A Lotus Grows in the Mud

by Goldie Hawn

  Reaching my destination, I walk down to the river’s edge where people are praying, while others bathe. Women wade in fully clothed, their saris floating out all around them like the overlapping petals of an exotic flower. There are bodies waiting to be burned, as tourists look on. A group of young children are lighting devotional candles and launching them out onto the water on green lotus leaves.

  I sit on the banks of the river watching the life of this city unfolding before me, just as it has unfolded for centuries. It is early evening now, and the sun is setting behind me so that everything is bathed in an ethereal light. Across the water, the gilded turrets on the pavilions and temples, palaces and terraces glint back at me. Golden. This truly is a City of Light.

  Returning to my hotel as darkness falls, I make an appointment for the next day with the astrologer with the piercing dark eyes who still sits in his little room just beyond the elevators. I first met him in 1980, when I came here to heal after the breakup of my second marriage.

  “Your career is going to go up, and up and up,” the astrologer predicted in 1980. “You’ll meet a man, you’ll fall in love, and you’ll have a boy child.” I received this information hungrily, gladly. He gave me hope for yet another chance of creating my perfect home with the white picket fence, and a loving father for my children.

  The astrologer was introduced to me by Papu, an adorable little street urchin I’d adopted as my guide. “Where now, Mrs. Goldie?” Papu asked me back then, grabbing my hand. “You want see other astrologer?”

  “No, Papu.” I laughed. “Thank you. This one was just fine.”

  Papu was my guardian angel on that early journey to heal. Indefinable in age, but probably not much older than thirteen, he was someone I first met when I was lost, in the midst of the madness of Varanasi. He came running up to me out of nowhere and tugged at my hand. Pulling on my skirt, he pestered me with “Mrs., Mrs., Mrs.!” I looked down at this beautiful Indian child, staring back up at me with his big black eyes and dirty face, and my heart melted. He was wearing long raggedy pants and a frayed orange T-shirt smeared with dust. There were no shoes on his grubby feet. He was holding a palette of holy colors that he wanted to sell.

  “Please, please, Mrs., you buy?”

  I shook my head.

  “What do you want, then? You want buy rugs?”

  “No, no thank you.”

  “You want buy silks?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Then you want guide? I will be your guide.”

  As I tried to cross the street, he ran ahead of me holding the cars back with his hand and shouting, “Stop! Stop!” He was clearing the way, protecting me fiercely. Papu was so tenacious, he wouldn’t let me go, so I surrendered, and I fell in love. Before I knew it, I was sitting in his uncle’s silk shop, buying silks. Then I was somewhere else, looking at rugs. He pushed cows out of our way as he led me into temples; he haggled with the rickshaw drivers on my behalf. He took me to his astrologer.

  After another long day together exploring the city, I asked him, “When was the last time you ate a hot meal, Papu?”

  He shook his head. I could see his ribs sticking through his T-shirt. I wondered where he slept, if he had family, how he lived.

  “Come with me,” I told him, stepping toward the hotel.

  “Not in there, Mrs. Goldie. Not allowed.”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer. I suppose it was the caste system at work.

  “We’ll see about that, Papu,” I said, grabbing his hand.

  I led him into the hotel until a senior member of the staff barred our way.

  “Madam, you cannot bring him in here!”

  “He’s my friend,” I replied coldly. “We’ll be dining together tonight.”

  Without another word, I showed Papu into the restaurant and watched him devour probably the biggest meal he had ever eaten.

  Ah, dear Papu. I wonder where he is now. We kept in touch for a while, but we lost contact over the years.

  Feeling nostalgic, I pick up the telephone and call home to make sure my children are all right. It is good to hear their voices and to know that they are happily carrying on their lives without me for a while. I go to bed feeling more peaceful than I have felt in months.

  The following morning, I hail a rickshaw and take a journey to see another old friend, whose company I feel the need for. The rickshaw driver knows the way. He pedals me through the tight grid of alleys in the Old City, wherein beats the real heart of Varanasi. Life is so robust here. People live their lives on the street. Parents and grandparents take care of their grandchildren. Women wash their clothes and their babies side by side. Everything is out in the open. Everybody shares. People and animals jostle together for space and air. Cows literally parade before us aimlessly while we wait for them to pass or squeeze past them apologetically.

  I’m embraced once more by this wave of sensuality, of color, smells, images, religion and cultures. Admittedly, some of the smells are putrid, but mostly it’s frangipani and jasmine. It is those scents I choose to remember. I smile at the children; I wave at the mothers and grandmothers we pass. They wave back and smile, their faces open and loving. I so love being lost here, just another anonymous face in the crowd.

  I’m on my way to my friend Brij Gupta’s guesthouse he runs with his mother, father and brother Sanjay. Our rickshaw weaves through the streets, a mass of humanity going in various directions. We dodge cows, and policeman standing in the middle of the street directing what looks like total chaos. I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

  At last I reach my destination, climb down from my rickshaw and walk up to the door of the Sun Hotel guesthouse, feeling very exhilarated to see Brij after all these years. The door opens. There, Brij sits in his wheelchair, backlit by the sun flooding through the window behind him.

  “Goldie!” he cries, his face lighting up. “I don’t believe it! I had no idea you were in town.”

  He pats the seat beside him in the cramped room he shares with his family, and I take it eagerly, so happy to see him again. His mother appears in a beautiful pink sari as if by magic, kissing me warmly on both cheeks. She makes us tea and crackers, and we sit together in this room full of sunlight and love.

  “So, dear Brij, how are you?” I ask, trying to ignore how brittle he looks. His unusual angle in his wheelchair suggests that his spine has grown even more crooked since I last saw him. Dark-haired and extremely handsome, he still cuts a dashing figure in his crisp white shirt and slacks.

  “I’m well, dear Goldie, very well,” he lies. He draws on his ubiquitous cigarette, elegantly held in an ivory holder. “Did you receive the poetry I sent you?”

  “Yes, Brij, I did. It was so beautiful. Thank you. Are you doing much other writing?”

  “Not so much,” he says, his eyes flickering with momentary sadness.

  I think back to the first time I met Brij. A woman at my hotel told me about him. “Brij Gupta is extremely intelligent, fluent in many languages and a foreign correspondent for Der Spiegel,” she said. “But one day he dove into two feet of water, thinking it was deeper, and is now a paraplegic and unable to work. He loves visitors. It would really cheer him up. It would be so wonderful.”

  I remember being struck immediately by how beautiful Brij was, and what an amazing spirit he had. I sat with him for hours, talking and sharing our lives. He writes such beautiful poetry about the light in Varanasi and the spirituality of this ancient city. His poetry is so optimistic; it comes from deep within the heart of a man who has lost everything, yet who has so much. I treasure every word.

  Now I have come to see him again in the hope of restoring some of my own natural optimism, which I have lost recently.

  “So how are your dear children, Goldie? How is your family?” he asks.

  “Kurt and the kids are great, Brij, but I’m not doing so well. I just lost my mother.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Goldie.”

  “I know. I ju
st feel like there’s this huge void now.”

  He nods and listens patiently.

  “I’ve been trying to make sense of what I’m feeling. Part of me feels like it has died too.”

  “It has,” Brij offers simply. “You’ve lost the last person who validated you—the one person who you could really please and make proud. You have to validate yourself now, Goldie. It’s up to you.”

  I sit and stare at his beautiful face, listening as his words fade to silence in the still air around us. Nobody can validate me now but myself? He has such wisdom.

  He then reaches across to a record player and puts on a song by Barbra Streisand. He sits in rapture for a moment, eyes pressed shut; he listens to the words and then stares up at me. “Dance with me,” he instructs. I am stunned, not knowing what to say.

  “Oh, okay,” I reply, thinking I’ll just stand before him and maneuver his wheelchair in little circles. I reach for the arm of the chair.

  “No, no. Hold me; hold me up,” he says. Using his powerful arms to heave himself from the confines of his wheelchair, he beckons me to stead him on his feet.

  “Oh, but, Brij, I can’t,” I cry. “I’ll drop you,” I say in abject fear.

  “No you won’t, Goldie. You are much stronger than you think.”

  He balances himself on his feet, clamping his arms tightly around me. I put my arms around his torso for support. I am shaking. Behind us, Barbra sings: “People,/People who need people/Are the luckiest people in the world…”

  And so we dance. Even though I am afraid, we dance. Even though he is so heavy, we dance. And with each tiny step, I say a prayer that I won’t collapse under the full weight of Brij Gupta. I see a little mouse scurry across the floor by our feet and escape into a well-worn hole. As Brij rests his body against mine, he whispers, “See, Goldie? See how strong you are?”

  The spell between us is broken when the door opens and Brij’s brother Sanjay walks in.

  “Goldie!” Sanjay cries with delight as he helps me settle Brij back into his wheelchair. “How marvelous to see you!”

  We chat for a while, but we can both see that Brij is tiring.

  “How would you like to come on the River Ganges with me this evening, Goldie?” Sanjay asks on an impulse. “Some friends of mine have hired a boat and would be delighted if you’d join us.”

  “Oh, I don’t know…”

  But Brij catches my eyes and smiles broadly. “Oh, but you must go, Goldie! It will be wonderful! Come back and see me tomorrow.”

  Sanjay and I sit side by side in the back of a rickshaw in companionable silence. My heart is full of the comfort his words have given me. I was right to come here. I was right to try to open the windows of my mind and soul. I have taken the first important step away from my grief. I’m allowing a little of this amazing Indian light to flood those darkest corners of my heart.

  Stepping from the rickshaw as Sanjay pays the driver, I suddenly hear a voice: “Goldie Hawn?”

  My heart sinks. Oh no, not now! Not here. I don’t want to be Goldie Hawn. I want to be a stranger walking alone, peaceful with my thoughts. I put my head down and keep walking toward the ghats, trying to ignore the voice.

  “Goldie? Goldie Hawn?” The voice is nearer now, and has taken on an urgent tone.

  Sighing heavily, deeply dismayed at being recognized here of all places, I turn to see a man in his mid-twenties standing a few feet apart from a group of other Indians, their foreheads devotionally streaked with sandalwood.

  I try to muster a smile.

  “You’re Goldie Hawn!” the young man states, his eyes bright.

  “Yes…Yes, I am,” I reply softly.

  “Mrs. Goldie! It’s me, Papu!” he cries, rushing forward. “You remember! The boy who met you many years ago! You helped me. You called me your friend. Mrs. Goldie, I have prayed for your long life every day!”

  I stare openmouthed at the man before me. Try as I might, I cannot recognize anything of the little boy I once befriended in this adult’s face. But I know from the sandalwood on his forehead that he is a devout man. I can also tell from the tears in his eyes that he is speaking the truth.

  “Papu? I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! You’re all grown up!”

  He runs to me, and I hug him with all my might.

  “How in the world did we come to be on the same street?”

  I can speak no more. The synchronicity of our meeting on this auspicious day overwhelms me. My guardian angel has been returned to me. Our paths have crossed once more.

  Sanjay coughs and steps forward shyly, so I introduce him to Papu.

  “Then you must come with us tonight on the boat, Papu,” Sanjay tells him, smilingly. Pointing the way with his hand, he insists. “Please, my dears, come.”

  Papu takes my hand just as he did when he was a little boy, following Sanjay to the river. “Thanks to you, Mrs. Goldie,” he says, grinning broadly, “I’m now a very wealthy man. I have my own silk shop. It was your faith in me that made me successful.”

  “No, Papu,” I correct him. “It was your faith in yourself.”

  “Here we are,” says Sanjay, pointing to a beautiful double-decker boat moored to the riverbank. He and his friends have hired musicians to play for us, and the beautiful Hindu music of sitar, flute and tabla calls to us from across the water.

  As I pull off my sandals and step aboard the boat, the sitar player puts down his instrument and scatters rose petals before my bare feet. He leads me to the top deck, which is covered in rugs and pillows. He takes rose oil and rubs it on his hands, gently massaging the oil into my hair and my skin.

  Sanjay’s friends join us, and we push off from the riverbank as the musicians begin to play. There is no motor, just the sound of paddles gently slapping the water. I lie back on the pillows and rugs, inhaling the oil, soaking up the golden light. I can feel my joy awakening from deep inside me.

  We drink chai as the musicians play a Hindu song I recognize. Before I know it, I’m singing along: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.”

  Boy, I think, laughing, if my mother could see me now!

  I can almost feel Moses looking down on me from heaven. “So what are you, Goldie Hawn?” he is saying. “A Jew or a Hindu?”

  “I dunno,” I reply. “I think I’m a little bit of everything. All faiths can be beautiful.”

  I stare across at this moving tableau: the funeral pyres, the flames and billowing smoke, the flesh and bones of those who’ve died becoming the air that we breathe. Nearby, inside the tall, thin houses on the edge of the river, babies are being born. On the doorsteps, men and women are waiting to die. All around me is the full circle of life and death, and all of the inevitables, emerging from creation and destruction simultaneously. A beautiful sense of calm fills me at my acceptance of this endless cycle. I am beginning to understand. My mother’s death is all part of this same divine process.

  What are we mourning? What are we running from? Death is the one inevitability in life, yet so many of us, especially in the West, are uncomfortable with it. Certainly in my house, we never discussed it. My parents never spoke of death, and even to the very end my mother refused to say, “I’m going to die.” And yet she did. We all do.

  During this healing journey, I sensed some divine force had brought me to this mystical city to find the answers I was seeking to questions in my life, forcing me to focus on questions about death and to immerse myself in a culture that so embraces it. By rejecting the normal Western reaction of being so afraid of dying, I came to believe that it is vital that we come to terms with death, especially our own, in order to live out the rest of our lives fully and consciously.

  Know that you are going to die, then back up and live each day with that truth in mind. Wake up each morning happy to be alive.

  oxygen

  Oxygen is the unseen element of our universe that awakens our body, mind and spirit. Without it, we die.

  I feel as if I’m in a Gard
en of Allah as I push my way through overgrown banana trees and ferns to find the half-hidden door to the motel in Hollywood, California. The place looks like something out of the Sunset Boulevard era.

  Hacking my way through to the entrance and up the stairs, I think, Goldie, do you really want to do this? Maybe this transformational breathing session is too much of a left turn…even for you.

  After knocking on a door, I stand before it, toying with the idea of running away. But before I can, it opens, and I come face-to-face with a woman whose luminous smile reassures me.

  “Hi! Come on in,” she says, leading me into a room lit only by candles and filled with crystals and incense. She seems pretty normal, I think. Soft-spoken, she is sweet and soothing. “This way,” she says, and takes me through to a bedroom. “So now why don’t you start by loosening your clothing and making yourself comfortable. Lie down on the bed and relax. I’ll just fetch a glass of water. I’ll be right back.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed and look around. The curtains are sheer and a little bit grubby, but I can just about see through them out onto the Hollywood Hills. My breathing guide returns with the promised water, and sits next to me on the bed.

  “So this will help my prana, my life force?” I ask.

  “Yes, in a way. Now, we’re just going to start with some deep breathing, so lie down.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “We’ll go deeper and deeper with the breathing, and you’ll soon begin to have some strange physical sensations.”

  “I will?”

  “Yes. Now, whatever happens, I want you to keep with it. Don’t be afraid. It can get pretty intense, and if you feel like you have to stop, then stop, it’s okay. But it’s best if you just keep rolling. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through it.”

  “Er, okay,” I say nervously. “But this is going to be, like, fun, right?”