Vish Puri 02; The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

by Tarquin Hall

  But no one else could get a word in edgewise and everyone seemed relieved when Bossy stood to go. As the spokesperson for Maharaj Swami’s Committee for Poverty Reduction, she had important work to attend to.

  “Come,” Bossy told another of the roommates, a twenty-two-year-old. “You’ve got yoga in ten minutes. You shouldn’t be late.”

  The younger woman hadn’t finished her breakfast but obediently put down her bowl and said: “You’re right, didi, I should get going,” and the two left together.

  The three remaining girls were Priyanka, Meghna and Damayanti.

  Although not as assertive as Bossy, they, too, spoke of little else but Maharaj Swami and his teachings and their own spiritual journeys.

  “I searched for so long for a true master,” said Meghna, a southerner from Mangalore. “I tried them all: Sai, Sadhguru, Amma, Sri Sri. So many. Unlike the others, Swami-ji wasn’t so distant or boring. When I met him for the first time it was like I got an electric shock. I swear my hair stood on end. I felt totally inconsequential, this tiny speck in the universe, and yet I knew that God had brought me to his true representative.”

  Priyanka claimed that as a child her father had often beat her. “Then a kindly man started appearing in my dreams,” she said. “I didn’t know it was Swami-ji because I didn’t recognize him. He told me that he would protect me and that my father was in pain and that I should forgive him. Then one day I saw a picture of Swami-ji in a magazine and I recognized him and so I came here. Later on, I persuaded my father to join me, and Swami-ji agreed to see him. He had a private audience. Apparently before Swami-ji said one word, Papa broke down in tears. Swami-ji helped him get rid of all of his negative energy and anger. Nowadays he’s a completely changed person.”

  “Some people are saying, like, Swami-ji called on the goddess Kali to kill that guy, you know that old man in Delhi who was preaching against him. You think that’s true?” asked Facecream.

  “Nothing would surprise me. He’s very powerful,” answered Priyanka.

  “No way! Swami-ji would never hurt anyone,” said Meghna.

  Damayanti, whose parents were also both devotees and along with their daughter often stayed in the ashram for weeks on end, had said little thus far. But now in a quiet voice she asked Facecream what had brought her to the ashram.

  “It wasn’t my choice,” she answered. “This is, like, the last place I thought I wanted to be. My pa made me come. But now I’m really glad he did. I mean, I’ve never experienced anything like it. It’s so awesome. It makes me feel so, like, in touch with myself, you know?”

  “There is a shloka in the Bhagavad Gita that says, ‘The guru appears when the disciple is ready’,” said Priyanka.

  “You’re very lucky. Few are blessed with so much attention as Swami-ji bestowed upon you,” said Meghna with a smile that let slip a hidden jealousy.

  ♦

  Priyanka led Facecream over to the Abode of Health, the two-hundred-bed hospital Maharaj Swami had constructed with donations from various Indian billionaires, including the reclusive ‘Scooter Raja’, R.K. Roy, whose company Roy Motors controlled 64 percent of India’s motorbike business.

  The façade of the hospital was built of pink Dholpur stone with life-size elephants holding up the arch of the entrance. Inside, everything was shiny and new and the departments were all equipped with the latest state-of-the-art diagnostic machines, like MRIs and ultrasound cardiology systems. But no surgery was available; all existing conditions were treated ‘naturally’.

  On their way to the walk-in clinic, where Facecream was due to undergo a health check, they passed a laboratory sealed behind three-inch-thick glass panels, where technicians in white coats and face masks peered into microscopes and petri dishes.

  “Western drug companies have sent their spies here to try to discover Swami-ji’s secrets,” said Priyanka, pointing out the security cameras in the corridor outside the laboratory.

  Facecream wanted to say: “Surely if Maharaj Swami is at one with the universe and knows and sees everything, there’s no need for cameras!” But she held her tongue, smiled innocently and said, “This place is awesome. Can anyone get, like, treatment here?”

  “People come from all over India with every kind of complaint. And if you can’t afford to pay, then it’s all free.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “That is Swami-ji’s way. He is here to help others. He builds wells, irrigation systems, schools. When the tsunami happened, he helped hundreds of fishermen rebuild their lives.”

  At the clinic, a pleasant Ayurvedic lady doctor explained that all devotees coming to stay at the ashram underwent a mandatory examination.

  “For this we will check all your marma points,” she explained. “There are one hundred and seven in all, and by examining them we can see what’s ailing you.”

  “But I feel, like, absolutely fine,” protested Facecream.

  “I’m sure,” replied the doctor with a smile, “but many of us are suffering from all kinds of conditions and don’t realize it. We are here to help. Now kindly undress and put on that smock hanging on the hook.”

  “Undress? Like, get naked? No thanks.”

  “Come now, there’s nothing to be afraid of. You can go behind that screen if you’d prefer.”

  Facecream went silent. She genuinely didn’t want to have to undress. If she did, then the doctor would see the scars on her back. And then there would be questions – questions that pertained to her past that she had no intention of answering. Not for anyone.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  Puri’s operative tried to think of an excuse for not going through with the examination, but for once she faltered. “It’s just that…”

  “Really, there’s nothing to worry about,” interrupted the doctor. “Now, be a good girl and do as I say. There are others waiting after you.”

  Facecream slowly took off her clothes, put on the smock and then lay on the examination table.

  “There we are. This won’t take long.”

  The doctor poked and prodded and made notes on a clipboard. After a few minutes, she asked her patient to turn onto her front. Facecream complied, readying herself with a story about having fallen into a thorn patch at the age of seven. Even after all these years, the scars were prominent; there were four of them, and they ran in parallel lines from her right shoulder down to her left hip. The doctor said nothing about them.

  “See, that wasn’t so painful, was it?” she said cheerily at the end of the examination.

  Next, blood, urine and saliva samples were taken, and then Facecream was given a questionnaire to fill out. It included 150 multiple-choice questions, mostly pertaining to her relations with others and her perception of herself: “Would you say you are (a) happy; (b) sad; (c) miserable; (d) depressed?”

  Facecream found herself answering honestly, curious to know how she would score. But when she returned the completed questionnaire, the doctor gave it only a cursory glance before laying it on her desk and then prescribing a number of Maharaj Swami-branded Ayurvedic ‘medicines’ to help cleanse her system of ‘bile and destructive toxins and help energy flow’.

  “What about the test? When do I find out how I scored?”

  “That’s not how it works – it’s not like a school examination,” answered the doctor kindly. “Be patient. Swami-ji will answer all your questions in time.”

  After the appointment, Facecream found herself unchap-eroned and, despite the heat, went for a walk around the grounds. Near the hospital, she came across the outlet for a ventilation shaft half hidden behind some bushes. There was another, identical one near the darshan hall, and yet another on the far side of the residence hall. This suggested there was a network of rooms or passages underground. But where were the access points?

  Before she could investigate any further, Bossy appeared and told her everyone was gathering again at the gazebo.

  The rest of Facecream’s morning was spent doing yog
a and repeating a mantra from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

  “It is designed to divert the mind from basic instinctual desires or material inclinations by focusing on a spiritual idea, such as ‘I am a manifestation of divine consciousness’,” explained the senior devotee who led the session.

  ♦

  Om Asato ma sat gamaya Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya Mrtyorma amrtam gamaya Om shanti shanti shanti (From ignorance, lead me to truth; From darkness, lead me to light; From death, lead me to immortality Om peace, peace, peace)

  ♦

  At lunch, Facecream helped serve the long line of poor and needy who flocked to the ashram every day for a free meal. Her task was to ladle yellow daal onto hundreds of plates.

  After she herself had eaten, she decided to try to find the spot on the river where Manika Gill had supposedly killed herself.

  When no one was looking, she slipped out the back of the tent and made her way toward the rear of the grounds where there were plenty of shade trees growing. It was here that she came across Damayanti sitting on her own on a bench.

  “I’m going down to the river. Come for a walk,” said Facecream.

  The devotee hesitated. “I… I don’t know.”

  “But I want to see the river and I don’t know the way,” she pleaded. “I… I can’t.”

  “Sure you can. Come on, it will be fun.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Let’s just go, the two of us,” said Facecream, making it sound like an exciting, radical idea.

  Damayanti glanced around her. “We’d better be quick,” she said, and the two managed to slip away together.

  A gate at the back of the grounds led to a well-worn path that wound beneath a canopy of Rudraksha trees along a sheer cliff thirty feet above the Ganges.

  The river was still in its infancy here, untainted by the corrupting pollutants awaiting it along its fifteen-hundred-mile journey across the baking Indo-Gangetic plain, home to more than one-seventh of all humanity. Its virginal waters crashed and plunged over boulders, swirled around fallen tree trunks and spat at the rocks strewn along its banks.

  Facecream and Damayanti passed brightly feathered kingfishers and a line of village women and girls who smelt of smoke and earth and carried bundles of kindling balanced on their heads. The locals stared at them, whispering and giggling amongst themselves, before heading higher up into the woods.

  Soon the valley widened and a sandy beach appeared below them on the near bank, golden in the sunshine. A steep trail led down to it. Facecream suggested they go for a swim. But Damayanti looked suddenly terrified.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to go down there. Can we go back?”

  “Of course we can. But tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s nothing. I just don’t like it here.”

  Facecream feigned an epiphany. “This wasn’t where that girl… she drowned, didn’t she? God, that was terrible. I read about it in the papers.” Facecream realized that anyone remembering the old Queenie would have found this highly improbable – unless of course the news had found its way into the Indian edition of Hello!. “I can’t remember her name. What was it?”

  “Manika,” said Damayanti.

  “That’s right, Manika Gill. She was, like, so young and beautiful. I saw her picture. Did you know her?”

  The younger woman nodded.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. You poor sweetie.”

  Facecream gave her a tender hug and the young woman began to cry on her shoulder.

  “Manika didn’t even say good-bye,” she sobbed. “I don’t understand it. She didn’t say anything to anyone.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “That night. We all went to sleep. But in the morning she was gone.”

  “You mean she was staying in your – our – dormitory?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God! That’s so unbelievable. So you must have really known her well. Was she unhappy? I’m just curious, guess.”

  Damayanti didn’t answer. She appeared conflicted, as if there was something she wanted to say but dared not.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

  They walked back up the path for a few minutes and then sat down on a smooth rock listening to the susurrus of the river below. Facecream started tossing little stones over the cliff edge, watching them splash into the water.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said after a while. “Have you had lots of visions like the one I had yesterday?”

  Damayanti nodded.

  “Did Manika have any?”

  She nodded again.

  “A lot?”

  Just then a male voice called out Damayanti’s name.

  “That’s my father,” she said with alarm. “I’ve got to go.”

  A middle-aged man appeared. He was wearing the garb of a devotee.

  “There you are,” he said in a kindly yet firm voice. “I’ve been looking for you. Luckily someone thought they saw you coming down here.”

  Casting a suspicious look at Facecream, he took his daughter by the hand and led her away.

  ♦

  Facecream returned to the residence hall and found her other roommates preparing to go to Haridwar to watch the evening aarti ceremony. She decided to join them.

  Setting off in a local bus and singing devotional songs along the way, they reached the city at dusk. The population was emerging into the streets. Along the narrow, medieval lanes, the sounds of worship spilled out from countless temples. Small petrol generators rumbled. Beggars with amputated limbs wailed for alms and showed off their deformities to frightening effect. Hardware merchants sat amidst stacks of stainless steel tiffins, baltis and enormous cooking pots that looked like imports from Brobdingnag in Gullivers Travels.

  Facecream’s group wove through the crowd, past holy cows, open sewers and dozens of stalls selling tacky religious memorabilia like om key rings, until they reached the Har ki Pauri ghat. Thousands had already gathered at the water’s edge – ordinary men and women who had traveled to the city to offer prayers of thanks to the river goddess Ganga; the odd bedraggled tourist; members of sects and cults, each in their own distinct outfit and occupying blocks of the steps like football fans in team stripes.

  As darkness fell, diyas were lit and cast onto the water, floating off down the river – a miniature armada. Bells and gongs clattered. Speakers blared ‘Ganga Mantra’. Temple priests standing at the edge of the western bank lit oil lamps, circling them in the air, casting glimmering orange reflections in the water.

  Sitting there, watching this timeless, bewitching spectacle, Facecream could understand the attraction life at the ashram held for her roommates. The camaraderie, the sense of a shared purpose, was no different here than it had been in the Maoist camps. But as she had learned to her cost in Nepal, such idealism was easily preyed upon.

  She found herself wondering about Maharaj Swami – what kind of man was he really?

  The nineteen-year-old Facecream, the one who had fled home to join the glorious Maoist cause, might well have perceived him as a Robin Hood type, robbing the rich to help the poor. But she had learned that such men were not motivated by generosity. Building wells, helping tsunami victims – that was all done to impress others, to build a saintly reputation. Power was the only thing that motivated such men. They were intoxicated by it.

  Had Swami-ji come to believe his own lie?

  Facecream hoped to get a better measure of him tomorrow evening. Before she had set out for Haridwar, word had been sent that she was to be given a private audience.

  ∨ The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing ∧

  Fourteen

  It was Saturday morning and Puri was at home. His daughter Jaiya’s godh bharai baby shower was due to start at eleven and everyone in the house was busy preparing for the festivities.

  Rumpi seemed to be everywhere at once: in the kitchen overseeing the prepar
ation of pistachio barfi and sweetened saffron milk; in the sitting room putting up decorations; and upstairs letting out Jaiya’s sari blouse so that it would accommodate her new proportions.

  From the sanctuary of the rooftop where he was lying low, Puri could hear his wife giving orders. It was like listening to the head chef of a restaurant.

  “Malika! Don’t overcook the khoya again!”

  “Monika… Go buy one K-G of aloo… Then borrow some! Ask Deepak Madam. Hurry!”

  “Sweetu! What are you doing? Stop being a fool and blow up the balloons properly… well, blow harder!”

  Puri knew it was only a question of time before he was put to work himself. No excuse would be brooked: not a pressing clue that needed immediate investigation, not even a dead client.

  First, though, he hoped to finish his tea and open his post.

  He recognized one of the envelopes instantly. It was postmarked London: the latest catalogue from Bates Gentlemen’s Hatter in Piccadilly, suppliers of all his Sandown caps. There was another from the electricity company with whom he was in an ongoing dispute over his bill. Who in Delhi wasn’t? There was a circular from the Rotary Club as well.

  “HIP HIP HIP HURRAY!” it read. “Rotarians of Delhi South celebrate their status as the PLATINUM CLUB OF THE ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DIST. 301. Cheers, cheers, cheers.”

  It included pictures taken during the gala ‘installation ceremony’ of the incoming president and noted that ‘an array of Rotary District officials were present for the occasion who by their presence boosted our morale’.

  The circular also included an update on all the community work done by the club, of which Puri and Rumpi were active members.

  His mobile rang.

  “Good morning. Mr. Vishwas Puri?”

  No one ever called him Vishwas, the full version of his first name, apart from salespeople. Puri had developed a deep hatred of such types. They were like a plague of leeches or locusts (or any other number of other slippery, creepy, crawly, sucking creatures that he could think of), harassing people at all hours of the day and night with offers of phone usage plans, bank loans, credit cards. Some idiot had even called him recently to ask if he was interested in buying a yacht.