Cartwheels in a Sari (4 page)

I WAS CONVINCED
that with these new special TV and pet privileges, I would live happily ever after. Until the day my father, for the first time in my entire life, shopped. My father, a man who had once longed to become a
sanyassi
and renounce all material possessions, was known as the cheapest kid in Bismarck, North Dakota. Even as a teen, he never spent money. He enjoyed the challenge of seeing how long he could go without spending a single cent. His pride in his thriftiness only increased as an adult. He gloated that he had never shopped for a single piece of clothing or food, which left my mother the task of purchasing all the basics—clothes, food, toiletries—smuggling them into the house, and placing them in their presumed spots with all price tags removed, to make it appear as if they had just always been there. The fact that renunciation of material objects was part of the tradition that led to oneness with God pleased my father enormously. He enjoyed retelling the sacred tale of Prince Siddhartha stepping over the warm sleeping bodies of his wife and son and walking away from the gold-drenched excesses of his palatial dwelling in order to find God. When my mother interjected that our cramped house could hardly be considered palatial, my father accused her of being too bound by materialism. When our ancient Chevy station wagon died, it forced my
father to scour the
Bargain News,
reluctantly open his tattered wallet, and buy a beat-up tan Dodge Dart for two hundred dollars. The car came without a muffler, speedometer, or heat.

“It's perfect,” my father said, jiggling the keys.

Therefore it was a true surprise when my father brought home an expensive purchase, a roughly chiseled bust with abstract carvings for the facial features, pitted pockets for eyes, and a wide slab for lips. The head, seemingly decapitated, perched on a square base. When my father unpacked it, I was terrified.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It's Guru, of course,” my father said.

“What happened to his body? And why does he look like that?”

“It's an interpretation of his highest
samadhi
consciousness,” my father said.

“Do we have to keep it?”

My father shot me a disappointed look, and I faked a smile, like I had made a joke.

My father built a small stone shrine in our backyard to house it, and I took great pains to avoid it. During the day, I looped around the backwoods to evade its vacant stare. But the daytime was not my real concern; I suspected that during the day, with my family around, I was relatively safe; the real threat, I feared, came at night.

After Ketan was asleep in the top bunk, and the rest of the house was hushed into darkness, I imagined that the Guru bust hunted me, sprouting arms, tentacle-like appendages that expanded from its base. They slowly snaked down the
stones, across the grass, up the shingles, through the window, into my room, extending, writhing to my pillow, and strangling me, airless and smothered. I lay awake, terrified, listening for its rustle across the grass or the creaking of the window screen lifting. My parents in the next room were millions of miles away. Even Ketan, directly above me, could not save me. It was patient and relentless. It would get me in the end. It was only a matter of time, but my family was utterly oblivious. No one could see the dangers of this supposedly holy figure but me.

ONE MONDAY NIGHT
in late September, Guru instructed my parents to set up the meditation outside in the field beside our house. All afternoon dark rain clouds filled the sky as the wind whipped through the trees. When my father told Guru that a storm seemed likely, Guru pointed to his own third eye and said he was the guru and did not want or need suggestions. My father quickly bowed in understanding of Guru's wise teaching moment, then ran to the basement to carry Guru's throne outside.

Our field quickly filled with disciples. As soon as Guru began meditating, lightning flashed and thunder banged. Guru said he would give a special meditation to stop the rain, and he raised his folded hands. For ten minutes, the sky quieted. I smiled. My guru could do anything, even banish the rain without effort. But when fat raindrops landed in my lap, making my sari stick to my legs, I wondered what had happened. Guru scanned both the men's and ladies’ sides and, in a voice coated with disappointment, revealed that some of the very same disciples who sat before him had inwardly expressed
doubt at Guru's capacities. Because of this poisonous doubt, he had held off the rain for only a limited time, and now, to teach a true lesson, the rest of the meditation would be cloaked in rain. I looked around me, suspiciously, wondering who the doubters were. Who were the culprits who dared to disbelieve Guru? I was furious that these same people had the audacity to sit, attempting to blend in with the true disciples.

But by the end of the night, I had lost interest in whoever caused the downpour. I was drenched and restless. I whispered to my mother that I needed to use the bathroom. When I found Ketan stomping in huge puddles at the back, we decided to sneak off. We ran into the side woods, crouched inside the brambles, and watched the remainder of the function from our hiding place. Usually I was in the front or on the stage during functions. This was the very first time that I observed the disciples without being a part of them: row upon row of men and women seated on opposite sides, all facing one direction—toward Guru. They seemed prepared to sit lotus style in muddy puddles forever or until Guru said to stop. I suddenly felt inspired to move; I didn't want to sit in the mud. I sprang up like a can of soda after a violent shaking, then I crouched back down. Ketan covered his mouth to mask his giggles. I did it again and again. I too started to laugh. I was air bound, wild and untethered. I spun around and around, propelling myself in circles with my arms as oars, giggling, until my head rocked with dizziness, and then I stopped, steadying my feet.

Suddenly, I worried that I might have missed something. Guru might have called for me, and I was not there. I looked over the sea of sopping folded hands, eyes flickering with
devoted bliss, for Guru, the grounding factor, the constant temperature gauge of my behavior, of my status. His reassuring smile, his wave of the hand, his affirmation that I was a good girl, echoed from his lips to my parents’ ears, and to the disciples, which composed the totality of my world. But that night, when I caught sight of him in his chair, he was in profile, as my father stood motionless soaked from the downpour, with his long white pants and shirt plastered to his skin, holding an umbrella to keep Guru perfectly dry. The silhouette of Guru's head was suddenly transformed into the terrifying bust in my backyard that haunted me at night. I saw the same effigy that pretended to be benign, accepting flowers and folded hands, but then in absolute secrecy snaked its tentacles around me, muffling my movements, my thoughts, my breath. I rubbed my eyes, blaming the rain, but as I focused a second time, Guru's blanket, which covered his entire body up to his neck, revealed the same bodiless head that disappeared into a base in my backyard. I shivered, imagining the arms sprouting, then slithering their way to me and me alone. A minute later, Guru stood up, waved, then left.

That night I could not sleep at all. I was confused by what I had seen, and I was still terrified of the Guru doppelgänger, only yards away, plotting to get me. If I were a really good disciple, I would never have seen Guru as anything other than the Supreme. How could I imagine Guru—my beloved Guru, the same one who brought my soul to earth—as a serpentine monster?

My punishment came the next day. There was no stopping karma. And it went right for what I loved the most—my beloved Munu, my hard-won fluffy bunny.

Ketan discovered it first; a pack of wild dogs had torn through the wire on Munu's outdoor cage and mangled her black-and-white body, leaving a scattering of fur and blood across the backyard. By the time I was informed, my father had already left for meditation in Queens, leaving my mom to bury what she had scraped off the grass of our beloved bunny and comfort us. It was a rare night for us to be home, but this night was full of grief, as my loss was inconsolable. She was no ordinary rabbit—she was Guru's disciple, and she had a spiritual name. I shrieked and wailed, crying until my nightgown was damp with tears and snot. I climbed into bed, and for the first time in my life, I didn't say my prayers or even look at my shrine. If Guru controlled everything, which I knew he did, why didn't he prevent Munu's death? I pulled my blanket over my head, creating a tent to prevent my sobs from escaping. Suddenly, I understood. I was much worse than the doubters who sat before Guru but didn't believe in his occult powers. Because, according to Guru and karmic law, all wrong actions had to be punished; therefore I, the Golden Child, had killed my bunny. I was bad and evil. Guru knew it. He also knew that I dreaded his double that lived in my backyard, scheming to capture me each and every night. He knew it, and had given me fair warning.

F
OR MY FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN, I PICKED OUT MY
favorite Guru-blue sari to wear. When my mother gently suggested that I dress in corduroys instead, I looked at her in shock. Out of everyone, she should have understood that this momentous occasion, like all others, required my best sari.

Upon entering the classroom, I introduced myself to Mrs. Wright, bowing my head with folded hands and explaining that my guru gave me the name Jayanti and it meant the Highest Victory of the Supreme in Sanskrit.

“Well, well,” she said, writing an extensive note in her spiral notebook.

Mrs. Wright instructed the class to form a circle on the floor. I sat lotus style, tucking my sari underneath me, and folded my hands, assuming class would start with a meditation, but when Mrs. Wright began talking instead, welcoming all the students and the few scattered parents who remained fastened to their crying kids, I was deeply concerned. I scanned the room at the mixture of unknown boys and girls, none of whom seemed bothered by the lack of
meditation. Aside from the few disciple kids whom we saw at functions, Ketan and I never interacted with children, especially outsiders. Those were Guru's strict orders. Guru didn't want us going to school at all, but since he didn't know home-schooling was an option, to avoid legal troubles, he reluctantly agreed that we could venture to the outside world to avoid breaking the law.

“Wowie. I like your dress,” Betty said, skipping over to me after snack.

“It's a sari. Don't you wear saris to meditate with your guru?”

Betty nodded and tugged at her ringlet.

As far as I was concerned, the whole world had gurus. This was startling news. When I invited Betty to meet Guru, she cheered wildly. My first day and I already had found a new disciple. I was very pleased with myself.

“Can I touch it?” Betty asked, clutching the
pallu,
the decorative portion of the sari that hangs off the left shoulder.

“Betty,” Mrs. Wright said, staring at my sari. “Do not make fun of others for being different. Be respectful of people and their ethnic diversity,” Mrs. Wright ordered, fingering her gold crucifix against her gray turtleneck.

Later in the week, for show-and-tell, while the other kids carted in seashells from the Florida Keys, cookie tins filled with buttons, and Jellybean, Betty's one-eyed gerbil, I volunteered to sing Guru's Bengali devotional songs.

“Phule phule, dhule dhule, moranachi, khule, khule…”
I bellowed out my tune and triumphantly bowed.

The kids cheered and clapped, flapping their hands up and down in excitement.

“And you made that up yourself?” Mrs. Wright asked, tightly crossing her legs.

“No, no. My guru did. He writes lots and lots of songs,” I answered, giving full credit where credit was due. “I know hundreds of them. Do you want to hear more?” I offered.

I was a hit. I promised all my classmates that I would teach them, but they had to sing soulfully.

“That's more than enough for now,” Mrs. Wright replied, walking back to her desk to make yet another notation in her book. I began to have doubts about Mrs. Wright. I didn't think that she would make a very good disciple. Unlike my classmates, she didn't seem receptive to Guru's light. As I skipped off to join the rest of the class, I understood that Mrs. Wright, like so many unfortunate outsiders, was not spiritually aware. I sighed, feeling sorry for her, knowing that she was missing out on so much, but I was not discouraged. There were plenty of classmates, faculty, and staff at the school with whom I could share Guru's special mission. I figured I'd have to take it slowly with Mrs. Wright, and that maybe, eventually, she would have an inner awakening.

However, by the end of the school year, I was seriously rethinking my academic career.

The lessons that were urgent to memorize at school—the names of Christopher Columbus's ships and the lyrics to “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” among others, seemed utterly irrelevant to Guru and the Center. At no meditation had Guru ever even mentioned Christopher Columbus, let alone his ships. And though Guru sang hundreds of songs, he never once requested “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” The complete lack of Guru in the curriculum troubled me. When I asked my parents
why the school didn't teach about Guru, they explained that other children weren't as lucky as I was to study at Guru's inner school. I felt sorry that the entire student body was being deprived of a real education, and it solidified my worries that what filled my days in class and what filled my nights in meditations had nothing in common. School's pencil-and-paste busywork clearly squandered my precious Guru time. For other kindergartners, learning to spell their families’ names might have been a significant goal, but for me it was only a distraction from my one and only goal— God-Realization.

Long before I could say “applesauce” or “shoelace,” God-Realization was part of my earliest repertoire. It was something that Guru guaranteed his disciples, and since I was, after all, the Chosen One, I figured not only did I have a right to it but I should get it before anyone else. Guru said he was the only God-realized person currently alive; he was the sole authority on the subject. Since Guru never went into details to describe what God-Realization was, I tried to figure it out on my own. I imagined that it entailed gaining superpowers—seeing through walls, talking to animals, skipping sleep forever—and that when it came, everything before it would be irrelevant. Guru convinced us his realization meant that he was fully united with the Supreme, giving him the ultimate authority to speak, act, and command all disciples on the Supreme's behalf, erasing any distinctions between Guru and God.