Walking Wisdom

by Gotham Chopra

  I stared out at the dogs in the play area, my jaw agape.

  “Serious, bro, these dogs are amazing, the way they need to organize themselves and figure their shit out and get comfortable with one another. It’s like a hierarchy that forms itself, and then keeps on forming itself. It’s actually pretty great, bro. Cleo’s going to dig it. What’s she like?”

  I didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden I wasn’t so sure about this plan, about the yard, and releasing innocent little Cleo into the general population. In fact, in that moment I all but decided to call the whole thing off.

  “I don’t know really.” I shook my head. “I mean, I don’t know how she’ll do here.”

  Nomi was opening the door to the play area. The pack of dogs rushed toward him and he stroked them, gently pulling individual dogs toward him, latching the leashes onto their collars as he identified each one of them, Tiger . . . Gypsy . . . Buddy . . . Nelly . . . and more.

  When each leash was fastened Nomi gently led the pack from the play area, shutting the door behind them.

  “I feel you.” He turned to me. He bent down on a knee and carefully picked up one of the dogs. “This is Chaucer. He was just like that.”

  Chaucer, a little mixed mutt remarkably similar in appearance to Cleo, extended his tongue and licked Nomi’s face affectionately. All of a sudden Nomi seemed the most gentle soul on planet Earth. He returned Chaucer’s affection and more.

  “Chaucer came in all scared and unsure of himself, but by day two he had figured his shit out and he was all John Adams in here, leading the other dogs and trying to draft a bill of rights and shit.” Nomi buried his face into Chaucer’s and rubbed him lovingly. “Isn’t that right, buddy?

  “It’s all good though.” He placed Chaucer down on the ground and turned to me. “I mean, they deserve it, right? Cleo deserves it, right?”

  I stared at Nomi, speechless. He was a contradiction in every way. Just then, Candice and Misty emerged from the office. Candice wore a broad smile on her face. “This is going to be really great for her.”

  “Aw yeah.” Nomi introduced himself to Candice. “Cleo’s going to find herself here, ma’am.

  “Later, bro.” He extended his hand and “guy-gripped” mine, then gave me a hug like we were boys from the hood.

  OUR JOURNEY TO WHISTLER, a scenic ski town a two-hour drive north of Vancouver, was remarkably and spectacularly uneventful. As had become our custom with Krishu with any instance that required over an hour’s worth of focused time in a condensed space like a car, his and our new best friend Dora the Explorer was our trusted companion. Despite our naive insistence that we were going to limit Krishu’s TV time, Dora, Diego, Boots, Swiper, and the gang now had a permanent place in our lives. Candice had downloaded several hours’ worth of the cartoon onto her laptop, which fit easily in her purse and could be brought out in the blink of an eye. If only the FAA didn’t require all electronics to be shut down for takeoff and landing, we would have accomplished our own international nonstop Dora marathon by the time we reached the breathtaking peaks of Whistler.

  The moment after check-in, before even going to our own room, we rushed to my parents’ suite. They had arrived a few hours earlier and were already settled. We had all been curious to see how Krishu would react after having not seen my mom for several months. This was a wild card in his young life.

  Prior to her leaving for India, she had a firm grip on his devotion. Only Candice topped her in his hierarchy of affection. Even I sat on a decidedly lower perch, outranked by my nieces, Tara and Leela, who held a special place in Krishu’s heart. Papa, meanwhile, had made significant strides over the last few weeks, earning a prominent stature in Krishu’s life. What would happen now that my mother had returned was anybody’s guess. I suspected that he secretly hoped Krishu would demonstrate their bond in front of my mom, so he could openly gloat about it.

  “Dadi!!!!” Krishu yelled the moment he laid eyes on my mom. He rushed toward her and crashed into her legs with unfiltered affection. My mother could barely get his name out before she broke into tears, a torrent of emotion unleashed. Krishu climbed into her lap and urged her, “Don’t cry. Be happy!”

  “Are you Dada’s baby?” Papa inquired a few minutes later when things settled down.

  Krishu smiled with his eyes, mischief spreading across his face. “No, Dadi’s baby!”

  Papa prodded him again. “Dada’s baby?”

  “No, Dadi’s baby!!” Krishu insisted.

  “I have a Popsicle.” Papa raised his eyebrows, resorting to trickery.

  Krishu’s eyes widened with excited curiosity.

  “Do you want it?” Papa slowly reeled him in.

  “You know you’d better have a Popsicle,” I interrupted them.

  Papa shot me a look of confusion.

  “You do have a Popsicle, don’t you, Papa?” Candice pressed.

  Papa’s smile flattened. “Oh shit.”

  My mom, Candice, and I shook our heads in unison.

  “Popsicle?” Krishu hadn’t caught on yet. He climbed out of my mom’s lap and marched toward Papa.

  “I’ll take him right now to find a Popsicle,” Papa assured us.

  I shrugged. Why not, I thought. I was keen to take a shower and Candice wanted to check out the hotel spa. While either one of us could easily have pulled a bait and switch on the kid, we wanted Krishu to know that his grandfather lived up to his word. Papa swept Krishu up into his arms and carried him from the room.

  About thirty minutes later I received a nervous call on my cell phone.

  “Hi, Gotham.” The woman introduced herself as Julie. She was trying to track down my father, who in just minutes was supposed to be welcoming the group. He was nowhere to be found and he wasn’t picking up his cell phone either.

  “Someone said your father was with your son?” she said hopefully. “Do you know where they might be?”

  How was I supposed to respond? Should I confess that my two-year-old had demanded a Popsicle and that in order to maintain the sanctity of their relationship my father had no choice but to canvass the whole Olympic village to find one?

  “Um,” I said hesitantly. “I’m not really sure.”

  I promised a slightly panicked Julie I’d get right on it and start the search for my father. In the meanwhile, I advised her to just have the five hundred or so guests meditate. It was an old Chopra fallback. Can’t sleep? Meditate. Excessive turbulence on your flight? Meditate. Writer’s block? Meditate.

  “Good idea,” Julie replied, and hung up the phone.

  About fifteen minutes later, after the all-points bulletin had gone out for Papa with the entire Chopra family dispatched in various directions, I found Papa sitting with Krishu on a bench in the middle of the Olympic village. When he spotted me, Krishu smiled broadly, grape Popsicle smeared across his face. Papa, though he had managed to maintain a cleaner appearance, licked his own red Popsicle.

  “Hi, Papa!” Krishu greeted me.

  “Papa,” I summoned my father. “What are you doing?”

  “Having Popsicles,” he announced, waving his cherry-flavored one at me. “I haven’t had a Popsicle in probably thirty years.”

  He stroked Krishu’s hair. “I don’t know if I’ve had this much fun in all that time.”

  I chose not to mention the fact that I was thirty-four years old. I knew where he was coming from.

  “Papa—you’re late,” I said. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”

  He looked at me, perplexed.

  “You’re supposed to be welcoming the group right now,” I informed him.

  His expression straightened, though he didn’t seem to panic.

  “I should get going.” Papa got up from the bench.

  “I told Julie to have everyone meditate.”

  He grinned. “That’s what I would have done.”

  “I know.” I smiled back at him as I took the seat beside Krishu.

  Papa took a step back toward the resor
t and then stopped. He turned. “If you hadn’t come, I think Krishu and I may have sat there forever.”

  I patted Krishu on the head. “I know. That’s what I would do.”

  FOR YEARS, MY FATHER had been conducting seminars like the one he’d be leading over the next week in Whistler. Some were as short as a weekend and involved groups as small as a dozen, while others, like the Seduction of Spirit, lasted a full week and the number of attendees climbed into the hundreds. The family had attended several of these courses over the years, largely because it enabled us to spend time together in spectacular resorts like the one in Whistler. But there was another factor that was impossible to miss. It was during his courses that Papa was at his best.

  For all of his best-selling books, the blogs and articles that appear in the blogosphere, for all the television appearances and celebrity consultations, even the one-night-with-Deepak speech extravaganzas that often left audiences inspired and spiritualized, Papa was never on the same way he was when he was intensively interacting over the course of a few days with a large number of people like he did on these courses. The mix of personal interactions he provided attendees during private consultations or even when one of them managed to corner him in a hallway, along with his daily addresses to the entire group, fueled him with an energy and buzz that was entirely unique to every other aspect of his life. Even for us—who instinctively humbled him and made sure he never got too lost in his spiritual orbit—seeing Papa in this setting was a reminder of what he did for a living and how powerful it could be for people.

  Early one morning, a few days into the course, I found him down in the gym steadily pacing the treadmill. The fact that he had a coffee in his hands from which he occasionally sipped signaled the intensity of his workout. I was hardly one to talk. While for him a leisurely stroll on the treadmill in the predawn hours was a good escape from the deliberation of the course of which he was at the literal center, for me it was likewise a way to get away from the never-ending child care routine that Krishu demanded.

  I climbed atop the treadmill beside Papa and ramped it up. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s going.” He smiled. “That’s what they say these days, right?”

  I nodded back at him. For all of his isolation from modern pop culture—he’s walked treadmills beside Britney Spears and Sylvester Stallone and had no idea who they were—he strives to remain plugged in to some of the more relevant elements of the zeitgeist. Technology, social networking, cinema, and language—the ways in which we communicate and learn from one another—are obsessions of his. While I may shudder when he mixes up pop jargon (who can forget “that dope is shit”?), it never stops him from trying.

  I asked him about the group.

  “They’re exceptional,” he said admirably. “A really unbelievable group this time.”

  He took a sip from his coffee. “There’s one guy who has created the concept of a ‘gift economy.’ He and his wife do not use money. They exist by giving their time and effort, and then accepting the gifts and grace of others. It’s awesome. There’s a lot we could learn and adapt to our own collapsed economy. Imagine if everyone in the world was a little bit more charitable, not with actual money but with service. It would completely transform the planet’s economy.”

  Papa put his coffee down. “There’s another woman who’s a geneticist. She’s one of the foremost experts in the world on gene-mapping. Some of the stuff she was talking about last night was absolutely mind-boggling.” He was getting more excited just talking about it. “I mean, where science is going . . .”

  He continued. “I’ve connected her with a guy who’s here from France who is one of the architects of the French health-care system. Did you know that their system is considered one of the best in the world?

  “I’m having coffee with them later today and another fellow who has successfully started and sold two technology companies for a few hundred million dollars and has now created a new proprietary piece of technology. It’s like a widget that anyone can personalize and use as a gateway to cataloging their own personal well-being. I think together the three of them can combine their insights and resources and help solve the health-care crisis in this country.”

  With all seriousness, Papa turned to me, wagging his finger. “President Obama should actually be here.”

  My father in a nutshell. A part of him is the eternal optimist. He truly believes that he has a unique ability to connect people from all parts of the planet, mind-meld them, and shift collective consciousness.

  He talked about more people, experts in microfinancing, counterterrorism, integrative wellness, cell phone technology, behavioral scientists, child-care psychologists, and more. Some of the terms were so alien to me, I couldn’t even compute exactly what they did.

  “You know, Gotham”—Papa sipped from his coffee and exhaled with a sense of gravity—“we live in such an amazing age of transformation. Technology will soon enable us to reengineer our bodies and consciousness from our BlackBerrys. The question is whether or not we’ll guide ourselves toward that end.”

  There were times like these that I sensed a deep sense of disappointment and despair from Papa. It was the other dark side of his optimism, the steep drop from having a front row seat to such amazing human potential, and yet sadly knowing that most often our race marshaled those resources to the same old, same old—war and weaponry, privatization and enormous wealth for the very few.

  “Yesterday, in one of our group sessions, one of the people said this is the ‘age of unboundedness’ because of the potential we have with all our technology and resources.”

  He laughed. “You know what I thought of when she said that? Unboundedness?”

  I shook my head. “What?”

  “Cleo.” He smiled.

  Oh boy, had he and Cleo made strides. Not only had he recognized a litany of spiritual qualities in her over the course of the summer, he now thought she was a potential pioneer to lead us into the brave new technological world of the future.

  “True unboundedness comes from a sense of pure being. Not from doing or trying, but from just being. It’s not about gaining recognition or earning respect. It’s not about getting a prize or winning an award or making a dividend, it’s about not operating from the ego, offering your self back to everyone else because you know that ultimately even your so-called self is just a recycled piece of the whole. Even you are not yours to begin with—so offering it back is just another exercise in consciousness.”

  See, I thought to myself, this is what happens after a few days of chronic meditation and spiritual workshopping.

  “Cleo is unbounded because she’s in touch with herself and she knows herself is not even her real self.”

  “Well, we’d better get her a passport then,” I joked.

  Papa laughed. “Right—maybe instead of Obama, we’d be better off if Cleo had been here.”

  I CALLED THE doggy day care for daily updates. According to Missy, on days one and two, Cleo largely kept to herself. This wasn’t entirely surprising, since those of us who knew her best understood that Cleo wasn’t quite gregarious. Still, despite Missy’s assurances that it always took some time for dogs to adjust to their new surroundings, I found myself increasingly concerned that maybe we had made the wrong move. Nomi’s prison analogy didn’t do much to help. Cleo wasn’t exactly cut out for the rules of the yard. She’d led a very cushy life, and it didn’t take an animal anthropologist to know that she wouldn’t take well to being propelled into the jungle of prison life.

  Even though I knew we didn’t really have any other options, and even as I did my best to relax—going on lengthy trail rides on a rugged mountain bike through the spectacular British Columbian mountains with Krishu strapped into a trailer behind me—I couldn’t help but feel an increasing sense of guilt over Cleo. On my third day in Whistler I was feeling real apprehension.

  “She’s made the turn,” Missy happily announced. A new small dog named Billy had
arrived that morning and started following Cleo around the play area. Missy said that while at first Cleo seemed irritated by her new sidekick, nipping at Billy and trying to shake him, eventually it seemed to inspire and embolden her. She’d taken to Billy and was now confidently showing him the ropes.

  “Really?” I asked her.

  “Oh yeah,” she insisted. “Trust me, by tomorrow I’m going have a lot more to tell you.”

  I made the call twenty-four hours later with tremendous anticipation. “So, is Cleo a shot caller as yet?”

  “What’s a shot caller?” Missy asked, stumped. It was a prison term I had discovered a few years ago while researching online a project that took place, in part, inside a prison. It referred to the leader inside the prison population, the one who often “called the shots” and hence set the culture of the place.

  “Forget it,” I advised Missy. “How’s she doing today?”

  “I told you,” Missy replied ebulliently. “Billy and Cleo have put together their own little pack. There’re a bunch of them, a little pack of small dogs that Cleo is leading around the play area. During some of the structured play we do, they all watch Cleo and try to do the tricks the way she does them.”

  My heart sank. “Tricks?” This was a dead giveaway. Missy had confused Cleo with another dog. “Cleo?”

  “Oh yeah,” she answered in her familiar twang. “Your little white mutt is a born leader.”

  I couldn’t help but beam.

  “I’m going to have to watch her closely now,” Missy confessed. “The larger her group grows, the more the other ones notice. That can cause some friction.”

  Right, I thought to myself. Prison life. Gangs. Things can easily escalate.