Cartwheels in a Sari

by Jayanti Tamm

  In 1971, Deepal, a waiflike Argentinean native who worked at the United Nations, became Guru's disciple. When Guru learned about her profession, Deepal quickly received her spiritual name and entrée into Guru's inner circle. Guru had always wanted to be connected to the world's most powerful international organization, and he asked Deepal to discover a way to introduce him into its folds. As it turned out, the United Nations had a collegial atmosphere, offering its employees many clubs and activities in an effort to foster a close-knit community from the myriad foreign nationals. Two signatures of full-time employees was all it took to form a club, and so Deepal and one of her friends created the Sri Chinmoy Peace Meditation at the United Nations club. Guru was official.

  Twice a week, Prema or Isha chauffeured Guru to the circular entrance of the Secretariat Building, where he was escorted past the ambassadors and dignitaries into a small room for a meditation for any interested members of the UN and greater diplomatic community, which usually consisted only of disciples. Wanting his presence at the UN to grow, Guru decided his mission needed to be better represented at the world body, and he instructed anyone who wanted to be a “good disciple” to obtain a job at the UN. To please their master, scores of disciples applied, obtaining positions as low-level clerks or secretaries. What was important was that they were in, and so was Guru. For maximum exposure, Guru instructed all his women disciples to wear saris to work at the UN. While there were many international employees who were garbed in their native dress, it was more unusual for tall, blond women to show up at their office in saris and sneakers. After Guru's connection was firmly rooted, he promoted his UN position at every opportunity, announcing that he had been invited by dignitaries of the global community to be the official meditation leader and Peace Ambassador of the United Nations.

  Chandika, my father's sister, who had followed her big brother's lead and become a disciple, obeyed Guru's mandate, landing a job as a secretary at UNICEF, to her great delight. Soon more than one hundred and fifty disciples had infiltrated the hallowed halls, and they began to make an impression. The Secretary-General at the time was the Burmese statesman U Thant. As a dignified and devout Buddhist, U Thant was well versed in the ancient traditions of Eastern philosophies, and he was far from objecting to the presence of non-Western faiths in the pantheon of beliefs represented at the world's leading diplomatic epicenter. In a show of his commitment to a broad definition of international faiths, he received an invitation from Guru to attend a special gathering in his honor. When Guru heard that U Thant's secretary had confirmed his acceptance, Guru was elated. He quickly phoned India to brag to his sisters and brothers. Guru knew that since his siblings were still residents of the Sri Au-robindo Ashram, his impressive news was guaranteed to spread quickly and eventually reach his old critics. Within a large portion of the ashram, his pursuit of a career as a guru in New York City had been viewed skeptically, as proof of his unholy ambitions. Guru wanted his doubters silenced. To Guru, U Thant's visit signified his acceptance not only at the UN but on the world stage. Not every Bangladeshi immigrant was invited to the UN to become its Peace Ambassador and host the Secretary-General. Guru was ecstatic, and so were we.

  The preparations for U Thant's visit lasted for weeks. The event was to be held on an old rambling estate, complete with a running brook, windmill, and large fields just outside the city. Guru micromanaged all the extensive arrangements, but when the greatly anticipated day finally arrived, rain poured on the festivities.

  U Thant, the ultimate diplomat, sat stoically beneath an umbrella held by my father for the duration of the endless, soggy event. Through songs and poems and plays, Guru pulled out all of his charms to honor U Thant. I spent the hours huddled underneath a garbage bag fashioned into a poncho. Wet and cold, as the hours trudged past I concluded that I hated the UN and wished it would just go away so I could go home. Guru, on the other hand, was elated by the visit. Soon the photograph of Guru and U Thant bowing with folded hands to each other was being publicly distributed along with typed comments excerpted from U Thant's kind words.

  Guru used the photos and comments so much that U Thant's office was notified by some high-level officials who had been keeping close watch. Several top executives viewed Guru as a charlatan who claimed his role at the UN was of an official capacity, and urged the Secretary-General's office to keep their distance. Thus began the long-standing game that sometimes felt like Risk and sometimes like dodgeball between the Secretary-General's office and Guru. Certainly no Secretary-General after U Thant ever spent hours sitting in a wet field with Guru again. They had learned their lesson. But nonetheless, with the ongoing efforts of his disciples, Guru became a permanent fixture as he continued to expand his role and presence at the UN.

  The side door finally unlocked. I opened my eyes. I napped so often now, I wasn't even aware when it happened. All of my Nobel Prize prayer sessions inevitably ended in my jerking awake and peering at a clock that registered that hours had passed. This happened in meditations with Guru as well; I felt as though I had caught the contagious disease that caused many disciples to conk out at a second's notice.

  Gitali stood with an extra large smile on her sweaty face. Her frizzy black hair was tightly pulled into a bun, and she wore a sari and yellow latex gloves. I must have been standing outside for at least an hour, waiting for her to open the door, but she didn't acknowledge that fact, as she handed me a stack of garbage bags, informing me that I would be cleaning the birdcages today.

  I knew Gitali adored the zoo; with it she had a purpose and need—a way to belong to Guru's coveted domestic space. Gitali, like the majority of Guru's disciples in the New York area who did not work for disciple-owned businesses, or “divine-enterprises” as Guru called them, was employed at one of the UN branches. Even with permanent contracts, high pay, great benefits, and the ability to meditate with Guru twice a week on their lunch hour, most disciples, still longed to be with Guru, every day, all day, as full-time devotees. Gitali, a full-time UN worker and part-time Madal zookeeper, was no exception. She was in Guru's special close circle, assigned to Isha's friend pool. Since Gitali worked at UNICEF during the week, which she claimed as her spiritual sadhana, having to deal with outsiders for eight hours a day plus ride the low-consciousness subway, her time at Guru's zoo cleaning bird droppings was her refuge.

  I put on a pair of mammoth cleaning gloves that were itchy from bleach. Even before opening the door to the bird zone, the thick stench and their shrill squawks clawed through the basement. Always a fan of soft, cuddly animals, I neither understood nor liked birds. Their unblinking eyes and pointy beaks, coupled with their reptilian talons, made me wary. I didn't trust them. When I walked inside, I felt as though my eardrums had been ripped out. Caws, shrieks, whines, and whistles collided at a shattering pitch. Maybe because they never saw sunlight, or were forced to live in cramped conditions, all of the birds seemed extra neurotic, pacing in mad circles in their own messes on the floor, or furiously pecking at the cage bars.

  “Nice birdie,” I said, tentatively reaching my arm inside a cage of black mynah birds that had been smuggled by a disciple from Indonesia. Some of the creatures stood their ground, staring me down, as others flapped spastically on metal perches.

  “Okay. Nice birdie,” I said, keeping an eye on the one that seemed about to dart in my direction, at the same time pulling out the newspaper sopped with white, green, and black puddles of creamy waste.

  After wiping down the concrete floor and relining it, without ever losing sight of the black beasts, I safely removed my arms and locked the cage again, with great relief.

  When I first received word from Guru that I was allowed to join my older sisters and be their assistant in the zoo, I was thrilled. I loved going to Guru's house, and anytime Guru included me with the grown-ups, I was especially proud. I smugly enjoyed being the only kid invited into such exclusive society. I imagined that helping with the animals would involve sitting in a comfortable place petti
ng a furry cute friend.

  “There is a dead finch in the finch cage,” Gitali had said on one of my first days in the bird zone, coming up from behind, scaring me. She had to repeat herself three times, until I could hear her over the deafening squawks.

  “So?” I shouted.

  “There are little Baggies up near the washing machines. You can use one of those.” She smiled and continued on.

  I soon realized that my special blessing of being with the grown-ups in Guru's zoo was not what I had imagined. Far from being a perk, this felt like purgatory.

  I moved on to Raj's cage. Raj was the scariest of all. A massive parrot that looked like it belonged perched on a tattered pirate's shoulder, it seemed to wait for me, daring me to even unlatch the lock, before lunging at me with his broad beak that ended in two points like the ends of a protractor.

  “Hey there, Raj. You like me, right? Sure you do. Nice Raj.” As soon as I unfastened the lock, he puffed out his feathers as a warning.

  It was now late afternoon in the bird dungeon. I imagined way aboveground, the bright sun shone on people on earth. I looked at my sari, soaked and stained with various bird body liquids. I peeled some damp feathers off my arms. By now I could not even hear the desperate calls of the birds, and the stench, too, seemed normal. On my knees, I sighed, imploring Raj just to give me a break. He was my last cage.

  As soon as I reached in, he flapped his wings, lifting them back, prepared to strike. I tried to rip the paper up, but it was stuck to the floor. With a yelp, Raj swooped down, latching onto my pinky finger.

  “Motherfucker!” I screamed.

  My free hand grabbed my dust broom, and I whacked Raj.

  “You fucker! Let go of my fuckin’ finger!”

  I smacked Raj over and over until he loosened his clamp and hobbled away to a corner of the cage. I stared down at my bluish finger and wondered if it could still bend.

  “Are we finished yet?” Gitali asked, appearing out of nowhere carrying a bucket of bird seed and wearing a smile.

  I looked up, holding my finger. Suddenly I hated her.

  “You know, in a few years, when you finish having to go to yucky school, you will be the luckiest person in the world because you will be blessed by Guru to have the opportunity to become his full-time bird keeper. How wonderful.” Gitali smiled, looking wistful. “For your whole life, every day, all day, you will get to be in Guru's blessed world and work only for Guru alone. You will never ever have to enter the outside world.”

  She sighed and patted my shoulder.

  “You really are the luckiest person,” Gitali said and walked past me toward the cockatoos.

  I sat on the concrete floor, nursing my finger, as a tidal flood of fear and doom filled me. This was what my future was? A lifetime of this—feathers and shit. I knew I shouldn't be feeling this way; being at Guru's house and cleaning the cages was an incredible honor. But I didn't want it. To me, the idea was horrifying. Even if Guru had me on the fast track to God-Realization and was preparing me to succeed Prema and Isha, it still felt like torture. I didn't care if working in this basement was my sacred destiny. Every squawk and scoop felt filthy and stifling. I panicked, and my heart thumped until it hurt. I thought of Chahna. She was probably in her sunny backyard or in her bedroom playing. I wished I could be with her instead of being in this hub of blessings, but I knew I couldn't tell that to anyone, even her. She had been so excited for me when I had bragged to her about tending Guru's animals. Chahna, who had never been invited to visit the animals, made me promise I'd describe all I saw and did with exact details. Knowing how happy Chahna was for me made me feel terrible. Why couldn't I be happy? I looked around and tried to fake a smile, but it felt impossible. Instead, I scrunched my knees into my chest, forming a tight cocoon, while cockroaches scuttled past. I decided then, for the first of many times, that being the luckiest person was for the birds.

  4

  The Supreme Is Your Boyfriend

  MOST PEOPLE SETTLE IN GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT, an oasis of French boutiques, polo clubs, and waterfront rambling estates, as the culmination of a lifelong dream to enter the gated community of New England's elite. Not us. For my family, Greenwich was a disappointing substitute for Jamaica, Queens. As most disciples moved to Queens, and others just faded away, the once illustrious Connecticut Center no longer served as a holy temple and returned to being a leaky basement. My parents pleaded with Guru to allow them to flee Connecticut altogether, but Guru refused, explaining that he wanted to maintain a presence in the state. My father decided that the way to obey Guru by still living in Connecticut was to move to Greenwich, located only steps away from the New York border.

  In a tiny corner of Greenwich that brushed against Port Chester, New York, the depressed town housing the many illegal Hispanics who served as maids, chauffeurs, masons, and landscapers to the mansions of Greenwich, we bought an old pea-green, three-story house. With two floors to rent to tenants to aid with the mortgage, we occupied half of the first floor and made the other half my father's office in an effort to save money. Shortly after establishing his practice, my father had aligned himself with a clan of real estate developers and gradually became involved in their schemes, spending the majority of his business hours flipping properties rather than defending cases in court. Everything about my father's dealings and finances was a mystery to us. Even though he worked as a Greenwich lawyer, my father proudly professed that he never had money. He didn't feel comfortable billing his few clients, and instead of regular payments, he'd work out deals that gave him a cut of the property, which did little to assist with the immediate basic needs to cover our household expenses. The money that my mother did unearth from my father's coffers all went to Guru. As a result, I was the poorest kid I knew who lived in Greenwich with an attorney for a father.

  The opportunity to slip out of Norwalk and shed my reputation as a kooky and possibly dangerous outcast was a welcome relief to me. I was in junior high school, and I was quietly eager to gain a fresh start. My game plan was not to cause any waves with Guru or at school, although I felt moody and anxious about both. Guru's lack of awareness over my concerns regarding my future and my rapidly waning interest in God-Realization reinforced my doubts that his inner powers were working as well as they used to, at least on me. Guru seemed somehow oblivious to the fact that I was attempting to conceal my involvement with him from the outside world. He also didn't seem to notice that I felt increasingly irritated with his strict limitations on all aspects of my daily life—from telling me what sport to play to how to wear my hair. Rather than burst into my new junior high as one of Guru's public ambassadors, I planned to conceal all traceable evidence of my discipleship, making myself as anonymous as possible, until I was finished with school altogether.

  “What are you doing?” I asked my mom one morning, as she sat at the kitchen table with a long list of phone numbers to call.

  She was breathless, flushed at her news.

  “Can you believe it? Guru is coming here, to our house, to lift an elephant!” she shrieked, with the phone draped over her shoulder. “I'm calling all the local newspapers and TV!”

  So much for being anonymous.

  When Guru's knees made sprinting and long distance running, his former passions, unendurable, he began a new craze of weight lifting. But as with all of Guru's hobbies, he did not follow traditional standards. Bored with dumbbells, Guru assigned his guards to build him apparatuses so he could lift objects. They engineered a contraption that resembled a calf-raise machine with a platform that was used to hoist gigantic pumpkins, people, and motorcycles; this way, Guru found, in addition to receiving exercise, he received press, and lots of it. Eager to expand his fame, Guru was bemused to add “sports nut” and “weight-lifting champion” to a résumé that included author, musician, UN peace ambassador, and spiritual teacher. The title of “heavy lifter” seemed to get Guru more coverage than the others, which intensified Guru's expanding quest to find new angles a
nd objects to lift in order to arouse the media's interest.

  Careful to conceal my hesitancy about the blessing of having Guru lift an elephant at my house, I dutifully helped my parents organize the event, blowing up balloons and stenciling arrows onto signs around the neighborhood to ensure the reporters found our house tucked into the back lot of the dead-end street.

  Four houses away from me lived the Johansons, a Swedish family whose older daughter, Kristina, was a ninth grader at my school. Waiting for the bus in the morning, she had introduced herself while constantly brushing her blond feathered hair. Wanting to make a new friend, I took a new approach and casually failed to mention anything about Guru; instead I tossed endless questions to her, which she was only too pleased to answer, blabbing about herself while snapping her gum.

  “Did you tell that sweet girl that rides the bus with you to school that she was welcome to come watch Guru lift the elephant?” my mother asked, folding press kits to distribute at the big event.