Ordinary Obsessions

by Tom Corbett

  This is a personal plea. Ricky is a great business partner, and I have a great management staff, but I can’t handle everything on my own. I want an idea person who can write persuasively and schmooze with other like-minded rich people and political savants. That person, by the way, is you. I don’t want you confused on that point. By the way, it is as close to a compliment as you will get from me.”

  “I see that Kat, not that I agree that I am the only schmuck for this job. But even if you were right on that, this is not easy for me. It is such a sacrifice, a big change, and not just for me. I have a family now. Wow, listen to me, talking about family!”

  “Dear Chris, I get that. Believe me, I get that. Maybe, just maybe, I am not as tough as I seem. I am quite tough, don’t get me wrong. I talk with Bill, Warren, George, Nick Hanauer, Tom Steyer, and other kindred souls. They worry about the same things and clearly are willing to help. There is something different between the liberal and the ultra-conservative elites, we are not as desperate for power and control. And surely, we are not as Machiavellian. I was chatting with one of the Disney heirs just yesterday. Lovely woman. She was beside herself at being approached by her rich friends to support the Republican agenda. They promised another tax break. Her response was one of incredulity, she kept repeating how insane that was, what would she do with more money when we have so many common needs to be addressed? She is in totally. However, my political compatriots are likely not as obsessed with this as I am, probably since some cannot believe it will happen in the end. Good people see others as they want them to be, not as they are. Besides, perhaps they did not grow up with a father as evil as ours.”

  “And you think I am that obsessed with this or, even more humorous, that I am a good person?”

  Kat permitted herself a tiny smile. “YES…and yes! You did have passion, I remember it. Once there, inside, I don’t believe you lose it. The fire, the caring is inside you, it is never extinguished. With one hand, she hit her breast in the area of her heart. With the other, she reached out to grab his hand. “Here is the thing, though. In the end, I feel so alone. I simply need someone at my side, someone I would trust with my life. I know you cannot be here immediately, I am looking at this in the longer term. Listen carefully, there are many private moments when I feel overwhelmed, straight out frightened. I have these moments when I believe Father would…remove me.”

  “He can’t fire you.” Chris looked puzzled.

  “No, remove me in a more permanent way, for betraying him.”

  Chris thought for a moment about dismissing her concern. Then he looked very carefully into her eyes. He pulled her nearer to him, embracing her as she grabbed on to him with a hint of desperation. “We will talk again when I return from my money-raising trip. We will chat at length then, okay?”

  “You bet your ass we will.” Kat yet held on to him, reluctant to let go.

  CHAPTER 6

  KASHMIR, INDIA

  After dinner, Azita wandered outside Amar’s family retreat in a remote area of Kashmir. The past few days in India had been a whirl of sensory overload. While the others on their entourage did site visits to their medical and refugee camps throughout the Mideast, Amar took her adopted daughter on a tour of northwest India. There was a quick stop at Mumbai, which impressed the young girl with its cosmopolitan beat and sharp contrasts, the glitz and drive of a modern, westernized city which sharply abutted shanty towns of almost Dickensian poverty and hopelessness. Though prepared by her own past, Azita was yet moved by impoverished mothers pimping deformed children for a few rupees. For a bit of refuge, she even took time for a Bollywood movie with its fairy-tale storyline and lavish production numbers. She was a bit surprised by how sensual the boy-girl relationships were.

  Then it was on to Rajasthan where they first flew to Udaipur, one of those fabled Rajput cities. Azita devoured works on the history and culture of the region. It was there that India’s fabled warriors often stood against invaders from the northwest, tribes and nations that swooped down out of what is now Eastern Europe and Central Asia, circumventing the Himalayas that protected the sub-continent’s northern flank. She was taken by one story, whose authenticity she doubted but which still moved her. A local prince, from the town of Salumbar to the south, was called for military service by the Udaipur Rajput. He had just married a beautiful woman and had difficulty leaving. He did, several times, but kept returning to ask for one more remembrance from her. She became desperate, fearing dishonor if he did not meet his commitment. When he returned one more time, she fell into despair. She had her servant bring her severed head out to him. So, like her native home she thought, honor was above all.

  In Udaipur, they stayed at the Lake Palace, a renowned hotel situated in the middle of Lake Pichola. Azita marveled at the luxury. Nothing quite like this could be found in Afghanistan. It was a fairy-tale place she once had seen as a location used in an old James Bond movie. In lighter moments, she imagined being a character in a cloak-and-dagger spy plot. In truth, she was more taken with the ancient Raj palaces and the local historic temples with their intricately carved friezes and decorative pictorials. The nuances of the complex Hindu belief system were played out before them.

  On a boat trip around the lake, Azita found herself musing about what she had seen and felt. “I am very confused about Hinduism. There are so many Gods.”

  “Don’t feel bad.” Amar laughed. “I am supposed to know this stuff but gave up long ago. There are literally millions of deities of one sort or another. It is like all those Catholic saints. Each saint serves some individual need, much like the panoply of pagan Gods. If there is a need, wish, desire, or fear, there is a God, or saint, to satisfy your desire. It is all rather convenient to be able to pick and choose some larger presence whatever your malady or concern might be.”

  “Did you ever believe, in anything?”

  “Sure, in Chris.”

  “Hah,” Azita blurted out, “that is settling for sure.”

  “Hey there, young lady. That is your dear father, and my sexy husband, that you are insulting, but, alas, your point is well taken.”

  “No need to worry, even I thought he was so handsome when I first met him.” Azita giggled.

  “And now you don’t think is so handsome.” Amar laughed gently but then turned serious before Azita could respond. “I will be very honest with you. Even as a child, Hinduism was too passive for me. The world was a given, not to be changed or altered. Too much was about acceptance of what existed, even the evils of the caste system. That too, was much like the early Catholic view of the world with a perfect hierarchical universe with a place for everything and everything in its place.”

  “Sounds almost Newtonian in its precision, all things related to one another in a fixed, ordered, and mathematical fashion.”

  Amar looked at her daughter with admiration. “You make the most marvelous connections. Anyways, there was this demand for personal perfection, or the consequences of karmic justice would befall you.”

  “Your dear husband would surely be in trouble if karmic justice were real. He would probably be reborn as a slug.”

  “That is a terrible thing to say about your father, but…” Amar broke into a broad smile, “quite accurate, I fear. I…I drifted toward Buddhism quite early, another disappointment for my parents. I have never gotten over all the guilt, so many ways in which I disappointed them. I suppose a child never does.”

  “I am curious…you don’t believe in any form of deity now?” It was a question not an assertion.

  Amar looked thoughtful before answering very slowly. “No, I don’t but you have long known that. What I have found is that we don’t need to embrace a religious tradition fully to get something out of it. Buddhism can also stress personal enlightenment, but there is much in the teachings that can help us be better people. Besides, I have a crush on the Dalai Lama, such a wise man. And I like some of the rituals, the chants, the mantras, the meditations above all. I practice some private tec
hniques that keep me centered, which is very important when you have an inquisitive, obnoxious daughter to raise.”

  “Aha,” Azita blurted, “for that you will join your husband as a slug in the next life.”

  “At least he and I will be together. But seriously, dear, in the end we all must find our own definition of God. People like us, who think deeply, are burdened. We have to figure it all out on our own.”

  Azita was about to respond when the boat guide pointed to an outcropping of a small island that was crowned with trees. At first, she noticed a quivering array of color that she could not place. What was that? As the girl looked closely as they approached, the reality of it came to her. The island was covered with parrots. Azita had never seen such a sight and marveled at the scene before her. The brightly ordained birds in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, flitted about their perches as the boat approached. It took her breath away. This is an amazing country, she concluded. Then, she decided to put her remaining questions away for another moment.

  Next, they journeyed by car to Jaipur, the pink city. Along the way, they stopped at small villages so that Azita could get a feel for the other side of this vast and complex country. Some of the smaller ones reminded her of home, the narrow, dusty streets lined with tea shops and small enterprises selling an amazing variety of goods. The heat of the day seemed to embrace and enhance every sensory input. Vendors also offered sweets, nuts, and ears of corn roasted over coal-fed flames. Oh my God, she felt, this is home. The sights and smells reached deep into her, arousing familiar emotions that tugged at her heart. She missed this, even the daily heat and a sun that permitted no escape.

  The palaces and temples of Jaipur, the provincial capital, were even more spectacular than Udaipur. It was known as the pink city since the buildings embraced a pink hue as the sun set in the west. These Rajasthani cities looked more like the traditional India she expected, which conformed closely to her image of the subcontinent. This was the very heart of that land of warriors, the defenders of India, before it was India, from invaders who periodically emerged to seek plunder and territory in this fascinating land. Even Genghis Khan arrived at the gates of India during his conquest of much of the known world. There, however, he was to be thwarted, not by any military defenses but by the humid weather that sickened his warriors and their horses. Beyond the history, there was the enchantment of the place, especially at sunset when the palatial structures transitioned to their pinkish blush. Azita thought it would be nice if Ahmad were there to share this, but then immediately banished the thought. Why had she thought of him and not Ben? Then she knew, Ben could not understand as she and this new boy could.

  From there, they drove north toward Punjab and Chandigarh. Now the land changed. The dusty, desert-type terrain mutated into lush fields brimming with crops, which were fueled by advanced irrigation techniques. This was a prosperous land where the Sikhs dominated. Historically an ambitious, even aggressive, people, they had long ago transformed this region into a breadbasket for the county, not the only one but one with a more abundant agricultural output. Yet, many of their sons and daughters excelled in academics with a disproportionate number of young men serving in the military as officers, a career consistent with their tribal traditions. In Chandigarh, mother and daughter joined Amar’s family where the two had an opportunity to work with Doctor Vijay Singh, Amar’s father, as he met with his patients. Azita saw this as an opportunity to show off her medical knowledge and skills, an opportunity she did not pass up. On more than one occasion, Amar noticed her father’s eyes raise in wonderment as her daughter diagnosed a situation or performed a procedure which he permitted her to undertake. Yes, dear father, Amar said silently, she is that talented, much more talented than I was at that age.

  Next, they travelled to a place high in the mountains of Kashmir, a sanctuary used by the Amar clan to escape the summer’s heat. Perhaps, there, under the emerging stars, she might have begun to process it all…what she had been seeing and feeling There was just enough light remaining to capture and frame the towering peaks about her, some still crowned with snow, or so it appeared. She felt at home, her original home. She missed the mountains of Afghanistan but, she had to admit, these peaks in the northernmost province of India were far more majestic. She realized she was not far, at that very moment, from what was considered the top of the world: the place where the Asian and subcontinent’s tectonic plates had collided in some distant past and thrust rock skyward to the heavens. Such violence, she mused, and yet a clash that resulted in such beauty. God worked in strange ways.

  As darkness surrounded her, she gazed away from the mountains and toward a field of stars that was coming into sharp relief. If she were not dead set on becoming a doctor, she surely would have studied astrophysics. The vastness of the universe and the mysteries of the origins of the cosmos fascinated her. It all makes God so insignificant, she pondered and then pushed the thought aside. It was always a struggle; her reason had long ago crowded out any simple faith in a deity but her emotional roots held firm. It had become an ever more difficult trick to integrate the two sides of her: reason and emotion.

  She decided to push this conundrum aside and focus on the mundane. Had Amar’s family accepted her? She was not sure. They were polite enough, but a subtle reserve remained. Perhaps that was just their habit, or perhaps it revealed a deeper, more sinister set of feelings. Maybe they were just trying to make it through a social obligation for Amar’s sake, simply gritting their way through the niceties with a young woman they secretly despised. That thought struck Azita deeply. It would have been awful if her adoptive mother were enduring yet another strain with her family because of her. The mere possibility of this caused the girl to shudder. She knew that Amar had had moments of great tension with her parents when she was a younger, unsettled woman. They kept pulling her back just as she was fiercely defending her chosen path in life. Such family struggles are ubiquitous but that never makes them any easier. On occasion, Azita regretted the freedom that Chris and Amar afforded her. They kept telling her that she was free to choose. Such choices, it struck her, can be the worst of prisons - a curse. It really was easier to be told what to do, wasn’t it?

  Seeing a little bit of India helped her to understand how Amar was like her and the many ways that she was not. Yes, older cultural ties persisted but in an uneasy compromise across generations and geography. Elders held on to traditions as did many of those who resided in rural areas. In so many ways, this was a country being propelled into the modern era, one that was brash and cosmopolitan. Yet, progress was not easily done nor linear in trajectory. Many conflicts and doubts and even points of resistance remained. And yet, this was so much better than her native land. She found it jarring when she recalled seeing photos of women wearing Western dress, dating while attending university, and entering the business world in 1960s Kabul. Since then, her country has slid backward into a medieval period. Was the slide hopeless, irreversible? Should she really care? Were her feelings for that troubled land misplaced? She hated such doubts but could not rid herself of them.

  “There you are. I wondered where you had disappeared to.” Amar’s father appeared out of the enveloping gloom and sat next to her.

  Azita looked at the elderly gentleman. Amar was the youngest of the children and Dr. Singh was now well into his 70s. He wore the traditional Sikh turban and closely cropped beard, which had turned mostly white. She thought him distinguished looking, not like the Taliban with their scraggly facial hair and wild looks. There were moments when he reminded Azita of Pamir, brief moments. The good doctor had that same quiet voice, a similar avuncular air about him. The young woman scrambled inside her head to find something appropriate to say. “Yes, I had been admiring the mountains, and now the stars. I forget just how magnificent the sky is when you can escape the city. It is awesome. I think…I think the stars keep you humble.”

  “That is why we bought this place, to escape everything for at least a few weeks in the
summer. Of course, this beautiful land periodically is contested between India and Pakistan, it is not difficult to see why. At times, the peace has been threatened but that seems to have passed for the moment. Now I can treasure this silent refuge. Even as a younger man I was attracted to the Rangdum Gompa Monastery, which we passed on our way. My dear daughter, I owe your mother a debt for acquainting me with the Buddhist rituals and philosophy.” Azita experienced surprise at his words but kept her counsel as he continued. “The devotees at the monastery also fled from what they found to be a frantic and irrational world. They always struck me as sincere, so simple and peaceful inside. Besides, they do wonderful things with the mind, amazing things. They have shown even sceptics like me that the brain can be so elastic, even physically changing through focus and meditation. Working with monks attached to the Dalai Lama, a professor in America has shown this scientifically…a Richard Davis or Davidson. I know that your mother, Amar, was also attracted to their ways even as a young girl. I was not happy at the time but came to understand why.”

  Azita looked at him sharply, he referred to Amar as her mother, more than once. Perhaps he did accept her. Should she ask? No, she did not know how to frame the question. Instead, she lamely offered a query: “But it is so remote here. There are no people except for the monks and a few others escaping the world. Don’t you miss civilization?”

  He smiled but paused as if considering her question. “Escaping the world. I suspect that is not so bad. For me, I am refreshed after a few weeks here. This space and the vastness are much like a medicine for me. Look to the sky. What do you see?”

  She paused, knowing there was depth to his question. “Blackness, and a field of stars.”

  “Then, my dear, think upon this. You are only seeing our own Milky Way Galaxy. They now believe there are 300 billion stars in our galaxy alone, more stars than Hindu deities.” He chuckled very lightly. “There are billions upon billions of galaxies in the universe. And there may be many more than what we have discovered so far. Just think, it was not that long ago that we thought everything revolved around us, the earth. Then we pushed the center of all to our sun, and then the likely black hole at the center of our galaxy, and now we see whole clusters of galaxies probably moving about something we can barely imagine. I think of such things as I sit here many nights.”