“Don’t worry. Cleo doesn’t seem the type to cause trouble.”
Indeed she didn’t. Despite her Napoleon complex, she was unlikely to lead any Bolshevik-like uprising.
I hung up the phone thrilled with what Missy had told me. I tracked Candice down in the spa. “Cleo’s got a bitch!” I told her happily, shocking the women giving her a manicure.
. . .
LATER THAT EVENING at dinner, I shared Missy’s update with the rest of the family. While during the days we all went our own separate ways, indulging in different activities in and around the resort, even dropping in on Papa’s course occasionally, dinner together had emerged as a daily ritual. It was a time to tell stories, let the kids play with one another under the table, and softly wind down the day.
Over the last few months, Cleo had become an increasing topic of conversation. Her antics with Papa, not to mention my quasi insights gleaned from her, gave rise to laughs and rolling eyes, sighs, and smiles. Her latest rise to gangster status back in LA earned her even more accolades. In hindsight, I suppose our Cleo anecdotes had indeed taken an obvious tone. We’d started to talk about Cleo with a fondness that almost felt as if she were no longer with us. Perhaps it was unconscious, a subtle acknowledgment of what we all knew to be true—Cleo was getting old. She had visibly slowed down since passing the decade mark. Candice and I recently both poked around the Internet, uncovering the average life expectancy for mixed breeds like Cleo. All evidence pointed to the fact that she was, like my father liked to say, in the “twilight of her life.”
Tara in particular paid close attention whenever Cleo’s name came up. Recently she had become aware of the concept of “dog years.” That, combined with her increasing focus on arithmetic in school, allowed her to compute that Cleo was well into her seventies by now. Based on the fact that anyone aged more than about eleven was “old” to her, Cleo qualified as ancient. In that context, her reaction when Cleo’s name came up that evening was not wholly unexpected. She broke into tears.
Mallika, the ever-attentive mother, took Tara into her arms.
“Is Cleo dying?” Tara cut to the chase.
I interrupted. “No—Cleo’s fine. She’s totally fine.”
She stared at me with tear-filled eyes. “Mamu [the Indian term for uncle], she’s getting really old. I can see it. And I think she’s going to die soon.”
Ever helpless, the adults at the table stared back at Tara in silence.
“Go get your father,” my mother instructed me.
I tracked my father down in a conference room, discussing the idea of “peace cells” (the opposite of sleeper cells) with a Swiss couple who worked with the UN. I apologized for interrupting before whispering into my father’s ear what was up.
He nodded and rose to his feet. Papa advised the Swiss couple that a family emergency had arisen and he had to tend to it. World peace would have to wait.
“What’s wrong?” Papa asked Tara when we returned to the dinner table.
“I don’t want Cleo to die,” she replied. Just the idea of it unleashed a single tear. “I don’t want her to leave us.”
Papa didn’t miss a beat. “You know, Tara, over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot more time with Cleo than I ever had before.”
He smiled, thinking through some of their moments over the summer. “And I realized that Cleo has been a real gift for all of us. She really loves us, and she takes all the love we can give her. But like the best gifts, we have to enjoy her while we have her, and not worry about someday in the future when we won’t.”
Papa brushed the tear away from Tara’s cheek. She tried to smile but came up a little short.
“Cleo is a gift from the universe to us. But she’s not really ours. We’re just here to care for her until someday, hopefully far into the future, the universe will take her back like it does all of us. We just have to be grateful for the time we have together and make sure that we take advantage of every single second because it is the most precious time we have.
“If you can see Cleo in your mind and feel Cleo in your heart, then she’ll never really be away from you, right?”
Tara nodded.
“It’s better than smelling her or hearing her constantly bark, right?”
This time, Tara burst out laughing. Papa took her into his arms triumphantly.
Tara smiled at her mom, reassuring her that her crisis had been averted, however temporarily. Mallika exhaled with relief, well aware that this was just the start of a great many coming-of-age moments.
It occurred to me, however, that this wasn’t just a coming-of-age moment for Tara. It was one for Papa as well. Seeing Tara gaining his affection had of course prompted his other two grandchildren—Leela and Krishu—to seek it as well. Tenuously they now all climbed into his lap and hung on to their grandfather. It was an unlikely portrait, though one the summer had seemed to make familiar. I looked at my mom, curious for her reaction. Now she was the one with watery eyes. Suddenly I suspected that her master summer plan had worked.
For all his many identities—teacher, student, celebrity, doctor, author, Larry King sidekick—family man was a new one for Papa and something he was still getting used to. And yet, he wore it well. It seemed to align with a certain part of him that in moments when he wasn’t hustling a best seller, contemplating consciousness, or trying to solve the world’s problems, he settled into rather effortlessly.
As Krishu tried to feed Papa a spoonful of banana caramel pie, one of the course attendees passed by our table. He did a double take when he saw Papa sitting there with three little kids climbing all over him.
Papa greeted him and introduced the family. The man was from Colorado, a recent divorcé at the course trying to manage and reconcile the sorrow over his failed marriage.
“It’s nice to see you with your family,” the man remarked after a few minutes of idle chitchat. “I don’t know why that image just never occurred to me.”
Papa shrugged and smiled back at him. “Me neither.”
AS MUCH AS they say (whoever they are) that parenting is instinctive, it’s really not. For me, hunting and gathering never quite felt natural. The notion of protecting and providing, creating a nest egg, drawing up a will, and all of the other behaviors and rituals that went along with fatherhood required learning and getting comfortable with them. Some, to this day, remain far out of my wheelhouse.
And yet there were less actionable feelings linked to parenting that were indeed intuitive to me. Krishu was born three and a half weeks early. As if we weren’t prepared for the game changer that parenting entailed, his premature timing ensured that we were absolutely caught with our pants down. For me, this was quite literal,
When Candice nudged me at two a.m. and alerted me that she “thought her water broke,” I nudged her back and said that she probably “thought wrong.” (In my defense, I was still half-asleep.) Of course she was right, and it soon dawned on me that we were at the point of no return. In a panicked frenzy, I leaped from the bed and spurred into action, rounding up whatever I could think of to throw into a bag and get us to the hospital. It was only once we were in car that Candice remarked that I seemed to have forgotten something.
“I put Cleo’s food out,” I replied confidently. My parenting chops were already kicking in, as if not allowing the dog to starve to death was a great achievement.
“Nope.” She pointed downward. I followed her finger and noticed that I was only wearing boxers.
Thirty minutes later, Candice and I (wearing a nice pair of Polo sweats) found ourselves in the maternity ward of Santa Monica–UCLA Medical Center, trying to make small talk while struggling to drown out the sounds of a wailing woman down the hall—“Get this thing the @#$% out of me!!!!”
“Don’t worry,” I assured Candice like a complete male imbecile with no idea what I was talking about. “I’m sure your delivery will be quick and painless.”
Yeah, right.
Twenty-two and a half hours l
ater, our baby son was born. Having witnessed firsthand what Candice endured to deliver him, it remains a wonder to me every single day that she loves the two of us.
It’s only been a couple of years, but I like to think that Candice and I have done a pretty bang-up job. Still, it’s hard—no, impossible—to tell a two-year-old to value anything in his life. But I regularly do so anyway with my son. Even if he doesn’t know so now, he’ll one day realize that Cleo has been an important influence in his life. Not just because of the way she loves and licks him, but because by her very unbounded being she demonstrates some of the most important qualities that he’ll ever learn.
More than what she’s taught me or Papa, the lessons Cleo is imparting to Krishu—at an age when every day the universe is rapidly imprinting itself onto his consciousness—are among the most precious he will ever take away. I say this with all the perspective of being a “son of” when I know in my heart that one day I will be even more proud to say I am the “father of.”
SOMEWHERE IN THE midst of the fourth or fifth day of Papa’s courses, the attendees really hit their stride. This was the portion of the course that was most valuable for the majority of people, where they could examine both their own personal dilemmas as well as larger planetary ones with a sobriety that was at the same time rooted in a much greater perspective of the connectivity of all things. By that stage, that connectivity was experiential, not simply conceptual. That collective experience of peeling back layers of one’s self in the open and trusted atmosphere of the course created a uniquely nurturing and inspiring energy. Even I, the cynic in the family, recognized that.
This was the same phase of the course where Papa also hit his groove. That same inspiring energy fueled him. His lectures took on an added edge. His insights pushed new bounds. Not much—the news of failing health care, a tumbling economy, fiery rhetoric between imperialists and terrorists that plagued the outside world—could really stall him. He was go go go whether it was dealing with how to help individuals tap their own consciousness and heal themselves or take on those larger global crises and with the help of others think up creative solutions.
Perhaps the only thing that could slow him down—both literally and figuratively—was a stalled gondola, which is exactly what happened as he, Krishu, and I rode up a steep mountain peak.
“Now what do we do?” Papa asked as we hung about two hundred feet over a dried ski slope, our gondola gently rocking back and forth.
“There’s not much we really can do unless you are MacGyver,” I replied.
“Who’s MacGyver?” He looked at me, confused.
I shook my head. “I guess we just have to wait.”
Krishu, meanwhile, seemed unperturbed by our predicament. Moving or not, the gondola itself was a singular adventure to him.
“Look.” He pointed out the window of the enclosed compartment. Awe washed over his expression in the form of a smile that could power all New York City.
Papa and I followed his little finger to see what he was pointing at. I could make out nothing in particular. The mountain we were climbing dipped into a valley where our resort and a few other posh properties sat. After a few miles of settled land, the mountains picked up again and climbed steeply toward snowcapped peaks that scraped the sky. The sun had set behind those peaks, but shards of light still shot upward, creating an orange and purple haze.
“What, Krishu? What do you see?”
“That!” Krishu gestured with his finger again more forcefully. I followed it again, staring out at the vast expanse of sky.
Papa was doing the same thing now. We both squinted, trying to figure the mystery out. “What’s he pointing at?”
Suddenly it occurred to me. I sat back on the padded bench laughing.
“Nothing. He’s pointing at nothing.”
“What do you mean?” Papa shook his head, still not getting it.
“Or everything.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess it depends on your perspective.”
Papa looked again out the window. He took in the mountain dipping into the valley, the expanse of land, the mountains opposite us that climbed steeply toward snowy peaks, the sunset behind them, and the shard of light that formed the orange and purple haze. The vast magic of planet Earth, the mythical domain where those snowy peaks scraped the sky, that’s what Krishu was pointing at.
At last he got it. “Fantastic.” Papa nodded.
Papa took Krishu into his lap. “You’re a genius.” He tickled him affectionately. He turned to me. “He’s a real rishi, a seer.”
Krishu took the compliment with his trademark humility. He had already moved on from his last revelation and was pointing down below. Papa and I once again followed his finger, this time determined to spot his insight and not have to get too existential about it.
This time, however, we didn’t need guru glasses to see what Krishu had spotted. A midsize black bear clumsily picked through a pile of sticks and leaves on the ground. Krishu became more animated as it dawned on him that this was a real, live bear.
“Dada, bear!” he exclaimed.
“Wow!” Papa replied excitedly, now well trained in the grandfather arts.
His glee confirmed, Krishu just stared at the bear wide-eyed with wonder.
Papa too remained silent. A similar sort of wide-eyed awe fixed on his expression. But he wasn’t watching the bear. He was watching Krishu.
“You know,” Papa addressed me, not taking his eyes off Krishu, “this will be your challenge as a father.
“How do you preserve and protect this sense of innocence and unboundedness as Krishu grows up and confronts a world that demands the opposite from him? Conformity nags at us all.”
He turned in his seat and looked at me. “It’s not easy.”
Was he talking about me? I wondered. Or himself ?
Krishu remained mesmerized by the bear below. But like he often did when he noticed that others around him were talking to anyone but him, he tried to redirect his grandfather’s attention back to himself.
“Look, Dada.” He pointed once more down below.
“The bear is eating.” Papa nodded, impressed. “I see it.”
“Yeah,” Krishu concurred. “I see rhino and tiger.” His eyes went wide with added excitement.
“Wow.” Papa played along.
“And elephant and penguin,” Krishu continued. If you followed his eyes, you could see that for Krishu, the rhino, tiger, elephant, and penguin were just as real as the bear. Like Cleo, unboundedness for him was not a spiritual quality, not some ideal that he had to reach for or integrate into his life. It was a state of being. How long would it last? The world and I would work together to make it linger as long as possible. That’s the best that I could do.
The gondola lurched as the whir of the cable sounded and pulled us forward. We were back up and running. Krishu started waving good-bye to his friends below and searching for new ones as the mountainside got steeper.
“Did Mom tell you what I’m doing?” Papa changed the topic.
I shook my head, unsure what he was referring to.
“I’m becoming vegetarian and I am going to Thailand to spend a month being a monk.”
I stared at him blankly. The vegetarian part I had heard before. Many times. The monk part? That was a new addition.
“One month at a monastery. Just meditation and a begging bowl, living off the charity of others.”
Wow. I didn’t really know what else to say.
Papa, of course, didn’t need me nor anyone else to keep the conversation going. “I need time to think about what I really want to be remembered for.”
I nodded.
He smiled as if he’d just listened to what he said. “And I need time to think why I really care to be remembered at all.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING before breakfast I sat in my room and made my phone calls. I called the doggy day care in LA and Nomi actually picked up the phone.
“Hey bro,” he greeted me. “I told
you, your dog is like an OG. You know what that means, right?”
I was hip enough to know that it meant “original gangster.” It was a term back from the day when rap music first made its hard impression, and it denoted a certain urban respect, a fusion of godfather-like status with ghetto Zen.
“Nah bro.” Nomi laughed. “Not when it comes to Cleo Chopra. She ain’t no gangster. She’s an original guru, man.”
This time I was the one laughing.
“She’s got quite the crew,” Nomi advised me. Cleo’s posse of small dogs had swelled in size.
“Tell your dad he’d better watch his back.”
I thanked Nomi and told him I’d call the following day to check in again.
“Whatever, bro. Cleo’s leading us on a pilgrimage to Joshua tree. Original guru is ultimate guru.”
I smiled to myself as I made my way to the small business lounge that sat just beside my parents’ hotel room. They were on a special VIP floor where perks such as free breakfast came with the room. Unfortunately for them, they had not counted on our commandeering the premises with our extended clan. After some initial resistance, they’d relented and we’d essentially turned the place into our own private dining room.
This morning, Mallika had requested we all arrive promptly at eight a.m. because Tara had an announcement she wanted to make. I knew not to cross my sister and arrived with seconds to spare. Everyone else—including both my parents—sat attentively awaiting Tara’s news. Mallika handed her the floor.
“I’m, um,” Tara started nervously.
“Just say it!” Leela egged her on.
“Say it,” Krishu echoed Leela in his chirpy little voice.
“Okayyyy.” Tara eyed Tweedledee and Tweedledum. “I’m getting a puppy!” she blurted. Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
“Tell them the deal we cut,” Mallika prompted her.
Tara nodded. “Leela and I promised my mom to clean our rooms every week, not fight, do our homework every night, and watch less TV.”
Mallika nodded at me and winked.
Walking Wisdom Page 23