from my neighbors. They all want to know what is going on in my apartment with the two ferengi women."
He turned to the woman and spoke to her at length. "She has agreed to take you shopping. She agrees that you need burqas if you are going to travel without men. That your fair hair and fair eyes are like red flags to a bull."
* * * * *
The shopping trip with the burly middle-aged local woman was an eye opener. It was not so much about shopping, but about how to shop, and where to shop. Ajay had to come along as translator, and he perhaps, enjoyed himself more than anyone. After all, he was seen all over his neighborhood with two beautiful, ferengi women. His reputation soared.
"She says that the first rule is never to do business with men, only with women," he translated. He asked her something, listened to her reply and then said, "When women want to take advantage, they take advantage by ten percent or perhaps twenty percent. Men try for two hundred percent. She says this is especially true when dealing with Sikh businessmen because they put so much of their ego into the bargaining."
"How so? "asked Marique. "I quite like Sikh men."
"She says that to a woman, good business is when she is happy and you are happy. To a Sikh man good business is when he is joyous and you are a fool. What is the Canadian word? Sucker."
Some hustlers approached their little group and blocked their passage along the crumbling sidewalk. The burly woman did not even look at them. She simple held out her hand with one finger pointed up and wagged it. The hustlers stepped aside. She told Ajay something.
"She says that you should never speak to hustlers or make eye contact with them, for that gives them an opening. The finger signals are usually obeyed. A finger pointed up and wagged is a polite 'not interested'. A finger pointed at them and wagged has more force, like 'I already told you I'm not interested, now go away else I will have someone kick your ass'." He giggled at the naughtiness of the words he had used in front of women.
Maya and Marique were wearing their travel skirts and shirts, and their sun hats with the scarves wrapped to cover their mouths. This not so men would not look on their faces, but to filter some of the diesel fumes and dust that hovered in the heat of the city air.
The first thing they bought were leggings and tops to wear instead of body suits, tights, or leotards. They were of such a thin cotton blend and so close fitting that they rolled up very small and weighed almost nothing.
The woman they bought them from was a cousin or some other relative of the housekeeper, so there was no bargaining. Ajay pleaded with the shopkeeper to pretend to bargain to show the ferengis how it was done. "You will see the best tactic," he explained, "that once the price is no longer moving, then you start expanding the offer to better quality, or to more pieces."
The women went behind a curtain and tried everything on, and decided to wear the bottoms under their travel skirts instead of bare legs. They each bought two sets, white and cream. After putting their money away they got more advice, this time from the shop keeper. Never keep your walkaround money with your big money, and never keep money with your identification cards and bank cards, and never ever keep anything valuable in a purse.
The next shop, where they bought burqas, was very strange. It was deep inside a courtyard far from the prying eyes of men. Ajay went to find a coffee shop, which left the women without an interpreter. It was very much a woman’s world run by Muslim women. They were expected to sip tea and relax out of the sight of men before they shopped. As they sat sipping and watching, a constant parade of women were coming and going.
One of the strangest sights was the two private school girls in mini kilts and white blouses talking and sending text messages on their phones. Maya felt like she was back in Vancouver. Then, when the school girls had finished browsing, they hid their predator bait school uniforms under their burqas. They were covered from head to foot as they walked out of the courtyard, including a mesh over their faces. No one could ever guess that they were in mini kilts underneath.
Their shopping guide bought them the cheapest, lightest ones burqas. They were the orangey color of the tropical soil, so that they would not show the dust. They were the equivalent of the disposable rain capes that street vendors sold to tourists on rainy days. There were even matching gloves. After buying them, they decided to try them out.
The difference on the street, even in a modern city like Mumbai, was astounding. Suddenly they were treated with deference. Not just ignored, as they were expecting, but respected, because men politely got out of their way as they walked along the sidewalks. The first thing that Maya rejoiced in, was being able to stop and look at things without all the men stopping to look at her.
They found Ajay in the corner coffee shop, and at first he did not recognize them, not until he saw his housekeeper behind them. "Acha," he said, "these are very good. They will even keep the mosquitoes away from you." He was right. They were like wearing a mosquito net. "She says that now you know the kind of shop, and the real price, then when these become very dirty or torn, just throw them away and buy new ones."
He spoke to his housekeeper. "She asks if we are finished with shopping now?"
The two hooded heads looked at each other and suddenly realized that they could not use facial expressions to communicate to each other. "No way." Maya said. "Not while we have a shopping guide who gets us local discounts. Tell her we want to see pretty things now."
For another hour Ajay patiently followed them from shop to shop carrying all the purchases like a humble servant. He kept saying, "You are backpacking. How will you carry all of this stuff." Eventually he gave up and took what they had bought so far back to the apartment. His suggestion that they ship it all home had simply reved up their shopping motors.
* * * * *
Back at the apartment, finally, the housekeeper busied herself with some chores around the apartment to fill the rest of the day. Meanwhile Ajay was showing the girls what he had found out on the web about the ashram that Erik had lived at in Pune. "You see, it has been revived but without the infamous guru. There is some question as to whether the guru has retired, or is dead. See the photos. It is like a yoga spa."
It was the guru that Maya needed to see, and when she said this to Ajay he went to the phone and was lost in various calls for an hour. "It is no use. The people I talked to were selling reservations, not giving out information. Even the manager would not tell me anything, especially not over the phone."
"Well, thank you for trying," said Maya, "perhaps we will find out more in Goa."
"How can that be? You are talking crazy talk," Ajay said. "Pune is much nearer to Mumbai than to Goa." Ajay was silent, thinking, and then he turned to them and cleared his throat. "I will be pleased to take you to Pune, tomorrow. We can make a day trip of it. Once we are free of the Mumbai traffic jams, it is less than two hours by expressway."
"No, not a day
trip," said Marique, "we should take our suitcases. We can catch the train to Goa from Pune. It will save us the hassle of the Mumbai train station. Besides, Maya may need more than a day to find out about her aura."
Ajay's face as almost grief-stricken. He had made the offer to extend their visit, not to shorten it. He shrugged. "I will still take you. I will phone my brother and ask him to see to my work while I am gone."
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Ashram by Skye Smith
Chapter 10 - Karla Caves, near Pune, India
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. - Mahatma Gandhi.
It was a relief to leave Mumbai, with its big city noise, the press of humanity, and the pollution in the sticky heat. Maya had noticed that the combo of sticky heat and pollution created a greasy black streak on her collar and neck whenever she walked on the street. She couldn't even imagine what it was doing to her lungs.
Once on the expressway, they climbed up off the coastal plain and into the low mountain ranges that ran along this coast. The scenery, as seen from the comfort of the old Mercedes sedan, was wonderful. They were oohing and aahing so much that Ajay turned off the expressway and took the old highway instead. Thus, they could also see the villages and the farms and the people of the area, and of course, a million pot holes.
They quickly realized that following the old highway had turned the drive into an adventure. Sometimes they would have to slow to a virtual crawl behind an ox cart, or a herd of bicyclists. Sometimes they would have to dive to the shoulder to miss an oncoming truck that was passing despite them. Each of these trucks was driven by a big man in a Sikh turban and they would all give them a big white toothy smile as if they hadn't just risked everyone’s life. The local peasant folk that always seemed to be catching a ride in the back of the trucks, would wave and cheer as they went by.
On the spur of the moment, after yet another close call with a Sikh truck driver, Ajay decided to turn off the highway and take them to see the ancient Karla caves. The religious caves of Karla, as it turned out, were not right by the highway, but up a steep road of hairpin turns.
Maya was beginning to realize that Mumbai was not India, it was just another big city that could be anywhere in the world, like in some ethnic neighborhood of LA. The farms and villages were the real India. India was all about village people and ancient religious temples carved into the sides of cliffs. The real India was so not America.
Karla was a feast for the eyes. They didn't know what to look at first, the cave temple with its long rows of columns carved from the solid rock of the cliff, or the stunning views of the mountains and valleys. As Ajay gave some coins to a parking lot watcher, he was told that they would have the temple to themselves for an hour before the first tour buses arrived.
"For Indians in India," explained Ajay, "the big tourist thing is to be seeing all of the famous religious temples. You know, like religious Americans do in Europe. A different day, a different temple. In Europe, Saint Peter's, in India, Karla. Here in India there are so many temples, that the tours tend to rush their customers through three or four temples a day. It is not something you want to be caught up in, especially not when twenty tour buses arrive at the same time."
"So we'll see the temple first," Marique suggested, "and then take our beer and our picnic back to that last hairpin corner for the view. There was a good pull off."
Maya was way ahead of her. It had dawned on her that ancient peoples with auras would have meditated at places just like this, or even maybe actually built them. She was eager to see how her aura reacted to it. She had only one problem. Her aura and anything it sensed was blocked by clothing, yet she couldn't very well walk around a holy place in the nude.
After opening the boot, and then her suitcase, she pulled out her burqa and pulled it down over her head. Then she stripped out of all of her other clothes, until she was naked underneath the burqa. She suddenly felt very naughty, but then she waved the feeling away as illogical. Like, wasn't she was always naked underneath her clothes?
When she walked towards the temple barefoot, Ajay called her back. He vetoed barefoot, explaining that there were parasites in India that entered your body through your foot, and that if you ever cut your foot it would become immediately infected. Well, she certainly wasn't going to wear her cross trainers, so she opted for her waterproof sandals. Since it was a rough trail, she pulled out the back strap, and flipped it up behind her ankle.
Now she was ready. The burqa was made of spit through gauze. Of all her clothing, it would affect her aura the least. Moreover, if she stopped to meditate, she would be hidden from the eyes of men. She could stop and sit in a yoga pose and be completely covered as if she were in a tent. Even the orange color was right. It was the color of choice for India's religious students.
Marique watched what she was doing, and decided to stick close to her. She could see by Maya's shape under the burqa that she had her hands clasped in prayer and was raising the power of her aura. She would follow her and keep her from harm, and keep others from bothering her. Ajay, on the other hand, decided to stay close to Marique. He could see the interest she was raising in all the men that were hanging around waiting for the tour buses to arrive.
Keeping Maya safe turned out to be easy to do. In India the presence of people in a spiritual trance was common, and they stayed away from them and respected their space. Besides, most of the men were ignoring the woman in full burqa, and instead staring at the ferengi woman with the fair eyes, and fair skin and fair hair who was walking with the tall Indian man.
Maya walked slowly through the front columns and outer caves with her aura strong enough to overflow with whiteness and lily of the valley. Despite this she felt nothing. She decided to give up on the main chamber and colonnade and explore further and further back into the gloom of the corridors and the smaller chambers. Due to the gloom, it was getting more and more difficult to see.
She was now well beyond the sight of the men, most of whom were waiting around under the main colonnade for the tourist buses to arrive. She unsnapped the mesh over her eyes and pushed it back under the headpiece, then she pulled her headpiece back and down off her braided hair. Now she felt the cool air from the breezes in the caves on her cheeks. She took a deep breath of the cool air and savored it.
The corridor through the chiseled man-caves was getting lower and narrower. In the main areas the stone floors had been polished and worn by the feet of a million visitors over the millennia. Here the stone floor had a covering of fine dust and there were but a few footprints in the dust. It eventually got so dark that she feared for her footing, and then it happened. A dim white light glowed up from the stone floor.
This was new. Her aura had never lit her way before. She wondered if she could light more than just the floor if she strengthened it. She clasped her hands and was about to close her eyes and bring up the power of her aura when the magic white light jiggled, and then was half on the floor and half on the wall.
She turned around. Marique was lighting her way with her tiny LED flashlight. She was just about to thank her when she saw a square shadow on the wall and realized that in the darkness, she had walked right by a small doorway. Marique stepped forward to reach the doorway first and went inside.
"It is like a closet, or a storeroom, nothing more," Marique told her.
Maya pushed into the small low room behind Marique. It felt friendly. It felt special. Yet it was just a tiny empty room carved out of the dull dun-colored stone. Marique was shining her light around and Maya saw a glint of something in the wall. She stepped beyond Marique towards where the glint had been and asked her to shine the light on it. It glinted again.
Maya rubbed away the dust with her hand, and then Marique offered her some tissues and she made short work of making a small part of the wall shine with a luster. Marique shined her light on it again. Now the glint was a glow a
bout the size of her fist. Maya knew what it was. It was the pointed end of a giant quartz crystal.
Maya pulled off her burqa and stood naked in front of the crystal. Ajay had just come into the small room but now he quickly excused himself and told the women that he would guard the doorway. Marique had seen Maya charge crystals before. The results were sometimes unpredictable. One time she herself had been put into a deep trance just from sitting too close. She backed out of the room and stood with Ajay, and explained to him what Maya was doing.
Maya stood in a salutation pose with her hand clasped for prayer in front of the crystal point. She increased the power of her aura and then opened her hands like a lotus underneath the point. At first nothing happened. She emptied her mind and allowed her aura to leap beyond her conscious mind. She opened her eyes and peeked.
The point of the crystal was beginning to glow white, and then whiter, and then it became brilliant and Maya dropped her hands and held her elbows to withdraw the aura, and watched the light from the crystal as it dimmed. Then she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Another glint from another wall.
She took a deep breath and regained her balance and took Marique’s spent tissues and rubbed at the new glint. Then there was another glint. She cleaned it too. As she stepped backwards towards the doorway she could now see hundreds of glints. She ran like a mad thing between them, rubbing and cleaning them until her tissues became tatters of fluff.
She chose another large crystal end and used the opening lotus to charge it as well, and then another and another. She was breathless and excited. "Come quick!" she tried to say but nothing came out. It was like being in one of those dreams where you are trying to shout a warning but there is no sound. Finally a moan left her throat and filled the room with sound vibrations.
Marique and Ajay came running in and saw her standing nude in the darkness, but the darkness was like the night sky, punctured with glints of stars. Marique shone her light at Maya's feet to illuminate the room without blinding their night sight. Maya seemed to be glowing with life. Not light. Life. Her cheeks were plump and flushed, her breasts were plump and flushed, and her skin was blushing all over. She was like a living, breathing, fertility goddess.
