by Sharell Cook
‘My name's Himanshu. I'm from Bihar but live in Kerala, Goa and Manali selling my art now. I had a love marriage to a Gujarati, but I've got a girlfriend who's an American yoga teacher. She knows everything about me but my wife doesn't know anything. I love to flirt.’ I didn't quite know what to make of his complicated life circumstances, which he seemed to be proud of, and hoped that he wouldn't decide to flirt with me.
We arrived at a set that was an astonishing hive of activity. Hundreds of workers were industriously building, painting and sculpting around the clock. It was fascinating to see so many artisans in action, bringing to life a fairytale with their hands. At a loss as to what to do, we spent most of the day sitting around waiting. The remainder of the shopkeepers, who were due to turn up at 2 p.m., didn't arrive until 8 p.m. Lunch was late. The shopkeepers discovered the food wasn't to their liking and went to eat at a nearby vegetarian restaurant, demanding that the production company pay. As soon as I stepped outside to the lunch buffet, I was pounced upon by a couple of young Rajasthani women on vacation.
‘Didi! (Sister!) Photo, photo!’ they screamed as they pulled my arm.
In the afternoon, the shopkeepers bought a bottle of whisky and drank it behind the set, while Himanshu played Hindi songs on his mobile phone and danced. It wasn't until after dark that the director arrived. A hush swept over the set. He walked in and proceeded to tell everyone where to display their goods.
‘Make sure the shopkeepers are on the set at 6 a.m. for filming tomorrow,’ I overheard him say.
The set was nowhere near finished. To me, it looked like filming would be impossible. The artisans would be working through the night to get it ready.
At 11.30 p.m., Aryan and I were yet to leave. We'd been told that we should stay there, with the rest of the shopkeepers to keep an eye on our belongings.
‘No one mentioned anything about this to me. I don't have a change of clothes or anything. Plus where are we going to sleep?’
Unaccustomed to the Indian ability to slumber surrounded by people and with just a mattress on the floor, I refused. Finally, a car was arranged to take us back to Manali.
We arrived home well after midnight, exhausted. At 4 a.m., the alarm went off. I struggled out of bed, looking like a creature of the night with bloodshot eyes. The sun was rising.
Despite the early start, we arrived on the set two hours late. India, as always, produced the unexpected. The magician who was supposed to be picked up in New Manali wasn't there. We waited for over fifteen minutes before the driver went to retrieve him from his hotel room. When he got into the car, I couldn't help noticing that he had the hairiest ears I'd ever seen. Some strands were over five centimetres long. Just out of Manali, we encountered a broken-down tourist bus that was blocking the entire road.
‘Mera dimag kharab hogaya (My brain has become bad),’ the crew member sitting in the front seat repetitively muttered, as phone calls became more anxious. Time marched on, but we failed to move. A crowd of Indian spectators gathered around the bus and were entertained by a passing stream of locals performing their early morning ablutions. Teeth were cleaned and tongues scraped with sticks, as they openly bathed under taps. At last, the tourists were ordered off the bus and the bystanders pushed it off the road. One guy produced a whistle and blew it keenly while waving his arms around.
Surprisingly, when we finally arrived, the set was complete. We met a subdued Himanshu.
‘I had to share a room with seven people and hardly got any rest,’ he grumbled.
I rushed around madly trying to get all the stock displayed according to instructions, while Aryan looked at me in exasperation. It was obvious I still hadn't adjusted to Indian time.
Eventually the cast emerged in readiness for the dance scene. The success or otherwise of a Bollywood movie often depends solely on its soundtrack and dance scenes. Interestingly, these dance scenes mostly have no relevance to the movie or real life. They deliberately feature attractive women in revealing costumes, usually dancing in a provocative manner. The lyrics consistently contain over-the-top references to love, life, the heart and romance. With Indian culture being so conservative, such scenes provide an indulgence that people are unaccustomed to seeing every day. To Indians, a Bollywood film without dance scenes would be like curry without chilli – bland and unappealing.
Understandably, a lot of effort and money is devoted to making dance scenes in Bollywood movies. Still, I was shocked to learn that two weeks of preparation and filming would result in only one six-minute dance scene. It was a time-consuming process that required days of work, many costume changes and sets.
The dancing itself was highly choreographed and shot in very small blocks from different angles, and not in sequence. It was mesmerising to watch the set burst into life with great vigour and enthusiasm, only to have the energy dissipate just as quickly as soon as ‘cut’ was called. With the same song playing over and over for days on end, as each movement was repeatedly filmed, the strength of my grip on sanity was tested.
The set had been transformed into a vibrant extravaganza complete with Tibetan dancers, costumed Tibetan yaks and traditionally dressed locals who had been rounded up from surrounding villages to be extras. The local women were so sweet and friendly. I chatted to them as much as my limited Hindi would allow.
It didn't take long before the director noticed me and came over.
‘Your pretty red dress isn't going to be seen if you stay where you are. Stand over here and move these baskets around. Try and avoid being disturbed by the dancing yak, and stop it from biting you,’ he instructed. And with those words, my unforeseen role as a Bollywood extra had begun.
The next day, Himanshu's wife arrived from Gujarat. Relieved, I hoped it would put a stop to his attempts to flirt with me. She wasn't at all like how he'd described her. Instead, she was modern, attractive, spoke very good English, obviously understood him and knew how to keep him in line.
‘I asked him to marry me, despite the fact that my parents didn't approve of me marrying someone who wasn't from my caste,’ she told me. Clearly, she was a strong and determined woman.
I was on the set by myself, as Aryan had a cold and wasn't feeling well. I soon regretted my decision to be there alone. At lunchtime, the crew invited me to join them. With trepidation, I agreed. They seemed preoccupied with their work and very quickly returned to the set, leaving me with the director and assistant director.
After lunch, the assistant director called me aside.
‘I just wanted to tell you that the crew is trying to set me up with you. They've chosen me as the victim of their latest prank.’
I wasn't impressed. It was hard enough being the only foreigner on a Hindi-speaking set, without having to deal with people's practical jokes as well. I missed the reassurance of having Aryan by my side, his calmness and instincts about situations to compensate for my enduring naïveté.
I tried to keep as much of a low profile as possible that afternoon but it was difficult with the director deliberately asking me to be in various shots. I counted the hours until I could go home to the safety of Aryan's arms.
It took over two hours for all the shopkeepers to be paid at the end of the day, drawn out by a dramatic argument between Himanshu and one of the crew members.
‘This isn't the amount you agreed to pay me. You don't know my worth!’ he shouted in front of everyone before storming off. His performance was worthy of being in a Bollywood movie; it was fitting that we were on the set of one.
As a result of the delay, the car that was to take us back to Manali had already left. It looked like it was going to be a long wait for another one.
‘Would you like to share a ride with myself and the crew?’ the director asked.
Wanting to get home as soon as possible, I reluctantly agreed. After dropping the crew at their hotel, the director climbed into the back of the van with me.
‘You're so pleasingly congenial. Good-looking girls usually have attitudes
and you never know where you stand with them.’
I wondered where the conversation was headed.
‘Will you have dinner with me?’ he asked.
I desperately wanted to be back in the apartment with Aryan.
‘I'm sorry, I'm really tired. I just want to go home,’ I managed to say.
When it was time for me to get out of the car, the director insisted on walking with me back to my apartment.
‘It's dark, and it's down a hill,’ I protested.
‘I want to see the view,’ he insisted, not taking no for an answer. Fortunately, Aryan was near the window and saw us arrive together.
‘Come in,’ he extended an invitation as he opened the door. The situation defused, the director left soon after.
‘You're not going back tomorrow,’ Aryan said when I told him what had happened.
I had no desire to argue with him. The crew obviously didn't take my relationship with Aryan seriously. But maybe it didn't cross their minds that we were in a relationship. White foreigner and Indian man: more than likely, they simply mistook him as just another shopkeeper and me as another tourist.
I needed to get some space. Hoping that nature would be kind enough to dissolve some of my stress and fill me with energy, I went for a walk in the forested Manali Reserve that connects New Manali with Old Manali. Bordered by the powerful Beas River, its fertile green carpet was peppered with boulders and woven with walking tracks. I lay down on one of the wooden benches and shut my eyes. The sun flickering through the soaring pine trees warmed my face and soothed my mind.
When I awoke, however, the good feelings were swiftly lost. I had an audience – one man was sitting, staring, on a nearby rock. Another was half hidden behind a boulder. Two young guys, gaining confidence from each other, proceeded to strut over and seat themselves right next to me. This inspired the other men to follow. Before long, they were all round me. I tried to remain composed but failed when I realised that one of them was pretending to talk on his mobile phone. What he was actually doing was taking a photo of me.
‘Baysharam! (Shameless!)’ I spluttered, almost speechless with fury. It didn't take long for my anger to turn into pain though. Right when I needed solitude the most, it eluded me. Even worse, it had been replaced by the thing that made me feel most uncomfortable: being ogled at. I didn't want to be an object of anyone's desires. I didn't want intrusions into my personal space. I just wanted to be anonymous and alone.
Tense and burdened, I decided to attend one of the Reiki courses held at the Reiki centre in nearby Vashist. Vashist was fast becoming a popular alternative to Manali, with many travellers staying there to learn yoga and other alternative therapies. The Reiki Master, I discovered, was a tiny, bubbly woman called Ritu. She put me at ease straightaway with her warmth and openness. At last, my teacher had appeared. I was ready. Happily, Aryan also agreed to study with me.
We sat in Ritu's lavender-coloured room, surrounded by crystals and with the Himalayas as our backdrop. There were four of us in the class. Aryan, me and a Spanish couple. We began by learning the theory about energy and the chakras.
‘Everything in the universe is made up of energy, vibrating at different frequencies. This includes human beings. The universe is formed out of the energies of five elements, the same as human beings. They are air, earth, space, fire and water. Each element describes the essential qualities of life-force energy. They balance and transform this energy. Each element is also associated with one of the seven chakras, or energy centres of the human body.’
I was most interested in what Ritu had to say about the heart and root chakras.
‘The heart chakra is the emotional centre of a person. It's the place where the energies of the three upper chakras and three lower chakras blend. The task when dealing with the heart chakra is to drop expectations, and love yourself and others without barriers. Society and family condition people's minds. We all have ideals in our minds about how a ‘father’, a ‘mother’, a ‘husband’ should be. However, everyone is different. Therefore, we can't judge them against any ideal. We must look at a person as a person. Just because someone is not fulfilling all conditions doesn't mean that they're not a good person. We are always looking through the eyes of others. We are always judging ourselves and others as not being good enough.’
Ritu's words really made me think. It was as if she was speaking to directly to me about my situation. Aryan wasn't tall, white and wealthy – the ideal of what my husband should be, according to the expectations from my old life. Instead, his strengths and what he had to offer me were more subtle.
I'd started noticing how Aryan rarely complained about anything, from the situations he was in to how he was feeling. If I needed something, he willingly got it for me. If I was feeling down, he did little things to comfort me and cheer me up. If I was tired, he offered to do the housework. He was comfortable enough with himself that he behaved the same way around everyone, and didn't feel like he had to prove anything. Maybe he couldn't provide me with material stability, but he could provide me with emotional stability.
We completed each other. He had the unconditional love in his heart that I was so lacking, while I was disciplined and responsible in ways he wasn't. In addition to mirroring the parts of each other that we needed to develop, I also saw some of the negative aspects of my past behaviour in him and got to experience their impact.
‘The lowest chakra is the root chakra,’ Ritu continued. ‘The root chakra relates to the physical body of a person. It's responsible for our physical form. It grounds us to the Earth and opens up for the Earth energies to flow through us. When people can't relax, and are always tense and fearful, their physical body will have a lot of pain and illness. If the root chakra is blocked or weak, a person will lack vitality and even lose the will to live. The past is stored in two places in the body – the root chakra, and the subconscious in the back of the head. The task when working with the root chakra is to strengthen our trust in life and our right to be here. The root chakra also connects a person with their biological mother. One of the best ways to heal your root chakra is to heal your relationship with your mother.’
I did feel an overwhelming need to heal my past, and that included improving my relationship with my mother. Instead of getting frustrated with our differing opinions, like I usually did, I was keen to appreciate her positive qualities and look for common ground between us.
After the theory was complete, we were ready to receive our Reiki attunements. As we sat on the floor and meditated with our eyes closed, Ritu performed the process that would open up our chakras and connect us at a higher level to the universal life energy. It was similar to the process of turning the frequency dial on a radio to find a station. We were being tuned in to a higher frequency, a higher level of vibration.
Although the results of the process could not be seen, they could readily be sensed. I felt a rush of energy in my lower two chakras. Afterwards, I felt dazed. My energy levels felt disturbed and unsettled. My emotions progressed from feeling calm, to teary, to elated, to vulnerable and wanting affection, then to disturbed and wanting to retreat.
That evening, I experienced an intense energy shift. One minute I was overflowing with love and gratitude, and the next minute negative emotions were pouring out of me. I lay down on the bed and buried myself under a blanket. My whole focus went inwards. All I wanted to do was breathe in and out. I felt the negative energy flowing out through the lower chakras. Tears came. I was hot, then cold. Exhausted but in a state of elation, completely charged with energy but in an uncontrollable and unsustainable way.
My attention was scattered. I felt like I was experiencing a different level of awareness. My energy and being seemed to blend with everything else around me. I looked at things and noticed small details in their composition. Objects didn't seem to exist in their usual form anymore. A beetle. A person. A bed. They were simply compositions of energy that happened to look different. Then came warm feelings,
like I was blessed with a new gift. One that would always be with me, whenever I needed it. I felt so connected to the universe and a part of all that was around me.
Over the forthcoming days, my body adjusted itself to the new level of energy. My emotions continued to oscillate from one extreme to another. At times, my energy levels were so high it produced a rushing sensation similar to having drunk too much coffee. During those times, I felt like I was being propelled in a whole new direction in life.
In class, we practised giving Reiki treatments to each other, allowing the energy to flow through our hands. We also gave Reiki to ourselves daily. The sensations in our hands, when we placed them over the various chakras, indicated if there were any issues. My hands went cold over my root chakra, indicating a large blockage of energy. However, when I placed them over the heart chakra of another student, I experienced a rush of love and happiness. It was such a dramatic difference. I also found that my left hand became shaky and tingly when energy was flowing through it to repair unbalanced chakras.
During the Reiki treatments, I began to get some uniformity in the emotions that came up. I felt the need to put a wall up, and not let anyone know my thoughts and experiences. I didn't want to let anyone really know me because then I would be exposed and vulnerable. I felt dirty and uncomfortable with myself. I didn't want people knowing me intimately. Then came the thoughts of how people, especially my parents, might criticise my relationship with Aryan. I felt the pain of being judged by everyone, and not being free to be myself. It seemed like so much negativity was being drawn out of me. More tears came.
I realised that I had two related issues. The fear of being judged and the fear of being known. The only way I could get over my fear of being judged was to let myself be judged, and the only way I could get over my fear of being known was to let myself be known. And it was through my relationship with Aryan that I could achieve both, if I was strong enough. The universe had planned it well. If I remained with Aryan and faced up to everyone's judgements about our relationship, then I would receive his unconditional love as a result. This would in turn allow me to feel secure and comfortable enough to open myself up completely. But in order to achieve this, I'd have to have the courage to go against so many of society's ideals about how I should lead my life and who I should be with. I would need every bit of willpower and clarity that I could draw upon.