The Lost Girls (28 page)

After a surprisingly accurate hourlong journey, we rumbled up a gravel slope to the entrance of Shraddha. All the noise and congestion of the city had fallen far behind us, replaced by a peaceful, sprawling paradise of lush green forests and tropical flowers. Set above a sparkling lake in the foothills of the western Ghats, the ashram certainly afforded its devotees some pretty spectacular views. Although, as we soon learned, smoking, alcohol, drugs, meat, fish, eggs, garlic, onions, cell phones, sleeveless shirts, and public displays of affection (to name a few) were all strictly prohibited on the premises, so I figured the actual premises had to make up for that somehow.

As we followed the palm-fringed path in pursuit of the check-in area, a deep “Om” echoed through the treetops like the ominous hum of a battle horn. But rather than an angry militia, we were met by hundreds of serene yogis in drawstring pants and baggy T-shirts who floated up the hill toward an open-air pavilion.

We arrived at the front desk, and an impish blond waved us over to the end of the counter, where she stood guard over stacks of colored folders. She explained that the students had just finished their second
asana
(yoga) class of the day and were headed to dinner. Once we finished filling out the mandatory paperwork, we were welcome to join the group or just chill out until evening
satsung
(silent meditation and chanting).

After quickly scribbling our signatures on dozens of forms, we headed to our assigned dorm to set up camp with our Shraddha-issued sheets, pillowcases, and mosquito nets. While
Holly busied herself with the massive teacher-training manual, Amanda and I reviewed the daily schedule:

Despite all the rebellious thoughts swimming through my mind (“There's no way in hell I'm getting up that early! Are two satsung sessions really necessary? Lecture, smecture!”), I was intrigued by ashram culture and genuinely excited about the yoga, brunch, dinner, and tea sections of the itinerary. And thanks to the über-cheap price tag of $11 per day for all meals, classes, and lodging, Amanda and I would shave enough money off our weekly budget to splurge on a scuba dive outing in Goa.

While I suspected that conforming to such a chaste existence might prove challenging, the first couple days were surprisingly carefree and rewarding. Sure, my foot fell asleep during morning meditation, sending me into an epileptic tailspin, and I was shushed by goody-goody students for disregarding the
SILENCE
signs during the meals, but I'd held my own in the more advanced of the two yoga classes, almost enjoyed the vegetarian slop, and memorized a few lines from the “Shri Ganesha” chant. Yes, I was well on my way to achieving transcendence.

 

Y
ou can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave!

The line from the Eagles song echoed through my head as the gangly, bug-eyed Indian blocked the exit gate, refusing to let Amanda and me pass. Even though the sun had already burned off the early-morning mist, I could feel a Hotel California–twisted haze settle over the sacred grounds. Somehow, an innocent attempt to swap our satsung for a DIY nature hike had landed us in the middle of a hostage crisis.

“You can't stop us from leaving,” Amanda sputtered in disbelief. “We're just going to walk out!”

“No, no, you must be needing a pass from Swami, permission and then to go,” the bewildered guard replied in fractured “Hindlish”—rapid-fire Hindu with English-sounding words tossed in.

“Yeah, well, the swami is kind of tied up at the moment leading satsung,” Amanda replied tersely. “And we'd like to go now.”

“Oh, Christ, it's barely sunrise and I already need a drink,” I muttered under my breath. At this rate, I was beginning to think a few mimosas might help me reach nirvana faster than chanting and headstands ever could. But now I'd never get to test that theory, as it seemed Amanda and I were trapped here forever, or at least until we were reincarnated as dung beetles and could scurry under the fence undetected. Damn! If only I'd bothered to read the epic list of Shraddha rules, I would have noticed that my personal freedom was in direct violation of its strict moral code.

“If you leave, it must go forever. And you must to pay,” the guard shouted, maniacally bobbling his head and shaking his nightstick at us in disgust.

“Are you saying you're going to kick us out for trying to take a walk?” Amanda asked.

“You very bad womens! You go!” our captor spewed, rendering us speechless.

Ordinarily, a comment like that would have rolled right off my backpack-toughened shoulders. After all, this overzealous ashram guard was far from the toughest adversary we'd faced on the road. But as our minor dispute with him escalated into a full-scale Bollywood battle scene, an overwhelming sense of anger and panic began to brew deep within my gut. I had come here to relax, clear my head, and tap into my inner harmony (or something like that), not to be reprimanded by some staff member with a clipboard holding me prisoner against my will.

All of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. The cement walls started to close in around me, the neck of my sports top tightened like a noose and the guard's face twisted and distorted like a clown in a fun house mirror. Despite having lived for half a decade in a city where residents regularly popped Paxil and Xanax with their postwork martinis, I'd never personally experienced a bona fide anxiety attack. But in the heat of this bizarre moment, I was beginning to unravel.

“This is absolutely ridiculous!” I wailed, my shrill voice practically sending a ripple across the placid lake. “We're just trying to take a freakin' walk by the water, to connect with nature and find some
peace
, for crying out loud! You can't keep us locked in this crazy place! I will not put up with it anymore!” I shouted. Turning my back on the astonished gatekeeper, I immediately fled the scene, my arms flailing like those of a petulant child in the midst of a tantrum.

As I cut across the meticulously pruned lawn, my chest seized and spasmed as freshly formed tears threatened to spill. I heard Amanda calling after me, but I refused to stop. I stumbled blindly through the Serenity Garden, inadvertently mowing down a few Shiva and Krishna statues in my path. Perfect, another blasphemous deed to heap onto my overflowing bad
karma plate. Before a swarm of angry locusts could attack, I sprinted up the stairway to the dank and dingy communal student barracks and collapsed onto my cot.

To an innocent bystander, my behavior might have appeared a little erratic. Okay, maybe a lot erratic. But it didn't take a guru (or a shrink) to figure out that my intense overreaction sprang from a much deeper place. After only a few days of spiritual training, even I was enlightened enough to realize that the true source of my emotional outburst was not the shrunken Indian man blocking the ashram exit but rather a taller American one back home.

Less than twelve hours earlier, I'd made a quick trip to the Internet hut near the ashram check-in desk and found an e-mail from Brian waiting in my inbox. While our exchanges had been understandably strained, we'd still been making an effort to keep in touch, periodically checking in, and trying to come to terms with our breakup as best as we could from such a long distance. Although hearing from him caused my heart to seize and my stomach to sink down to my knees, I was more than willing to endure the pain if it meant getting to keep him in my life in some capacity. But his latest message made it clear that he didn't feel the same way.

In the kindest way possible, he explained that it was too difficult for him to continue any communication with me and asked for some time—without e-mail messages or calls—to get over everything. At the time, I'd simply logged out and pretended the e-mail didn't exist. It's not that I was in total denial. I'd seen the writing on the wall for quite some time, but I'd hoped that it was scribbled in disappearing ink. And that after a couple months apart, Brian would feel different about everything and that maybe someday we could even go back to being friends.

Sprawled across the creaky ashram cot, I felt reality hit me. I had lost my best friend, probably forever, and there was abso
lutely nothing I could do about it. Maybe the ashram guard was right. Maybe I
was
a bad woman. I had convinced myself that it would be easier on Brian if we stayed together until I left on the trip, but I could see now how selfish that choice had really been. In an effort to delay the pain of separation, I'd strung Brian along and maybe hurt him more than I would have if I'd just made a clean break the moment I knew I was leaving NYC. And worst of all, I was the one who got to move on—experiencing new things, meeting new people every single day of my adventure—while he was the one left behind to pick up the pieces.

Suddenly I felt sick. For the past two months, I'd successfully repressed any breakup-related emotions, pretending that if I wasn't back in New York, none of it was actually real. Now, as I sat alone in the Shraddha dorm, a hollow sensation settled in the base of my stomach like a sticky mass of pulp at the bottom of a freshly carved pumpkin. I could run away to the farthest recesses of the globe, but I could never really escape my problems. All the irrational fears I thought I'd gotten over suddenly came flooding back: What if I never found anyone I loved more than Brian? By the time I got back from the trip I'd be twenty-nine. What if that was too old to start my dating career? What if I never found The One or got married and had kids? What if I wound up an old lady surrounded by cats and other scary things, like doilies and dusty knickknacks?

Of course I remembered having had a similar reaction when things had ended for good with my first serious boyfriend, Rick, but back then, I'd been a naive twenty-two, not a practically over-the-hill twenty-eight. And at the time I'd been living at home in Maryland with a huge support system of friends and family. If I'd been back in the States right now, my girlfriends would have organized an emergency intervention session: sappy chick flicks, an overstuffed box of Puffs, and a full pan of extra-fudgy brownies (the real deal too, not the bullshit low-fat kind).
Or I would call one of my best guy friends, and he'd be at my door in a second, ready to cuddle on the couch with a funny movie or to take me out dancing until 3 a.m.

But here at the ashram, all I had was a pamphlet on Proper Breathing and Ayurvedic Massage, a lumpy mattress, and a few raisins for dessert—if I was lucky. Just as I was slipping further into my self-created pit of despair, an unexpected voice pulled me back.

“You're cutting meditation class too, huh?” asked the friendly girl who slept on the cot around the corner from mine. I'd chatted with her a few times in the twenty minutes they gave us between evening chanting sessions and mandatory lights out, but I couldn't for the life of me remember her name. “I'm Laura, by the way,” she said, saving me from asking her again.

“I'm Jen. And yes, I too am a Shraddha slacker,” I replied, extracting myself from the cot.

We both laughed, and Laura admitted that she was mainly there for the yoga. I could believe it. With a six-pack that could rival Gwen Stefani's, she appeared to take her practice very seriously.

“Have you been doing yoga for a while?” I asked, contemplating the insane amount of crunches and cardio I'd need to add to my workout repertoire to get even a single ab of steel like hers.

She sat down across from me. “For almost seven years, actually. I got into it right after my divorce, and it seriously brought me back from the dead. Now I have my own studio in L.A., which, ironically, my ex-husband has been running for me while I've been touring Southeast Asia and India,” she added, pulling on a baggy T-shirt, a requirement for our morning yoga session.

“Wow, are you serious? The fact that you have your own business
and
are on good terms with your ex is pretty impres
sive,” I said, rummaging through my bag to locate my sports watch.

“Yeah, well, it took a
long
time for us to make peace with one another, but eventually we realized we were much better off as friends. Lucky for me, I was only twenty-seven when we split, so I had plenty of time to start over.” I mentally did the calculation, and my brain did a double take. I'd assumed Laura couldn't have been much older than I was, but in fact she was thirty-four. If that was the effect yoga had on the aging process, I might change my mind and move into the ashram for good.

“And really, all of my most delicious love affairs have been in my thirties,” she added.

“Really? That's comforting to hear. I'm twenty-eight and recently single for the first time in four years and I kinda freaked out about it just now,” I confessed, oddly comfortable chatting with this relative stranger about my personal crisis. “Not because it wasn't the right thing to do, but it's hard to say good-bye to a boyfriend no matter what the circumstances.”

“I totally understand. I know how devastating breakups are, but it does get easier. And on the bright side, you don't have to deal with divorce lawyers,” Laura replied. “But you really are in a great place right now. I'm so envious that you're starting this phase of your life because it's the best. You can travel for a couple years, date whoever you want along the way, and still have plenty of time to get married when you get back. Or not at all if you're smart,” she added with a wink.

Clang, clang, clang
, the postmeditation bell sounded, signaling the half-hour tea break.