Golden Girl

by Cathy Hopkins

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alisha. ‘Gurus are supposed to be wise men. I’d like to ask them some of those questions and this afternoon is our chance.’

  ‘Yawn,’ said Pia. ‘My philosophy is that we humans have a brain the size of a pea, way too small to grasp the mysteries of the cosmos. What we do know, though, is that we’re here today, this moment. We don’t know when we’re going to die so it’s best to make the most of it. Enjoy each and every experience that comes your way. Don’t waste a minute of it. Especially not by going to guru conventions.’

  ‘I think that’s pretty deep,’ I said. ‘So you’re Queen of Deep too.’

  ‘Nah. I’m a simple soul,’ said Pia.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll back that,’ said Alisha and this time, Pia picked up a pillow and bashed her with it.

  They were just getting set for a good pillow fight when Alisha’s phone bleeped that she had a message. She glanced at the screen. ‘Oops, it’s Mom. Better go.’ She got up to leave. ‘Laters. Don’t study too hard.’ And she was gone.

  A short time later, I looked out of the window and saw a speedboat with Alisha, JJ, Mrs Lewis and Vanya whooshing away across the water. I made myself focus back on my books. We’d be joining them soon. I was intrigued by the gurus thing – if we were going to meet some of the wisest people in the world this afternoon then I had a question I’d like to ask. It was a question I’d carried around with me ever since Mum passed away. Where do people go when they die? If any of them could give me a satisfactory answer to that, I’d be well impressed. I couldn’t wait to get there and see what they said. Plus, hopefully, JJ and I would be able to slip away and get some time alone. In the meantime, though, I had to clear my head of the mysteries of life and all thoughts of romantic liaisons; I had homework to do.

  ‘Have you noticed that drivers in this country avoid collisions with their ears as well as their eyes?’ I said to Pia as we dodged our way through noisy traffic in Udaipur town. It was early afternoon and we were on our way to meet the Lewises. The streets were a cacophony of hooting from car and truck horns, bicycle bells and mopeds, as drivers and riders wove their way around each other, narrowly missing hitting each other in many cases. So many of the cars had tinsel on the bumpers and most had garlands and small, colourful pictures of gods, gurus or goddesses inside, hanging from the mirror. As I watched the variety of transport going past in all different directions – forwards and sideways – I saw that people would toot when they got too close to each other to let them know they were there. In the middle of it all were goats and cows walking serenely by, as much a part of the scenery as the rest of it.

  ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more. We must be over the rainbow!’ I said as an elephant strolled by, its face and trunk painted in blue chalky patterns, followed soon after by a camel, then a family of white boars.

  Pia took a photo on her camera to send back home, then we followed Vanya past a market where women in brightly coloured saris sat in the middle of a pile of open sacks selling fruits, vegetables, spices and herbs. In contrast to the tranquil atmosphere back at our all-white hotel, the town was bursting with life and colour. Some people wore traditional Indian dress, some modern dress, many were tourists in shorts, sarongs and T-shirts. But, as I’d noticed the day before, all life was present as we made our way through the narrow streets lined with open kiosks and stalls. Seated women made garlands from heaps of yellow and orange flowers, old men rested on the pavement, children watched passers-by. Most shops seemed to be geared up for tourists, selling bags, shoes, scarves, tie-dyed bedspreads and clothing, prints of Krishna, goddesses, demons, monkey gods and elephant gods, stone carvings, jewellery and wooden toys. Many of the stallholders beckoned us to ‘come and look’ but Vanya ushered us on. I also noticed a number of people begging, sitting with their hands outstretched, a bowl in front of them, some old, some only children, running alongside the tourists and tugging at their arms. It made me feel uncomfortable and I wished I could do something to help.

  We managed to persuade Vanya to stop at a kiosk selling pashminas. ‘Let me demonstrate how you can tell if a shawl is genuine,’ said the young stallholder as he held up a ring in one hand then carefully began to thread a large maroon shawl through it. To our amazement, it flowed through the ring like it was the finest silk. As we moved on, I looked over to see a stall selling samosas. ‘I’m going to get one,’ I said to Pia. ‘Want one?’

  Vanya held up his hand. ‘Not a good idea,’ he said. ‘Only eat from places you know how the food has been prepared.’ He indicated his stomach then pulled a face as if he was ill. We got the message but the smell was so enticing that I bought one anyway. ‘It looks fresh,’ I said as a smiling Indian man put it in a bag for me. ‘I’ll have it later,’ I said.

  Pia fanned her face. ‘I’m too hot to eat anything, especially anything spicy.’

  Vanya shrugged. ‘Don’t blame me,’ he said as we continued on our way.

  ‘Have you noticed that loads of the signs and posters are in English?’ I said as I pointed to a poster advertising a train journey.

  ‘That’s because the British were in India for so long,’ Pia said. ‘From 1612 until 1947. I read about it in one of JJ’s books.’

  ‘Clever clogs. You’re always so good at remembering dates. I need to read up on it all too. It makes it come to life being here, though, doesn’t it? Rather than something you just read.’

  Pia nodded. ‘Which is why we have to make the most of the time we have out here and not spend it all stuck back at the hotel studying.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I agreed, wishing that we’d had longer to browse the stalls before going to the guru convention. I wanted to buy presents for Dad, Gran, Aunt Maddie and Charlie and I still had to buy a birthday present for JJ. But Vanya was a man on a mission and that mission was to get us to the Lewises, leaving us no choice but to hurry along beside him.

  ‘India has such a distinct smell,’ I said as we glimpsed the temple ahead of us. ‘How would you describe it?’

  Pia sniffed the air. ‘A mix of . . . spices, dust, petrol and baked earth.’

  I noticed a cow that was looking at an ice-cream stall with interest. ‘And dung, that’s definitely mixed in somewhere. There’s an animal smell. There are so many oxen around.’

  ‘And goats,’ said Pia as she almost fell over one that scurried past.

  We went up some steps to an entrance flanked by two life-size stone elephants, then we were at the steps leading to the Jagdish Temple. I could see the Lewises standing in the crowd, amongst a large number of holy men, some in orange robes, some in white, some wearing hardly anything and others looking like they were covered in flour, their faces painted orange, red or blue.

  ‘They look like they’ve been to a kid’s party,’ said Pia as we passed one man whose bald head was painted white, with a red stripe down his forehead to his nose and orange cheeks. Around his neck he wore about thirty beaded necklaces. Pia suddenly giggled and nudged me. I looked to my left where there was a bearded man standing totally naked apart from a string of beads around his neck.

  ‘It’s a look,’ I said. ‘Not one that I think will catch on in England though. Bit too cold.’

  ‘Thank God,’ said Pia, averting her eyes.

  ‘Wow. This place is amazing,’ I said as I took in where we were.

  The three-storey temple was stunning, with hundreds of tiny images of gods, goddesses, elephants, dancing girls, musicians, horses and horsemen carved into its pillars.

  JJ came forward to meet us. ‘The elephants are a symbol of prosperity,’ he said, ‘the horsemen of power.’

  ‘Why do so many of the carvings have the faces cut out?’ I asked when I noticed that lots of the carvings were headless.

  ‘The Moghuls defaced them when they were persecuting the Hindus, because they were of Hindu gods,’ said JJ.

  I nodded like I knew what he meant and once again wished I’d read up more on India before coming here. I hated feeling so i
gnorant.

  ‘It must have taken years to carve all these,’ said Pia as we stared at the intricate carvings that seemed to go on forever.

  As Pia took photos of the pillars, I noticed that some Indian people were staring at the Lewises with the same interest as we had in the holy men.

  ‘People are staring at you,’ I whispered to JJ. ‘They must know your dad is Jefferson Lewis.’

  ‘Ah, there’s a reason for the looks and it’s not because of Dad,’ said JJ as we made our way over to Alisha and their mum. ‘We get stared at here because of our skin colour. They don’t see many Afro-Americans so we’re a novelty to them.’

  ‘Bit rude,’ I said. One group were actually pointing. They weren’t trying to be discreet at all and were openly studying JJ as if he was an alien.

  He shrugged. ‘You get used to it,’ he said. ‘Now they’re staring at you, too.’

  I glanced over and, sure enough, the group were now staring at Pia and me as if they’d never seen anyone like us before in their lives.

  ‘Probably your blue eyes,’ said JJ. ‘The usual eye colour here is brown.’

  ‘There’s a lot to get used to here,’ I said. ‘Not just the elephants in the street but I’ve noticed loads of beggars, some of them children.’

  Alisha nodded. ‘I know. It’s upsetting, isn’t it?’

  I nodded back but didn’t say much more. I found the extremes of total luxury and abject poverty hard to get my head around, both here and back in the UK. It didn’t make sense that some people had so much and others had so little.

  JJ took my hand. ‘It’s a strange world, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Like, our family lives in the most amazing places and we have an extraordinary lifestyle that allows us to travel to places like this, while some people have nothing.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was just thinking,’ I said.

  JJ squeezed my hand. ‘That’s why we get on. I like that you see what’s going on around you on every level. You get the extremes, the contrast in lifestyles.’

  ‘I do and I wish I could do something to help,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ JJ agreed. ‘It’s hard to know where to start sometimes, though, isn’t it? Mom and Dad give a lot to charity, and they both agree that it’s important to give something back if you’re earning a lot. Like, Mom’s donations have helped build a school in the north of India, but sometimes she gets a bit freaked out by the number of requests for help we get. Some from organisations, some from individuals – everyone has their story and so many are in need, but we can’t give to everyone.’

  ‘I went to a Christmas dinner for the homeless back in London last December,’ I said. ‘My Aunt Maddie helped organise it. When I learnt what had happened to some of them, it really changed the way I saw them, so I completely get what you’re saying. Everyone has their story. But how do you decide who to give to and who not?’

  ‘Mom has an assistant in LA who deals with all of that. She helps her decide but there are days when both of them get upset. We haven’t enough to help everyone and some of the cases are pretty distressing.’

  What he said made me think. I sometimes gave some coins to the beggars in London but with my small amount of pocket money, I often felt that there was little I could do to address the imbalance of wealth – and here was JJ whose family were loaded and he felt the same. I was glad to hear that his family helped, though, it made me feel closer to him and less guilty about the amazing luxury we were experiencing travelling with them.

  On the next set of steps, Indian women were sitting and making garlands of gold and red flowers for people going into the temple. Mrs Lewis dropped some coins into a basket and gave us each a necklace of flowers to wear.

  ‘This place is awesome,’ said Pia as we reached a large brass statue of a half man, half eagle.

  To our left, a holy man with white dreadlocks, naked from the waist up, was smoking a pipe. I wrinkled my nose.

  JJ sniffed the air. ‘Hashish,’ he said. ‘So the spiritual high isn’t totally natural after all!’

  Alisha took a look around at the crowd of tourists and assorted holy men, some dressed, some not, and grimaced. ‘This is so not what I expected. It’s like Crazyville up here.’

  ‘I told you so, sis,’ said JJ, then turned to me. ‘She really thought we’d be going to some cool LA spa type place where you could buy a bottle of secret elixir or sit in some elegant air-conditioned room and get enlightened as easily as switching on a lightbulb.’

  Alisha frowned. ‘Apparently there’s a guru on every street corner here. How are you supposed to know which ones are genuine?’

  ‘Just look around you, Alisha,’ said JJ, and he indicated the many Westerners in the crowd who were dressed in Indian clothes. ‘All these people are here to find out which guru is the real thing. So many seekers on a quest. All looking for answers to the big questions.’

  Alisha spotted Prasad at the back of the temple and her face lit up. ‘Ah, talking of the real thing . . . see you later, guys.’

  ‘Don’t go too far,’ Mrs Lewis warned, then she saw Prasad. ‘Stay with him.’

  Alisha gave her mother a thumbs-up and disappeared into the crowd.

  ‘Do you want me to follow?’ asked Vanya.

  Mrs Lewis shook her head. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for her and maybe you can check on her every now and then too.’

  Vanya nodded. Poor Alisha, she wasn’t going to get time alone with Prasad, either.

  Me, JJ and Pia set off to explore the temple, with Mrs Lewis and Vanya not far behind us. If I’d thought I was on another planet before in Udaipur town, as we went from room to room in the temple I felt like I was in another universe. It was bizarre. In one area, there was a holy man with his right arm held up in the air.

  ‘Apparently he’s kept it up like that for four years,’ JJ told us.

  ‘Why?’ asked Pia.

  ‘Something about overcoming the physical restraints of the body,’ said JJ. ‘I read about it in a leaflet back at the hotel.’

  ‘But surely we were meant to use our arms,’ said Pia. ‘So not using them is like going against God. Or like someone cooking a really nice dinner and then their guest saying, “No, ta, I’m going to put it in the bin to show that I don’t need to eat it”.’

  ‘I guess, but each to his own,’ said JJ. ‘There are some holy men who stand on one leg for years, and others who fast for months on end. And one man rolled himself all the way to a religious festival, miles and miles away.’

  ‘Rolled?’ I asked.

  JJ nodded. ‘Yeah, he made his body into a roly-poly wheel type thing.’

  ‘Why didn’t he just get a bus?’ asked Pia.

  JJ shrugged.

  ‘And this helps you get enlightened?’ I asked. ‘Because I don’t think Alisha’s going to want to do anything like stand on one leg for a year . . . There has to be an easier way. And seriously, what’s with all the naked guys?’

  ‘Apparently it’s the highest form of renunciation,’ JJ replied. ‘By their nakedness, they’re showing that they want nothing of this material world. No rags, no clothes.’

  I supposed that kind of made sense, though it was still a bit disconcerting seeing so many beardy naked guys wandering about, however holy they were.

  Just then, a group of young Westerners in orange dhotis passed behind us chanting, ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.’ I couldn’t help but smile watching them, they seemed so happy, grinning their heads off and banging their bells and drums like they’d just had the best news ever. I noticed that they had a little tuft of hair at the back of their shaved heads.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ I asked JJ. ‘Did they miss a bit?’

  ‘I heard that they leave it like that so God can pull them up to heaven when he’s ready,’ said JJ.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Bet that would hurt.’

  We turned a corner to see a group of people lining up.

  ‘What’s the queue for?’ Pia asked a young blonde girl who was wa
iting in line.

  She pointed to a poster of an elderly Indian lady. ‘We’re waiting to be hugged,’ she said.

  ‘OK . . .’ said Pia, but she didn’t pursue it. The girl had an intense look about her, her eyes slightly glazed, and I got the feeling that Pia didn’t want to get pulled in.

  ‘Fancy a hug?’ asked JJ.

  ‘From you,’ I said. ‘Not from some old lady I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hug,’ said Pia and clasped me to her. ‘Feel anything?’

  I laughed. ‘Yes. A small and very hot English girl. Now get off!’

  JJ pulled me over to look at a poster outside a small tent in the corner advertising a laughing workshop. ‘Hey, let’s check this out,’ he said. ‘I could do with a laugh.’

  We filed into the tent with a few other people. I turned to check if Mrs Lewis was going to join us and saw that Alisha and Prasad were with her. Alisha pulled a face to let me know that the whole convention wasn’t her thing. I indicated the workshop poster and Alisha glanced at it then shook her head, so I turned back and joined Pia and JJ.

  About twenty of us were crowded into the small tent when an Indian man with a beard and long white hair came in and greeted everyone. ‘Welcome, welcome,’ he said, beaming as we took our places at the back.

  ‘Everyone ready to laugh?’ asked the bearded man.

  A few said, ‘yes’, others shifted about on their feet as if they weren’t quite sure.

  ‘First we start with joke,’ said the man. ‘How many gurus does it take to change a lightbulb?’

  Nobody answered.

  ‘None. Change has to come from within.’

  There was a little laughter and a groan from the crowd.

  ‘Ah,’ said the man with a big grin, ‘but see, you smiling now. Smiling good. Laughing better. Best medicine. So. First, we’re going to do silent laughing.’ He demonstrated someone laughing without sound and I couldn’t help but smile while watching him. He looked so funny.