by Jayanti Tamm
WHEN, WHAT SEEMED like hours later, Guru reopened his eyes, the waitress had silently cleared off and wiped down the table. Guru lowered his voice, so that above the clanking of plates and chatter from the front booths, it was almost impossible to hear him. I scooted my chair in so that my stomach hit the table, and still I leaned in closer to him, needing to hear Guru's response.
“You see,” Guru whispered. “This is what is possible when you are not receptive. It was not his time to go. I had a very special force on him. But he was not in the right consciousness and was not receptive to my blessings. He had not been leading a proper spiritual life, and he was unwilling to receive the protective force I had on him.”
Guru did not say another word in the car, but instead of going to Guru's house, Asutosh, the driver, pulled over in front of my apartment. The ride was over.
That night at the function Guru taught new songs, sold a book of rhyming aphorisms, handed out the prasad, and even joked with Asutosh about losing to Gitali at that morning's road race. I never heard a single mention of Joideep's death that night or ever again. I was shaken. I saw that Guru had been ignorant of Joideep's death. And whether Joideep had been receptive or unreceptive to Guru, I witnessed Guru's alarmed expression, as though he had just been publicly exposed. Guru had not known about his death, and I didn't believe that it was just a simple oversight. It was larger and complicated. Realizing that Guru's promise of his occult powers to hold us all safe and secure seemed false, I wondered what else about him might be, as well.
A few weeks later, the official story was that Joideep had left Guru's Center a long time ago. Although I knew it was not true, I remained silent.
PERIODICALLY MY MOTHER brought me news from the “outside” world in the form of a home-design magazine, paperback bestseller, or my Connecticut mail, which usually consisted of credit card offerings, discount coupons for roofing materials, or nonprofit membership drives. One Wednesday, my mail contained an alumni newsletter from Greenwich Academy, along with a request for a donation and the completion of an update form. I stared at the smiley photos of my former classmates on a beach standing beside their fiancés, read through news about their acceptance into graduate programs, and their offers from Fortune 500 companies to top managerial positions. Though I certainly did not miss anything about Greenwich Academy, or my classmates, their accomplishments suddenly made me feel deficient. Even when I had been disguised as one of them, I had always understood that I was wholly different, an entirely separate species, and convinced myself of the futility of attempting to compete or even compare myself.
But now as I looked at the empty form, I grabbed a pen to fill it out. What is your greatest achievement since graduating from G.A.? I abandoned the love of my life, my Yale Law school-bound soul mate, to be Guru's good little girl and fulfill my destiny as his chosen disciple. How has your life changed since G.A.? I now live three blocks from Guru in Jamaica— dubbed the second-highest crime area in New York City five years in a row—and am a full-time “vagabond.” What are you looking forward to the most?
I stared at the form and felt the question burrow deep inside.
What are you looking forward to the most? Nothing, really.
I ripped the form into tiny pieces. On the alumni newsletter, I crossed out my address and wrote in all capitals, RETURN TO SENDER: MOVED TO UNREACHABLE LOCATION.
THE REPETITIVE LOOP of my routine made each day blur into the next. I was assigned by Guru an endless cycle of busy-work that kept me perpetually serving him. After months spent at the tennis court, listening as the guards counted aloud Guru's stomach crunches and repeating aphorisms about the “compassion-feet” of the master, I felt myself withdrawing from everything around me. It began subtly, as if my eyesight ever so slightly had weakened, and my clear, sharp determination, once perfectly focused, now was slightly blurry. A foggy haze seemed to inhabit my head permanently, making it difficult to memorize new Bengali songs, even when I mouthed the words repeatedly. My ability to understand what I read was also smeared. I read and reread the same page of one of Guru's Ten Thousand Flower-Flames poems, and did not have the faintest idea what it meant: what was “oneness-fountain-bliss-joy” anyway?
I descended into a slow, draggy state where I felt tired constantly. It was harder and harder to wake up for morning bhajan practice. When I did make it over to Isha's, I sat in the back, leaning against the wall, and dozed in and out of the songs in praise of Guru. Often, I crawled back into bed, missing Runners Are Smilers altogether. When I finally did wake up, it was in the late afternoon. I knew that Guru would still be at the tennis court, but instead of rushing over, I stayed in bed, eventually rising at dusk to make an appearance at the evening meditation, where I would sit in the back, but nothing made me feel awake or inspired. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Something deeply fundamental had changed, and even though I was living in the apex of Guru's ashram, I felt distant and inaccessible. When the gathering ended, I'd squeeze into Guru's packed, overheated living room and numbly watch videos as Guru lay fully reclined in his chair having his feet and legs massaged. Tuhina, as the official videographer of the Center, was given the special task of providing wholesome entertainment for Guru's house. Guru declared many of the old sitcoms that she brought rubbish, but even for the few that Guru enjoyed—a continuous rotation between Hindi films based on the Mahabharata, Car 54, Where Are You? or The Honeymooners—Tuhina censored any and all objectionable material. On the rare occasion that a movie or show had a scene that passed the censor unnoticed, a near riot occurred.
Once, before Eddie Murphy came to meet Guru, Eddie Murphy's film Coming to America was shown at Guru's house. When Eddie's character locks lips with the beautiful waitress, Isha threw her hands over her eyes to block out the obscenity. Imitating Isha's shocked reaction, all of the women sitting behind her followed suit. Some even one-upped her by standing up and storming out onto the porch in disgust. The men's side dropped their heads in shame, all suddenly finding the Guru-blue shag carpet intently interesting. Tuhina, with blaring red cheeks, sprinted up to the big-screen TV, and stood directly in front of it with her arms and legs spread to block out the entire screen. She fast-forwarded until she felt that it was safe once more.
“Oi? Tuhina, all right?” Guru said, twitching his eyes open.
I found myself irritated at the dramatic posturing all around me. Was the spiritual foundation of my brothers and sisters made of tissue paper? Were they so weak that viewing a single kiss would tear apart their twenty-something years of commitment to their inner lives? Their fear of temptation, I found, was a sign of spiritual immaturity, a weakness. If they were true disciples, then they, too, could not only watch kisses but go out themselves and kiss, long and hard, and ultimately still return to their guru. I looked around the living room of the Avatar of the Era, and I suddenly longed for Oscar. I fantasized meeting him for dinner only to pick up where we had left off more than one and a half years ago. In the backseat of my car, in slow motion, our heat would steam up the windows until all of our actions would be concealed.
Although my rendezvous occurred only in my imagination, it felt as though my entire Oscar memory coffer had been, once again, taken out of storage. Days later, I dialed a few digits before hanging up, shaking, from my simultaneous fits of desire and weakness. Each aborted attempt ended with me in front of my shrine, begging forgiveness from Guru. It shamed me that after all my promises, I had regressed to the point where every time I saw a man with broad shoulders and black hair, I'd swear Oscar had tracked me down and was there to whisk me away. But Guru didn't seem to notice; instead, he gave me special prasad and boasted about my spiritual progress, which made me feel worse. As I filled diaries writing poems to Oscar, Guru wrote poems and songs for me. As I longed to take a Greyhound bus to see Oscar in New Haven, Guru flew me with him to Australia and New Zealand, where we met heads of state. Often Guru sweetly reminded me that the Supreme was my boyfriend, and a few times, he inserted th
e bonus fact that the Supreme was “extremely beautiful,” but the only face I'd imagine was Oscar's, complete with his dimple and dark, pleading eyes.
Guru's delight with me bordered on the ridiculous. Either he was utterly oblivious, publicly proving that he hadn't a stitch of inner occult vision, or he was fully aware of all my decrepitude, therefore proving his boundless compassion. Both possibilities embarrassed me. The latter, somehow, made me feel worse. I was his; he had selected my soul, and he had a closer connection to my own soul than I did. Without Guru making me aware of my soul, I would never have believed I had one. I never felt anything bathed in divine light inside me; I didn't even feel anything slightly dampened by the divine. Inside, I merely felt hollow. I wished Guru would call the whole thing off—publicly rescind my Chosen
One status, proclaim once and for all that my entire life had been his error, a mistake. But as I waited to be exposed, Guru continued to praise my high consciousness. And as Guru always set the pace, from Ketan to my parents, everyone seemed filled with respectful awe of me, the supercharged aspirant. I had followers and fans, admirers and well-wishers, but neither Guru's teachings nor his mandated lifestyle felt natural to me. I had everything I didn't want. It was all a sham.
ONE SATURDAY NIGHT it poured, and the meditation was canceled. Chahna's parents returned to New Jersey, and I invited Chahna to spend the night.
She sat with her hands clasped on her lap as I poked about for conversation. The rain slammed against the windows, dripping in from all sides of the skylight. I hadn't bothered to switch on the lights, and now we were in darkness.
“I don't know why I came back,” I blurted.
“From France? I thought you … aren't you happy?” Chahna hesitantly asked.
“Are you?” I tossed it right back at her.
She didn't answer.
“Everything feels wrong. I don't even want to get out of bed. I have no interest in meditation or the spiritual life, not to mention the Supreme. I'm on an endless loop failing Guru and everything that I can't live up to anymore.”
I heard Chahna's feet stop kicking.
“I want something of my own. I want something apart from Guru. Do you know every time Guru tells me how great it is that the Supreme is my boyfriend, I stop listening. I can't stand it anymore. I say to myself, ‘Oh yeah, well, where the hell is he? How come he never takes me out or even calls?’”
“Guru's told me the Supreme is my boyfriend too. I think the Supreme is two-timing us,” Chahna said.
I laughed, and so did she. It got funnier, and we laughed even harder.
I had my Chahna, and I was so grateful at that moment for her presence, for sharing my life. Without judgment or jealousy, Chahna had and always would unreservedly love me.
“I've missed you so much. And I couldn't even imagine being in all of this insanity without you. You're the only one I can talk to. The only person I can trust to actually be honest with, without fear of not saying or doing the right thing and getting reported.”
Chahna suddenly excused herself, and hurried into the bathroom. When she returned she started talking about her cat and her grandmother's fake leopard coat that she now wore over jeans.
“Guru told me my soul wants me to drop out of high school,” Chahna said. She was in her senior year.
“And work full-time at the restaurant and share a room in Vedita's house.”
We sat in silence.
“I think my soul hates me,” Chahna said.
“It's so unfair,” I finally said. “It's Saturday night. Do you know that there are people out there who are actually making their own decisions, their own plans? Like hosting a dinner party, or flirting at a bar, screaming at a concert, or dancing at a club?” I started to cry. “Some people get to live real lives. Don't you want that? And here we are. Trapped.” I got up, not knowing exactly what to do. I paced around, landing by my kitchenette's single cupboard. I felt my way around the near empty shelf, and grabbed a can.
“Here's what we have: creamed corn. It's you and me on a Saturday night with a can of creamed corn, while the Supreme, our shitty boyfriend, is MIA.” I was sobbing.
Chahna had rolled onto her stomach, her face aimed at the floor. When the phone call came later that night, inviting me up to Guru's house, I ignored it.
AFTER THAT NIGHT, Chahna changed. She wore a used army jacket over her Guru-blue sari. Her toenails and fingernails were painted black, and she never seemed to smile so much. Every time I called, she wasn't home. When I cornered her at a function to ask what was going on, she told me to knock off the cross-examination and just be happy for her.
The following month Chahna brought a “seeker” to the public meditation. His name was Rick, and he was a few years older than her, pale with a large nose, and a jagged crew cut. He sat with her father on the men's side, and when it was time for the seekers to go up on stage to meditate with Guru, he went, fully respectful, with folded hands. When I pulled Chahna aside to question her about this “seeker,” she just shrugged.
Two weeks later, I was sitting on Guru's porch when I heard Vani whisper to Ushma if she had heard the news about Chahna.
“What news?” I demanded.
“She left the Center. She has a boyfriend,” Vani, herself only nineteen, said, shaking her head in utter disgust at the very idea of such a grotesque act.
Suddenly dizzy, I staggered outside and sat on Guru's front stoop. My own Chahna was gone, jumping ship, without even telling me. I suddenly remembered Rick, the “seeker.” But if she had found real love, so urgent, to leave Guru, why would she have kept this, this most critical decision of her life, away from me?
At that moment, Ketan approached the stairs from the sidewalk. He had taken Guru's dog, Kanu, out for his nightly walk. By the look on my face, he suspected that I had heard the news.
“Ironic, isn't it?” Ketan said, tugging on the leash.
“What?”
“You know, don't you see the irony here, with Chahna? After all she did save you from …”
“Me?” I snapped. “What does this have to do with me?”
“After Chahna rescued you from leaving the Center by reporting you to Guru, now she is the one who commits spiritual suicide by running off with some ordinary loser. I find it ironic. Don't you?” Ketan bent down and scooped up the tiny white dog. “Come on, Kanu, let's go nighty-night. You already pooped,” he said, going inside.
I walked away from Guru's house. I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't care. I wandered block after block not hearing anything except my own storm of thoughts. All this time, and I had never imagined that Chahna, the one person I trusted, had turned me in. I was furious. She was no different from the other poseur disciples, eavesdropping and plotting to get inside Guru's special clan. Chahna, my two-faced friend, had used me to get tenure as Guru's darling, sitting at his house, receiving his flowers and gifts, for having sold me out. I was done with her. I hoped her soul would wickedly punish her. It's what she deserved.
Suddenly, a black van pulled up beside me and beeped. A man with sunglasses leaned out the window, making sucking noises with his mouth. Instead of fear, I only felt outrage. The man tapped his palm against the side of the van, as if to lure me like a dumb stray dog. I bent down and picked up two fistfuls of rocks from the weedy patch between the sidewalk and street curb, screamed and pummeled the rocks directly at the van. Rocks for Chahna's incredulous betrayal and her smug abandonment, for Guru's inability to make me the person I was supposed to be, for my parents’ obliviousness to my meltdown of faith, for my brother and his gossipy aloofness, for the clawed and cliquey disciples who smiled while hoping that I would fail again, for Oscar, who never rescued me, for everyone who was living a normal life, and finally for the Supreme, whom I hated and sought a permanent breakup with. The rocks walloped the van and rebounded off onto the street.
The man hollered at me in Russian, then he opened the door and stood beside his van, his arms slapping his thighs.
I screamed back at him in nonsensical globs of consonants and vowels, mashing sounds with shrieks to topple his barrage of Russian curses. At the top of my voice, I shrieked. My voice tore through the dark street, butting the windows of the sleepy residents. A light flicked on from the second floor of the house across the street from where I stood, then the porch light blinked on, spilling light onto our scene.
The man looked up, then back at me, and flicked his hand dismissively at me, as though I suddenly was no longer worth his time, then scrambled inside the van and hit the gas, leaving behind a long cloud of smoky exhaust.
I roared after him, then refilled my hands with rocks, hoping he'd return. I surveyed both ends of the street, armed and ready. I was not backing down. I had reached my limit, and he had chosen the wrong person. I walked, clutching the rocks, tracing their jagged edges in my palms. I clicked them against each other, and deeply exhaled as I realized that not for one second, even as the man roamed outside the van, had I invoked Guru. I had done just fine without him. I could extend this independence and fend for myself. I determined that I could do without Guru. I had had it.
WHEN I WROTE to Guru informing—not asking—him that I needed to make immediate changes, my fearlessnesses had already receded. Leaving the Center was absolutely terrifying; it meant an irrevocable separation from everything that I had ever known, including my mother and father. I would be homeless and penniless. Though it felt too daunting to parachute into the outside world all alone, I pledged to take small steps away while still grasping the stability and security of the Center. I needed to pace myself, moving slowly toward freedom. To start, I would no longer be a full-time Guru-vagabond.