Walking Wisdom

by Gotham Chopra

  “Buy me a cocktail instead.” She smiled back.

  I marched back to our row, avoiding the glares of our fellow passengers, and plopped down beside Candice and Krishu.

  “You didn’t give her her drugs, did you?” Candice shook her head at me, disappointment all over her face.

  “Sheeeet!!!” Krishu reaffirmed.

  My thoughts exactly.

  FLYING FROM THE WEST to East Coast you essentially lose the day. If you leave Los Angeles around breakfast time, you barely make it to New York in time for dinner. Add the fact that we remain in “orange alert,” and you can’t bring aboard so much as a bottle of water. And because nowadays you can’t get a peanut on a commercial airline for anything short of a ten-spot, flying across the country is like fasting for Ramadan. While I am willing to shell out the big bucks for my son, I’m patently averse to enabling the airlines by buying and eating their pressurized food. The consequence, of course, is that upon landing in NYC, I’m always famished. Still, no matter my desperation, even I realize that my needs are no longer a priority in our little family. First comes Krishu—changing the diaper, making sure his clothes are dry, that he’s outfitted right so as to neither be too hot nor too cold, ensuring that he’s not hungry, thirsty, tired, or otherwise off-kilter. Next in line is Cleo, ensuring her food and water are out, that she’s warm and has a place to sleep, and that she’s had a chance to walk around the block, shake off the effects of the flight, and do her business.

  This night, by the time we blazed through all of these required rituals, it was past ten p.m. and my hunger knew no bounds. Realizing that our options were dwindling quickly, I became frantic, nervous that I’d have to resort to stale pizza or the suspiciously shiny food that sits beneath heat lamps all day at the closest corner deli.

  “What’s wrong with that food?” Papa shrugged.

  “Nothing.” I shrugged too, not wanting to get into it. “There has to be something else in the neighborhood that’s open and good.”

  Papa raised his eyebrows mischievously. “I know just the place.”

  His clock thrown off by the transcontinental voyage, and now excited by the city lights and the surprise appearance of his dada amid it all, Krishu was equally excited by the prospects of our dinner adventure. “We go,” he sang, clutching his grandfather’s sleeve as we left the apartment.

  We were escorted by my father to the most unlikely of places just a few blocks away—an old New York City landmark named Rosie O’Grady’s. What made it an unlikely destination for the Chopra family is that Rosie O’Grady’s is most well known for its chops, and the Chopras—notably Deepak—are not. When I raised this conundrum with my father, he got a little defensive. “They have grilled asparagus,” he said.

  The truth is, it’s not easy being Deepak Chopra. He’s unlike other celebrities in the sense that he’s not some A-list actor or filmmaker. He’s not an NFL superstar who packs stadiums, not a rock star who rocks sold-out shows. Those sorts of stars have colleagues. For every Madonna, there’s a Beyoncé. For every Cruise, there’s a Pitt, every Kobe, a LeBron. But there’s only one Deepak. In our world of celebrity obsession, where every move by a famous person is tweeted, paparazzi stalked, and Perez-ed out, Deepak’s pretty much one of a kind.

  And then there’s what he’s famous for, a holiness of sorts. Many of his fans and followers believe he sweats wisdom, breathes spiritual affirmations, and can do no wrong. And while he’s never outwardly declared that he’s a practitioner of things like yoga or veganism, most are convinced of it. The fact is that Papa’s not very hard-core about anything in life. “A rigid life is a static life,” he likes to say. For the record, he’s an exercise fanatic (more elliptical than downward dog) and not big on steaks and chops.

  Still, he’s particularly mindful not to shatter the illusion. In his mind, it’s good for people to have certain ideals, if even he has to bear the burden of representing them. So while he’s not one to shy away from a steakhouse when his family is hungry, you won’t find us sitting in the front of the dining room.

  “The usual spot, Doc?” the gray-haired maître d’ asked as we stepped into the restaurant. Papa nodded and we followed the man through the boisterous place. A cluster of young bankers stood by the worn bar, trading barbs with hoarse voices. At its end, both the bartender and another suit cringed as they stared up at the TV hanging in the corner, seeing the Yankees squander another game as part of their early season malaise. A young woman texted away furiously on her BlackBerry as her date stirred his drink with a straw. Leaving the bar area, we strode through the spacious and busy dining room toward the back of the restaurant.

  “A bottle of Perrier, Doc?” the maître d’ inquired as we took our seats. My father nodded. Gray Hair flashed a smile and disappeared.

  “Come here often, Papa?” Candice grinned at my father.

  “Rumi,” Papa replied, invoking his favorite poet, “says, ‘Judge me, define me, put me in a box and that box will be your coffin.’ ” He smiled back at her and donned his “Liberace glasses,” as I like to call them. They’re bright sparkly red and have become quite iconic among both his fans and the conservative critics who stalk and publicly critique his every aphorism.

  Staring at the menu, he remarked, “I hear they’re famous for their steaks.”

  For what it’s worth, on this night, Candice and I were the only ones ordering massive steaks bedecked with sides. While Papa may be conscious and concerned with appearances in situations like these, Candice and I certainly were not. We were hungry, and our hunger won out.

  No matter his parents’ ravenous state, and no matter how fine an establishment a place like Rosie O’Grady’s might be, Krishu will generally lose his patience within five minutes. The great irony is that in a less refined place, he can seemingly last for hours. Give him a few dumplings, chopsticks, and some soy sauce to play with at a rundown Chinese restaurant and he’s as quiet as a fifty-year-old suit at the Four Seasons. Take him anywhere with a tablecloth and bring on the jihad. Apropos, tonight’s distraction of an array of wineglasses, cutlery, and a salt shaker shaped like a swan stretched him about six minutes. It was time for a diversion. Papa, seeing that Candice and I were weary from our long day of traveling, volunteered to take Krishu for a look-see around the bustling restaurant. With gasps of delight and words soaked in anticipation—“Does Krishu want to see taxis?”—my son can be goaded into almost anything. We’ve all learned this, and my father has, not surprisingly, become a master.

  In the brief time that we have had Krishu and Cleo together, Candice and I have learned to value any moment we are without both of them. We’ve become adept at quickly downing meals, showering in thirty-second intervals, sleeping for mere minutes, engaging in conversations that rely on elevator pitches, and making critical decisions based purely on instinct. At that moment, however, sitting there with bottles of cabernet and Perrier between us, and nothing pressing to do, we breathed.

  “What should we do with Cleo tomorrow?” I broke the silence.

  “During the wedding?” Candice sipped her wine, drawing from it as much pleasure as possible.

  I nodded. Since the wedding was in Jersey, bookended before and after various rituals, we were likely to be gone from morning to night.

  She shrugged. “We’ll leave her with Papa.”

  Candice is not a shrugger. Unless it involved a pair of shoes on sale at Bloomingdale’s or Us Weekly at the supermarket counter, she was also not an impulsive decision-maker. She had thought about this.

  “You really think we can leave Cleo with my father for the whole day?” I calculated the odds as to which one of them would want to jump out of the sixty-ninth-story window first.

  “He did play some part in raising you, you know?” She nodded.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, unwilling to be swayed by my own existence.

  “Look.” She pointed toward the large window in the big dining room. Through it we could see Krishu on Papa’s
shoulders as my father pointed to yellow taxicabs and big blue buses racing down Seventh Avenue. “You and your sister didn’t think he would be much of a grandfather, but he’s figuring it out.”

  “Yeah, but,” I countered, “he’s not a dog person.”

  “Neither is she,” Candice argued.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” I shook my head.

  “They’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  Between Candice and me, trust is kind of a golden word. She doesn’t use it lightly and when she asks for it, she expects it. It’s one of my wife’s greatest qualities. Since the day I met her my freshman year of college, she’s been my best friend and constant companion. Even as we made our way through, at times struggling, a decade’s worth of individual and collective growth, from teenagers through almost our entire twenties before we tied the knot, her commitment to our bond has been the single point of stability through it all.

  “Okay.” I took a swig of my wine.

  Silence.

  “Wow, can you hear that?” Candice asked.

  “No.” I smiled. “And it’s fabulous.”

  Sure, the overaged frat boys at the bar were arguing more heatedly, the bartender and others were cheering loudly at the Yankees’ inevitable comeback, but there was no crying, no toddler demanding this or that, no dog barking furiously. We might as well have been in a seminary tucked away in the French Alps. At night. During a snowstorm.

  “Do you think they’re okay?” Candice couldn’t resist.

  Before I could even answer, Krishu’s wails became audible. A moment later Papa arrived back at the table with a crying Krishu in his arms.

  “What happened?” I asked as I rose from my seat to take the baton that was my sweet crying boy.

  “I don’t know.” My father shook his head. “We were fine. I was showing him the big moo cow in the entryway.”

  We had all noted the massive ceramic cow in the front of the restaurant. It was one of many art pieces spread across the city, porcelain-like bovines painted with assorted designs. Surely it felt a bit strange for one of them to be placed in the entryway of a restaurant that was most well known for the slaughtering of cows and overpricing their garlic-soaked grilled flanks. Then again, we hadn’t been swayed.

  “And then I showed him the moo cows coming out of the kitchen,” Papa added.

  This is what we meant when Mallika and I expressed concern for my father’s grandfatherly role. For all the revelations on higher consciousness that he comes up with almost daily, the simple things sometimes elude him.

  “What?” He stared at us blankly as both Candice and I shook our heads and Krishu wailed even more loudly.

  “Moo cow no eat!” he screamed.

  And then like the crescendo of the Boston Pops, everything culminated at once. Krishu’s cries quickly grew louder as Papa rationalized how this was a moment for us to explain to Krishu how all of life was constantly recycling itself. “We too are nothing more than wisps of matter that will be digested through the planet like that steak will be through you.”

  “Moo cow no eat!!!!”

  “I’ll take him,” Candice said, reaching for Krishu just as the waiters arrived with our sizzling steaks.

  “MOO COW NO EAT!!!!!”

  “Papa—let’s switch places,” Candice said as she slid out from the couch. “Just go ahead and put the plates down,” she instructed the waiters even as she rose from her seat. Her wizardry and reorganizing everything on the fly is something to admire.

  “Where should I sit?” Papa asked just as his sizzling asparagus arrived.

  “Right there.” She pointed where her steak sat waiting. “Just rearrange the plates.”

  “Moo cow no eat, Mama,” Krishu cried unrelentingly as my father slid into his seat and I settled into mine, determined at long last to get to my meal.

  All of a sudden a giddy voice rang out. “Oh my God.” We all looked up to find a fifty-ish white woman standing in front of our table. Her eyes were wide with exhilaration. “You’re the writer Deepak Chopra!” she said excitedly.

  “I am,” my father said graciously.

  “Wow, this is so amazing!” She fumbled through her purse and pulled out a camera phone.

  “I’ve read like every one of your books. My favorite is that one The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.”

  Papa smiled back at her pleasantly, thanking her.

  “I totally get it. We all practice the Law of Pure Potentiality in my office every Monday.” She nodded. “When you know all living things are connected, then you appreciate the world in a whole different way.”

  She stood proudly, her smile beaming down at all of us. And then as she took in the massive chop and goblet of wine sitting right in front of Papa, that expression of unmitigated joy transformed to one of absolute terror.

  Following her expression, he seemed to register what she was thinking and started to stammer through an explanation.

  But she cut him off. “What the hell are you eating?”

  “MOM CALLED,” PAPA remarked as we walked Cleo around the block after dinner. Candice and I had inhaled our food, washed it down with our beverages, skipped right over dessert and coffee, left a generous tip because of the profound mess our son had made under the table, and rushed home before Krishu’s total and complete meltdown. As Candice now dashed through his nighttime rituals, I played my part of taking Cleo around the block. It’s a routine I quite enjoy. No matter where we might be, the last thing I do before heading off to sleep is take Cleo for a walk. There’s a certain nostalgia to doing so in New York City, where Cleo spent the first four years of her life. Despite the fact that she’s now lived in sunny Santa Monica for just over seven years, we still like to think of her as a “city dog.” Tough will never be a quality that Cleo will be defined by, but resilient and lively and feisty—just like New York City—certainly would be.

  Even as we emerged from the elevator onto the street, Cleo’s step seemed to take on an added spring. The smells of the city—especially down at her level—seemed to energize her. A New York City street at night, with its piles of garbage leaking out unidentifiable fluids, food discarded by restaurants closed for the night, other city dogs’ markings, and the occasional homeless person who has found his spot for the night make for a cornucopia of splendors Cleo could spend hours investigating. If given the chance, she’d spend all night on this block. And there’s a part of me, enjoying watching her in such bliss, that would be happy to do it with her.

  “Nana’s condition has stabilized.” He nodded. “They’ll probably keep him in the hospital for a few days and then let Mom bring him home.”

  “Great.” I stopped to let Cleo sniff out something beside a newspaper dispenser. “So does that mean Mom will come back soon?”

  “No.” Papa shook his head. “Nana’s going to have to take it easy for a few weeks, even months. He cannot stress his heart. Mom needs to be there to keep everyone calm.”

  It’s my mother’s greatest gift. Her presence brings that sense of calmness to everyone around her. No matter the storm brewing, whether it’s a sickness in the family, the stress of a grandchild’s first day of school, or just the mundane anxieties of a normal day, my mom has a way of gracefully putting people at ease. All of us—my father, Mallika, and me, and even our respective spouses and children now—have become increasingly dependent on her as the years passed.

  But most of all, my father’s emotional dependence on my mother has become clear the last few years. Even now, over sixty, he spends most of the year on the road hustling from one side of the planet to the other. One day he’s in Chicago, the next he’s in London. The following day he’s in Amsterdam and then he’s in Tokyo. It’s an absolute whirlwind that never stops. Every few weeks when it lets up for a few days, he lands in NYC or LA and my mom is almost always there to receive him, to help him unpack and repack, to make a home-cooked meal just the way he likes it, to go see a movie or a show together, or just go for early morning wal
ks in Central Park. Their relationship has a throwback quality to it that is almost impossible to come across in our more modern times. It’s not so fashionable these days to use the phrase “Behind every good man is a great woman” or to assign traditional gender roles to men and women. It’s a violation of the cultural progress we claim to have made in our society and an absolute taboo to talk about the idea that a husband and wife may play those traditional roles.

  When I look at my parents, though, they seem to have transcended those taboos. Their relationship—undoubtedly not without its own continued peaks and valleys, pressure points and anxieties—is rooted in something special that evolves only after significant time, having been nurtured by attention, respect, and empathy for each other.

  What is that special ingredient that makes relationships last and grow stronger over time? What evolves them from partnerships to bonds, from social contracts to spiritual unions? And not just between a husband and wife, but between friends, siblings, parents and their children?

  “Companionship,” my father declares as we come to a final stop at the side of the building where clearly another dog has just been, having left its mark maybe moments before. “In one word, it’s companionship.”

  It’s a word pregnant with meaning and context. It intimates friendship and trust and loyalty and intimacy.

  But alas, that’s as far as we’ll get tonight. We’ve made it around the block by now and it’s time to go upstairs and off to sleep.

  CANDICE AND I had already been seeing each other for over four years—all through our undergraduate years at Columbia University—when she called me in the fall of 1998 to say that she was in New Jersey and was contemplating purchasing a cute little rescue puppy that she was holding in her hands.

  I was unsure how to respond, instinctively sensing it was a bad idea. Candice was a second-year medical school student still at Columbia University, situated way uptown in a part of the city known affectionately as Dominican Harlem. I had moved out to Los Angeles, where I was working. We had mutually expressed our continued commitment to each other and willingness to try out the long-distance thing. My job as an international news correspondent took me to far-off places like Chechnya and Sri Lanka, Seoul and Bogotá, to cover stories and conflicts that often slipped out of the headline news. Our broadcast was targeted at teenagers who didn’t have much context for the stories or places we were covering, and as a result I’d spend days or even weeks in some exotic city or war zone before logging the long trip back to the States. As often as I could I’d make pit stops in New York City, where I’d crash out at Candice’s dorm and hang around to spend time with her in the brief hours her hectic med school schedule permitted.