Cartwheels in a Sari (3 page)

“Yes, Guru,” I answered, scooping his stufties off the floor and arranging them on his bed like guardians.

“You did not do that soulfully. I am very displeased with you. Now let me keep Fluffity Bunny,” he said, with a cheeky smile.

Fluffity Bunny? She was my favorite stuftie. He had crossed the line.

“MOOOOOMMM!” I screamed as loud as possible. “Ketan's a mean guru again!”

As my parents kept receiving menacing threats from women with folded hands when our thumps and banging proved too distracting for the culmination of peace, light, and bliss in our basement, my parents sought a desperate solution. For weeks, my parents had secret arguments spelled aloud for us not to understand, but we knew they were looking for a way to keep us quiet.

“It's HARMLESS,” my mother spelled, folding her sari.

“It's a BAD INFLUENCE,” my father replied.

“TO—UGH,” my mother said, shutting the door behind her.

The next Monday, my father asked Guru if Ketan and I
could watch television in an attempt to keep us quiet. After careful research, my mother discovered that Monday night aired a double feature of
The Muppet Show
and
Little House on the Prairie—
both shows, just barely, were not too corrupting. Guru told his disciples that watching TV was like ingesting garbage. Most disciples did not even own a TV, and those who did were seen as suspect. My mother had a small ten-inch black-and-white TV that Ketan and I were forbidden to watch. When we asked my mother why she had a TV when it was so bad, she said she had a secret assignment from Guru, and that we shouldn't mention it to the other disciples. She hid the TV in her room, on a high shelf, out of reach. Guru had given my parents strict instructions about keeping us away from TV; while an entire generation of American youth was being raised by
The Love Boat, Charlie's Angels,
and
The Dukes of Hazzard,
we were memorizing Guru's aphorisms and using our
mala
beads to say our prayers. Some nights, however, from outside our parents’ door, when my mother was inside alone, we heard the faint sounds of a canned laugh track leaking out into the night, and we understood that she was working on her top-secret assignment. Ketan plotted and waited for a time that eventually both Mom and Dad would go away long enough for him to scale the shelf and watch what Guru had declared as forbidden garbage.

Guru, tired of hearing the continuous complaints about the noise level, finally agreed that he would allow us to watch both shows. This was ecstasy. Monday nights became the hands-down greatest night. Not only would my guru come and bless us, but we could also watch TV. Ketan and I became instant addicts. Ketan imitated Gonzo and Kermit, and I laughed, prancing around the room like I was Miss
Piggy. We then gathered up extra pillows to sit upon as we watched the Ingalls family and their world. It was my first glimpse at how another family interacted. What? No guru? I asked my father why there was no guru on the show. He told me that there really was a guru that the family meditated with, but that was kept for special episodes that our TV antenna couldn't pick up. It made sense to me. All of his explanations and insertions of Guru were gospel. At our bedtime, in those few cherished minutes that my father spent with us, he read aloud from the small collection of outside books that he considered neutral enough not to corrupt us. However, he added his own editorial corrections that made the books more spiritual. He inserted sections, ensuring us that before the Hobbits went to bed, they meditated on Guru, and before Lucy went into the closet in search of Narnia, she asked Guru's permission. I never inquired about the Muppets’ guru. I assumed that the two old men in the balcony were their avatars.

Long after the TV was turned off, inevitably, we were summoned downstairs for the showing of what the disciples called the Golden Child and her brother. Public speaking and stage fright have never been a problem for me. When Guru first called me to the stage, I was too little to walk, and so my mother or father carried me up for Guru's public blessing. By the time I could walk on my own, I needed to earn my blessing. Usually, I was asked to sing. Guru loved music, and in the ashram where he was raised,
bhajans,
devotional songs, were taught and sung as part of the meditation and played a large role in the spiritual practice of the disciples. Like many other aspects of his teachings, Guru imported this practice when he came to America, no longer in the role as a disciple but as a
guru. Although Guru spoke English fluently, most of the songs that he composed were in Bengali, his native language. With simple melodies, Guru taught hundreds and hundreds of songs on his harmonium, a small keyboard that needed to be air-pumped for the notes to escape.

Guru sat on his Guru-blue throne at the front of the hall, dressed in a yellow dhoti, which reflected the golden hue of his skin. Wisps of gray hair, cropped close to the curve of his scalp, hinted at what was once a full head of hair. Guru placed his hands together in front of his forehead, creating a deep bow. He held this position, as we all matched his stance, bowing low to him. Slowly, Guru unfolded and straightened, dropping his hands into his lap; his dark eyes scanned the room from left to right before closing into his “lion's pose”— the eyelids halfway shut and his eyeballs flickering, his pupils lost in a span of white. This movement of the eyes was a manifestation of a state of consciousness that, according to Guru, only extremely highly evolved souls could achieve. But that certainly didn't stop a lot of disciples from trying, including me.

“Jayanti, good girl. You sing two songs.”

That was my cue. I was on. I stood up, adjusted my sari, folded my hands, and marched up the aisle. I bowed to Guru, stood beside his throne, then turned to face the audience. On the floor beside his throne were arrangements of flowers, offerings from different disciples, some for special occasions, birthdays, or the anniversary of their coming to the Center, some just for an opportunity to have a bouquet near Guru, with a note that reminded Guru of their existence. Flowers always surrounded Guru, and each time I was near Guru I breathed in the sweet tropical scent.

I checked in with the important figures in the room: my mom mouthed the first few words of the song that we had rehearsed the entire day; my father was asleep, and his folded hands crashed into his lap, then his head rebounded awake; Ketan, from the back of the hall, kept his hands folded but poked his tongue hard from his right cheek to his left cheek in a concentrated effort to jinx me. I then scanned the rest of the audience—the men's side and women's side—Guru made them always sit on separate sides. I looked around for the favorite meditators whom Ketan and I secretly imitated: An-jana, a dramatic blond woman who kept her arms straight out in front, with her folded hands looking like the top of a pyramid; Prana, a frizzy-haired woman who consistently wore white and who stretched her neck, heaven bound, so we could see up her nostrils; Vivek, a short bald man, who brought his own folding chair, and spastically shook both feet. They were all there. I smiled, ready to go.

“Phule phule, dhule dhule, moranachi, khule khule, kota-hathe eshe koto jabo …”

“Bah, Bah. Good girl,” Guru said with a slight tilt of his head and sweet smile. “One more. Bah.”

Number two.

“Ananda bola nirvana dola, tunga ala …”

“Excellent.”

Guru was pleased. I had passed. I turned back to Guru and gave a deep bow, then I turned to the audience and gave them a deep bow. I had no idea what I had just sung.

When Guru taught songs, he rarely translated them. Music, he said, was the language of the soul, and it communicated perfectly; therefore it was unnecessary to translate. While I had hundreds of Bengali songs memorized, they could have
been in Urdu, pig Latin, or Klingon, for all I knew. It didn't much matter anyway. What mattered was the consciousness with which they were sung.

“Most soulful, good girl. Most soulful.”

Yes. I had done it again. I had pleased him. “Soulful” was what I aimed for. I was done. I could go back upstairs.

WITH KETAN AS
the leader, I eagerly agreed to his plots, curious to see how far we could push our boundaries. No longer satisfied with just our TV triumph, Ketan began scheming for our latest, and most dire, rule manipulation: Operation Get-a-Pet. Guru forbade disciples from owning pets, and so Ketan wisely decided that on such a critical matter, the way to go was to exploit my Chosen One status to the fullest. The assault would have to come from me. Even the idea of having an animal made me shiver with glee. Ketan and I talked constantly in front of our parents about owning a pet, but we realized that we were wasting our efforts. The way things worked in my family was that my parents did not make any decisions.

“Ask Guru,” they would say when it was a matter of anything from our bedtime to having a rope swing.

Though I knew Guru prohibited pets, my desire for a small, fluffy friend seemed to outweigh my desire for spiritual progress. We decided that if I asked for an animal that Guru hadn't mentioned by name during his talks about not having pets, then maybe it would be all right. Dogs and cats were officially on his bad list, but we had never heard his policy on rabbits.

After weeks of plotting, we chose one Monday in April as
the critical night. We had been extra quiet during the meditation, staying glued in our beds with the volume completely off during both
The Muppet Show
and
Little House on the Prairie,
and we had said extra prayers in the morning. And now it was time. Ketan nudged me forward.

With my hair in raggedy braids, wearing my best sari, I approached Guru after the meditation, as he lounged on his sacred throne that we were not allowed to touch.

“Jayanti, bah, good girl. All right?” Guru asked, holding a glass of mango lassi.

“Yes, Guru.” I answered with folded hands.

Folded hands and properly addressing Guru was second nature. I could not have imagined it any other way. I could keep my hands folded and sit with a straight back, knees tucked in—feet could never be pointed at Guru for it was a sign of disrespect—without squirming for hours; I'd had lots and lots of practice.

“Next week, you come and sing two songs. Two songs, good girl. You sing next week.”

“Yes, Guru.” I said, inching closer to his chair.

Guru sipped his drink once more.

“Your mother made most delicious lassi. You tell her, most delicious.”

“Yes, Guru.” I nodded my head, making note of his exact words to relay his message properly back into the kitchen.

I sat there waiting with my hands folded. Guru put the drink on his table and shut his eyes. Often, without notice, Guru would slip off into a deep meditative state. During those periods, everyone would meditate. Sometimes it lasted for only a few seconds; other times hours could pass. No one disturbed him. Guru told us when he appeared to the outer,
ordinary eye to be napping, he was doing very important work in the inner worlds. Guru repeatedly told us that to him, the inner worlds were more real and more important than the outer world. For Guru, the inner worlds were vivid planes of consciousness where he solved both disciples’ problems and national and international crises. According to Guru, without his inner intervention, America would have had a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Luckily, he used his arsenal of occult power to avert an all-out nuclear holocaust. These were the types of activities that Guru managed when his eyes were closed and his feet jiggled. Who was I to interrupt? But my problem was more serious, more pressing than the obliteration of the human race: I wanted a bunny.

I sat and sat. I wanted a bunny. I waited and sat. I wanted a bunny. My feet fell asleep. I wanted a bunny. I still sat. I shifted position, holding my hands tightly folded. And I waited. And I still wanted a bunny. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ketan yawn. He stood against the wall, holding Big Teddy, his favorite ragged brown stuftie. His eyes drooped; he looked ready to give up. I wasn't. I wanted a bunny.

I continued to wait. I aimed my meditative powers at Guru, coaxing him to open his eyes and answer my question. I concentrated harder, half-shutting my own eyes to aid my effort, and pressed my folded hands against my chest. In my head, I spoke loudly to Guru. I knew he would hear me:
Give Me a Bunny.

This went on for what felt like hours. My feet, after being reshifted, began the prickly phase of returning from dead sleep; I moved my legs under my rear. I was wearing down.

Suddenly, Guru opened his eyes and announced, full of vigor, “Bah, good girl. All right? Let us go.”

His selected chauffeur for the night took off, rattling his keys. I was missing my chance.

“Guru?” I softly asked.

He didn't hear me and was putting his bare feet back into his white open sandals. He slowly started to push to the edge of the chair.

“Guru?” I asked again.

“Oi. You? A question? Ask, Jayanti.”

“Guru, I wanted to know if I could, if I could get a bunny?”

I had done it. I asked the great question. I felt Ketan spring to attention.

“What?” Guru looked to my father, who had come back into the room, holding Guru's wool coat.

“She wants to know if she can have a rabbit.” My father attempted to decipher my question.

“An animal?” Guru asked my father.

“A little bunny. Guru, can I please have a little bunny? I promise to teach it to meditate. It will be a very good disciple.” I inched forward, led by my folded hands.

What could Guru do? That would be a tough request to deny for anyone. He was cornered by cuteness. He caved.

“Yes. You tell your parents you can have bunny. And you bring bunny to me for a spiritual name.”

I was overwhelmed. I had received a special exception to the law, and the bunny would have a spiritual name. Life was good. Really good.

The next day, my mother drove my brother and me out to a small farm with a sign announcing free rabbits. After much debate, we selected a black-and-white dwarf bunny and brought it home. It was a girl. The next Monday, with the rabbit clutched against my chest, I managed to hold on to her
with only half my stomach scratched up while Guru gave her the name Munu, meaning “Little Darling” in Bengali. I was ecstatic. I even tried once to teach Munu to meditate, forcing her paws together in front of a picture of Guru, but when she bit me, I gave up.