The rain had stopped, but the ground was wet and muddy. Leaving our luggage in the hands of the Indian boys, I followed the rest of the group through the gate into a narrow antechamber. It led to a small temple, an office, and a glistening outdoor marble courtyard, where dozens of Western and hundreds of Indian devotees had gathered, closed umbrellas in hand. Garlands of tiny white star-shaped flowers hung everywhere, decorating the square and the buildings surrounding it. All these years later, I can still smell their heavenly fragrance—the sweet, intoxicating scent of jasmine.
Some of the men were dressed in traditional Indian garb, others in more Western-style attire. The women—Indian and Western—wore traditional silk saris or ghagra cholis. I immediately noticed that nobody was wearing a name tag.
Although Baba had left the airport before us, it was apparent from the looks of anticipation on the ashramites’ faces that the guru had not yet arrived. Looking at the buildings enclosing the courtyard, I saw dozens of devotees expectantly peering down from open windows and balconies. I wanted to see Baba make his entrance too, but I was thirsty and tired. I wanted to be shown to my room so I could get some sleep.
A tall, attractive Western woman in a robin’s egg blue sari appeared before me, bearing a tray of glasses brimming with steaming hot milky tea. She had long dark hair, pale skin, and liquid brown eyes, and her delicate features glowed. “Welcome to Shree Brahmananda Ashram,” she said. “Please, have a cup of chai. You must be thirsty after your long trip.” She was soft spoken, and her American accent was comforting. I took a cup from the tray and sipped the sweet, scalding hot tea. “My name is Indira St. John,” she said.
“I’m Deependra.”
“Whenever you’re ready, just drop by the Housing office for your room assignment and linens.”
“Thank you, Indira. I’ll come by after Baba arrives.”
“Of course! It shouldn’t be long now.” Indira turned to leave, and then gave me the once over. “You’re going to need an umbrella, you know,” she smiled. “Monsoon season isn’t over yet.”
I surveyed the crowd. Like in Birchwood Falls, it included swamis, single people, and married couples holding the hands of small children. It was easy enough to tell who was close to the guru. I recognized them not only from their expensive-looking clothing and the confidence with which they carried themselves, but also from the way they darted around the courtyard telling everyone else what to do.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar face. It belonged to Namdev Loman, whom I hadn’t seen in many months. He was seated on a large marble planter under a mango tree, barefooted and dressed in a dirty white cotton kurta and lungi. His unkempt beard was longer than the last time I’d seen him, and his hair was matted into dreadlocks and bleached yellow by the sun.
“You’re a long way from home,” I said, greeting my friend. “How is Collegetown Bagels surviving without you?”
Namdev looked up. A smile of recognition spread across his face, but he didn’t say a word. Lifting a finger, he pointed to a laminated cardboard tag clipped to the pocket of his kurta that said “Silence.”
“He’s not going to answer you, mate,” came a voice from behind me. I turned and found myself face to face with a muscular young man around my age with short-cropped blond hair. He spoke with what sounded like an Australian accent. “He’s taken a vow of silence. Baba told him he talked too much.”
Suddenly there was a thunderclap. Seconds later, the sky opened and rain poured down as if a giant bucket of water had been turned upside down. Umbrellas sprang open in a burst of colors, and I ran for shelter under an open-air meditation hall. Then, as if on cue, car horns and cheers of “Jai Gurudev” sounded in the distance.
The honking and cheers gradually grew louder, and then came to a stop. The throngs of devotees in the courtyard began pressing toward the main entrance. Swept up by the excitement, and forgetting any concern I might have had about getting wet, I pushed my way toward the entrance until an Indian man in a uniform blocked my passage.
“Please to be Baba-looking here only,” the man scolded, slapping a bamboo stick against the palm of his hand. A silver badge on his chest said “Ashram Security.” On his hip was a holstered gun.
Heeding the guard’s warning, I moved back from the entranceway, following the sound of jingling bells and the scent of camphor to a pair of open windows. There, I joined a mob of mostly Indian devotees, gently pushing and shoving each out of the way to get a better look at what was going on inside. Squeezing my way to the front of the crowd, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Baba prostrating himself on the floor before a life-size statue of Gurudev. Next to him, a Brahmin priest was ringing a hand bell and waving a flaming, multi-tiered lamp.
When the ritual was over, the crowd did an about-face and I turned to see Baba making his entrance into the courtyard, shielded from the rain by an enormous bright orange umbrella held by Avadhoot. Suresh and Anjali followed closely behind.
“Jai Gurudev! Jai Gurudev!” the crowd cheered. Baba waved, and then greeted his adoring devotees with folded hands. In their efforts to get as close to him as possible, the mob of Indians behind me lurched forward, knocking me off balance. I slipped onto the hard, wet marble floor of the courtyard, landing on my elbow. A stab of white-hot pain shot up my arm, but I didn’t cry out. I sprang back onto my feet and, using my good arm, pushed my way to the large planter where Namdev had just been sitting. Jumping onto an empty spot, I scratched the side of my head on a branch of the mango tree. Ignoring the pain, I exclaimed “Jai Gurudev!” From my elevated vantage point, I could see the glorious guru speaking with a middle-aged Indian couple. They bore a striking resemblance to Anjali and Suresh, and I guessed the man and woman were their parents.
Next Baba greeted Indira St. John with a beaming smile, and whispered something in her ear. The tall beauty burst out laughing, turning bright red. As they chatted, she shifted her weight from foot to foot like a little girl.
Baba worked his way through the crowd until he reached a door in the building opposite the open-air meditation hall. Rashmi Varma unlocked it and held it open for Baba, who turned to smile and wave one last time before crossing the threshold.
“Jai Gurudev!” called Anjali and Suresh.
“Jai Gurudev!” the throngs of devotees cheered. “Welcome home, Baba!”
Then the guru and his closest disciples disappeared into the building, pulling the door shut behind them.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I set off for the Housing office to get my room assignment, locker key, and clean linens. Indira told me that my room was located on the second floor of one of the men’s dormitories, Bhakti Shayanagrih. It was a three-minute walk from the central courtyard where Baba had made his entrance earlier.
“The courtyard is the heart of the ashram,” Indira said, pointing to the location on a framed map of the ashram grounds. “Baba sits for darshan there almost every day.”
My duffel bag was waiting for me just outside my dorm room. To my pleasant surprise, the room currently had only one other occupant, although he wasn’t there when I arrived. Over the ashram loudspeakers, I could hear the recitation of the Guru Gita ending. He was probably at the chant.
Looking around my new living space, at its concrete floor and walls and noisy ceiling fan, I was struck by how different my accommodations were from my room back in Birchwood Falls. As I unpacked my bag, my eyes were drawn to my roommate’s puja altar. At the center of it was an old black and white photo of a young Swami Rudrananda at the feet of a virtually naked Gurudev Brahmananda. This was where it all happened, I thought. Right here in Ravipur, Baba received shaktipat from his guru and attained God-realization.
At seven in the morning, the heat and humidity were already worse than I ever could have imagined. I switched on the ceiling fan. It provided little relief.
I was exhausted, completely jet-lagged. I made up my bed, stripped down to my underwear, and lay down on top of my sheets. As I drifted off to sleep, I remembered Indira St. John’s advice: “Try to stay up until lights out tonight. That’s the fastest way to adjust to the time difference.”
I awoke several hours later, disoriented and groggy, wondering where the hell I was. I turned over on to my side to see a tall man sitting up in bed. He had closely-cropped silver hair and gray eyes, and was dressed in an immaculate white cotton kurta and lungi. Eager to make a good first impression, I shot up to a sitting position and introduced myself. “Hi! I’m Deependra.”
“Claus,” he said, staring back at me with a blank look on his face.
“I’m from the States—New York—well, upstate New York, really. Ithaca.”
“Ja, stop talking now.” From his accent, I could tell Claus was German. He was about as personable as a filing cabinet. “It’s lunch time,” he added, and then lumbered out of the room.
Unlike Birchwood Falls, silence was strictly observed at mealtimes in the Ravipur dining hall. It was also segregated into a men’s side and a women’s side. The food consisted of spicy vegetable curry, dal, and rice, served on disposable banana leaf plates. Seated cross-legged on the floor, we ate with the fingers of our right hands. The food was tasty and, I assumed, nutritious. I decided that, as a true renunciant, I would stay away from the fancy Prasad and eat all my meals in the cafeteria.
The heat and humidity, combined with the jet lag and the heavy meal, were making me feel lethargic. All I wanted to do was rest, but I needed to pay my rent and buy a bucket and dipper so I could take a bath. The bank and general store, I learned, were located just across the street from the ashram, so I decided to take care of business before having another nap.
The conditions outside the confines of the ashram walls stood in stark contrast to those within. Inside, the buildings were well maintained and freshly painted. The grounds were immaculate and extravagantly landscaped. Outside, the shops and dwellings were covered with mold and in a state of disrepair. The street was dirty and strewn with litter.
I gave the bank teller three thousand dollars in traveler’s checks. After a few minutes of careful counting, he handed me an impossibly thick stack of rupee notes. Considering my rent was less than fifty dollars a month, I questioned whether I had made the right decision by converting so much currency.
I was impressed to find Gajendra Williams already at his post in the ashram manager’s office only hours after stepping off the plane. He had shaved off his beard and was dressed in an immaculate yellow polo shirt, perfectly pressed khaki pants, and fine leather sandals. A Rolex watch glittered on his wrist. “Sign here, Deependra,” he said, handing me a form stating the amount of my donation.
I was confused, and hesitated before writing a figure or signing my name. “Donation? What about the rent?”
Gajendra wrinkled his nose. “Technically we don’t pay room and board at the ashram, we make donations to the Mission.”
I still didn’t understand.
“Donations to the ashram aren’t taxed by the Indian government. With the savings, Baba has more money to give to the poor.”
More than satisfied with his answer, I signed the paper, and then handed it back to him along with a fat stack of rupee notes. I paid for six months in advance.
I turned to leave, but Gajendra stopped me. “Your passport?”
I was confused again.
“Ashram rules,” Gajendra frowned. He would hold my passport in the office for safekeeping. Hesitantly, I handed it over.
Back in the dormitory, I washed myself by filling up my new bucket with warm water and using the dipper to pour it over my head and body. The improvised shower was refreshing and it felt wonderful to finally get clean. But just as I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, an enormous cockroach landed on my arm. I let out a cowardly scream, prompting one of the ashram security guards to investigate. He arrived on the scene as I was toweling off. “Yes, please, hello,” the guard said. I tried to pantomime what had happened with the giant roach, but he wasn’t paying attention. I had the impression he was staring at my penis.
Back in my room, I got into bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I fell into a deep sleep. I awoke many hours later, when the overhead light was switched on. Claus was getting dressed, and through the window, I saw it was dark outside.
“What time is it?” I asked, still half asleep.
“Quarter to four. Time for meditation.”
“What time is the Guru Gita?”
“After chai—five-thirty,” he answered, slipping on his sandals. Then he ambled out of the room with his asana and prayer book.
I couldn’t believe how unbearably hot it was, even at this early hour—at least eighty degrees. With the humidity, it felt even hotter. I decided to skip the meditation and go back to sleep. I was sure Baba would understand that I needed just a little more rest after my long journey. But after Claus left, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I worried the omniscient guru would think I was becoming lax.
Then I remembered something Baba had said: “The more we give into laziness and other deplorable tendencies, the more we strengthen these tendencies and increase our likelihood of giving into them again in the future. On the other hand, the more we refrain, the sooner we will become free from their hold.”
I threw on my clothes, barreled down the stairs, and headed into the darkness toward the courtyard. On my way I passed the kitchen dumpster, which was opposite my dormitory. Rats the size of cats were feeding from it, and the stench of garbage filled my nostrils. I shuddered at the thought of these oversize beasts scurrying across the open toes of my sandals.
Just then an older, shaven-head Indian man exited the kitchen through a screen door. He wore nothing but an orange lungi tied around his waist to cover his nakedness. He was sweetly chanting “Shree Ram, Jai Ram” and swinging an overflowing bucket of slop in his hand. “Namaste,” I said, greeting him with folded hands.
The man didn’t so much as glance in my direction. I figured he was too absorbed in God’s name to notice me. Oblivious also to the rats surrounding him, he poured the refuse into the dumpster, and then returned inside.
I turned the corner and glanced up at the pre-dawn sky. The light of a million stars shone down on me. I remembered that everything in the cosmos was an expression of my innermost Self. Tears of gratitude welled in my eyes. I’m finally here in Ravipur! I told myself. I’m really here!
The “meditation cave” located beneath Baba’s private quarters was accessible from the courtyard. According to Indira St. John, it was the only air-conditioned public space in the ashram. In the dim, flickering candlelight, I found a free spot on the carpeted floor and sat down to meditate. It was cool and refreshing inside the cave. Within seconds, I was fast asleep.
When the session was over, I woke up from my nap and followed the others to the dining hall for morning chai, served by Indira. There I saw the chanting, bare-chested Indian man again. He was supervising a group of sevites who were seated cross-legged on the floor chopping vegetables. Each was equipped with their own cutting board.
“Who’s that?” I asked Indira.
She lifted a finger to her lips, glancing nervously in the direction of the man in question. “That’s Prakashananda, the kitchen swami. Don’t get on his bad side.”
I turned to take another look at the man, just as he kicked one of the male Indian sevites in the side. The blow caused the ashramite to knock over his cutting board, spilling his vegetables on the floor. The strict swami reminded me of Yashoda Edwards back in Birchwood Falls.
Leaving the dining hall to finish my chai in the courtyard, I sat down on one of the large planters. The tea was sweet and delicious, but had a skin of buffalo milk floating on the top, which grossed me out.
I glanced around at the others. Drinking their chai in silence, their faces expressed an air of post-meditation serenity. Under the shelter of an overhang, next to the door through which Baba had disappeared the day before, I saw a sumptuous blue velvet throne mounted on a raised platform. A skinny Indian man in white cotton was polishing a pair of silver sandals on a small table in front of the platform.
Nearby, a hairy Western man shaped like a sack of potatoes was using a bucket of soapy water and a squeegee to clean the marble floor. No sooner had he finished his work than it started to rain, washing more mango leaves and debris to the ground. Following the others, I went under the shelter of the open-air meditation hall.
As the rain fell in sheets in the courtyard outside, we chanted the Guru Gita. After months of reciting the scripture faithfully every morning, I knew the entire text by heart and scarcely had to glance at my chanting book. In the shelter of the hall, I felt protected by Baba and enveloped in his love.
By the time the Gita was over, the rain had stopped. I went for breakfast in the dining hall, expecting to be served the same delicious savory porridge I had eaten every day in Birchwood Falls. Instead, I was given some kind of tasteless oatmeal. I was also surprised to be one of the only Westerners eating there. The only other person I recognized was Namdev Loman, from Ithaca. After the meal, I stopped by the Prasad before reporting to the seva office for my assignment. The mystery was solved. Everyone I had traveled to India with was there, along with all the other Western ashramites—even the swamis. On the menu was a variety of Indian breakfast dishes, coffee, and exotic fruit.
As I arrived at the seva office, the rain started up again. Sita Perkins smiled philosophically. “Monsoon season in India!”
I smiled politely.
“Don’t worry, Deependra, we’re at the tail end of it. In a couple of weeks, the rain will be over and it will start to get cooler.”
I wasn’t worried. I was here to attain enlightenment. The harsh conditions would only help me to turn within. “Oh, good,” I replied.
Sita glanced down at a clipboard on her desk. “They need help in Housekeeping.”
“Housekeeping?” I was unable to hide the disappointment in my voice. Did she expect me to work as a maid? “But I’ve been assisting Avadhoot and Arjuna in the Audiovisual department.”
“Don’t be silly, Deependra. Avadhoot won’t be doing much photography while Baba is in India, and Arjuna is still in Birchwood Falls.”
It felt like a demotion. “But—”
Sita thrust her bosom forward and her expression hardened. “Have you forgotten the meaning of seva? We’re here to offer our service to the guru selflessly. It’s not about your ego’s personal preferences.”
My cheeks burned with shame. “Sure, I understand that—”
Sita looked down at the clipboard again “You’ll also be cleaning the courtyard. Pablo is going back to Spain tomorrow. We need someone to cover his two morning shifts. Report to Vinod Desai at three-thirty. He’ll show you the ropes.”
“This afternoon?”
Sita laughed. “You’re funny, Deependra. Tomorrow morning!”
“What about meditation?”
Sita opened a filing cabinet behind her desk and began thumbing through it. “The cave is open twenty-four hours a day,” she said, without looking at me. “You can meditate before your shift.”
I tried to imagine waking up every day at two-thirty. I already felt tired. “Of course.”
“Cleaning the courtyard is a wonderful seva opportunity,” she said, taking a folder out of the cabinet. “And you’ll love Vinod. He’s a sweetheart.”
I was about to set off for Housekeeping when Sita told me that new arrivals had a forty-eight-hour “grace period” before they were expected to report for work. “Take the morning off,” she said. “Visit Gurudev’s samadhi shrine in the village and order some more climate-appropriate clothes at the tailor. You can check in with Rohini after lunch.”
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
The seva coordinator glanced down at my legs and chuckled. “You’re going to die of heat stroke in those heavy jeans of yours.”
I left the seva office in a funk. Intellectually I understood that a true disciple should view all service to the guru equally, but I worried I might never get a chance to be up close to Baba again if I were cleaning toilets. I wondered why others were worthy of serving the guru more directly, but not me. I prayed to Baba to dispel my confusion and to bless me with right understanding.
As soon as I set foot on the street outside the ashram gate, rickshaw drivers called to me: “Yes please, hello! Railway station going? Village, sir?”
The samadhi shrine was only a couple of miles down the road, and a ride in an oxcart or three-wheeler looked like fun. But since it wasn’t raining I decided to walk.
As I made my way down the muddy path to the village, I passed ramshackle homes and improvised storefronts, where tiny dark-skinned women hawked rice, vegetables, and garlands of flowers from their perches on rickety wooden platforms. “Hello please! You buy, yes?”
Men with red-stained hands and mouths stood in conversation, spitting betelnut on the ground in turn. Others lay sprawled on the side of the road in a state of oblivion.
I passed a post office, followed a bend in the road, and crossed paths with a group of school children who waved and smiled at me: “Hello! Hello! What is your name?”
“My name is Deependra,” I replied, which they met with howls of laughter. I felt ridiculous. I couldn’t tell if they were amused by my spiritual name or by my mispronunciation of it.
As I drew closer to the village, I could see Mount Paramita rising from the Agniparvata Valley. According to ashram literature, the mountain had been formed by volcanic eruptions, which were also the cause of the many natural hot springs in the area. Before Gurudev Brahmananda had settled in Ravipur in the early 1920s, the entire valley had been a jungle. After his arrival, Gurudev’s reputation as a holy man attracted scores of seekers from nearby Bombay and beyond. Within a few short years, the obscure village of Ravipur was transformed into a site of spiritual pilgrimage. Supplicants from all over India flocked here to receive his blessings and to bathe in the thermal hot springs, which were said to have miraculous healing powers.
I decided to finish my errands before paying my respects at Gurudev’s tomb. My first stop was the tailor—a short, pot-bellied homunculus of a man who spoke ten words of English. He offered me a cup of tea the moment I walked through the door, and then sent one of his underlings across the street to the chai shop to fetch it.
He showed me a variety of fabrics in different colors and weaves, assuring me that everything in his shop was “best quality only.” In the end, I ordered seven identical outfits—one for each day of the week—of pale blue, loosely-woven cotton.
As the tailor took my measurements, I looked around the shop. He had a number of old black and white photographs of Gurudev on the wall, but not a single picture of Baba. I found this odd.
I explained that I needed my new clothes as soon as possible because my clothes from America were all too heavy.
“No problem,” the tailor said with a wiggle of his head. “Tomorrow only.”
My next stop was the barber, a gentle, mustached, stick of a man with a gaunt face and an oily comb over. His shop was in a tiny, broken-down shack with a single height-adjustable chair held together with duct tape. On one grimy, mold-covered wall hung a framed poster of a blue-hued Lord Krishna playing a flute, surrounded by cow-herding girls vying for his affections. On the opposite wall were a few photographs of Brahmananda and another holy man I did not recognize. Again, no pictures of Baba. There was no mirror.
I thought about asking him to shave off all my hair like the swamis, which would have been a relief in the unbearable heat. But I was afraid I might be seen as some kind of wannabe around the ashram. I was also worried what my head might look like without any hair—some of Baba’s swamis had odd-shaped pates and looked weird. I finally decided that with my worse-than-average teenage acne, I was ugly enough.
With my fingers I indicated to the barber how much to take off. Layers of my thick brown hair fell to the floor. When he was finished, he held up a mirror for me to see. I was horrified: the barber had given me a crew cut. I looked like I had joined the military!
Upset, I continued down the street. Before entering the samadhi shrine, I removed my sandals and left them with a toothless old man, who promised to guard them for a few paisa. The moment I stepped inside the tomb, I was blown away by the incredible force of Brahmananda’s shakti. Ripples of blissful energy spread through my body, and my arms and legs shook and quivered in response. When I sat down at the feet of Gurudev’s statue, I instantly fell into a state of profound meditation. I came out of it a couple of hours later, when a priest solicited me for a donation. I reached into my pocket for my wallet and took out a thick wad of rupees. The priest’s eyes widened and his mouth went slack when I handed it to him. I might have given him the equivalent of fifty dollars, but I didn’t know for sure because I didn’t bother to count it. Whatever I give away to God and the guru will return to me one hundredfold in the form of grace, I told myself.
Leaving the shrine, I heard the nearby shouts and taunts of what sounded like an angry mob. I hurried to the other side of the building and came to a large square. There, at the center of a wild pack of men, stood a defenseless old woman. She was frail and stooped. Her skin was cracked and leathery. On her head was a shock of white hair.
I wished I could understand what they were yelling about. I couldn’t imagine what crime the old woman could be guilty of to have elicited such a hysterical public condemnation.
I edged through the crowd, closer to the woman. While at first I had thought she was pleading with the men to spare her, I now saw she wasn’t desperate or fearful at all. She was laughing. It was a creepy cackle that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end.
The old woman turned toward me, and looked directly into my eyes. I abruptly felt like I was going to throw up. Just then, a hand gripped my arm. I turned and was face to face with a smartly dressed Indian man. He had pale skin, bushy eyebrows, and a large, eagle-like beak of a nose.
“You mustn’t look her in the eye!” he said, squeezing my arm tightly. “She can hypnotize you with one glance! Come with me! This gang is about to get ugly!”
“Are they going to hurt that woman?” I asked, hurrying after the man back toward the main street.
“It’s entirely possible, I’m afraid,” the man answered, panting a little. “They want to drive her out of the village.”
“Who is she and why are the people so angry with her?”
The man curled his lower lip in disgust. “She’s a churel—a sorceress—the witch from Surat!”
We turned the corner and stopped in front of Gurudev’s samadhi shrine. “Palash Chaapkhanawala,” said the man, catching his breath and extending a large hand for me to shake. “And what is your good name please?”
“Deependra.”
An almost imperceptible smirk flashed across Palash’s face. Then he turned away, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “And from which country are you coming, Mr. Deependra?”
“America.”
“Bahut accha! Very good!” Palash said, with a twinkle in his eye. “I invite you to take tea with me at my sanatorium.”
I glanced at my watch. I still had a little time before lunch. “Is it far?”
“It is there only,” Palash said, pointing in the opposite direction of the ashram. “Merely a hop, skip, and a jump.”
I followed Palash for a couple of blocks until we reached a gated estate. A large hand-painted sign at the entrance read: “Chaapkhanawala’s Thermal Spring Baths and Health Resort. Established 1936.”
As we entered the compound I asked myself, Do I even believe in witches? A year ago, I would’ve laughed at the idea. Now I wasn’t so sure. If a saint like Baba can exist, why not his opposite?
“The main attraction of the resort is the thermal hot spring,” Palash said. Then he turned to me and grinned knowingly. “The water is slightly radioactive.” He said this like it was a good thing. “It can cure many illnesses. Hydrotherapy at its best!”
At the end of a shady garden path, we reached a two-story building with a large veranda. The building was surrounded by smaller bungalows amidst lush flower gardens. Palash showed me to a seat at a table on the veranda, and then called out to someone inside the building. “Don cup chaha aana!”
“Is this your place?”
Palash sat down at the table with me. “Indeed, I am the proprietor of this splendid establishment. Many years ago, before the ashram was here—before anything was here—my grandfather’s family had a vacation home on this very spot. After Baba passed away and the shrine was built, my father saw the commercial potential here and opened this resort.”
“Uh, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean, sir. Baba is still very much in his physical body.”
Palash narrowed his eyes. “I’m not talking about Rudrananda,” he said. Turning his head, he pointed to a garlanded photo of Brahmananda on the wall. “I’m talking about my Baba.”
“Did you know Gurudev?”
Palash opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the sound of a woman hollering from an upstairs window. The rattle of her Hindi sounded like a machine gun. I couldn’t see the woman from where I sat, but she didn’t sound happy.
Fists clenched, Palash rose abruptly to his feet and then bounded down the steps of the veranda. “Ab kya chaahiye tumhein?” he shouted back at the woman upstairs.
Just then a barefoot man with a bent neck and sagging posture shuffled onto the porch through an open door. He was dressed in a badly stained t-shirt and bell-bottom pants, and carried a tray of chai and cookies. Before setting down the tea, the man removed a filthy white towel from his shoulder and wiped some crumbs from the table.
The argument between Palash and the woman ended with the sound of a window slamming shut, and the servant went back inside.
“Please excuse my wife,” Palash said, wincing as he returned to his seat at the table. His face was flushed. “She is in a foul temper today. Now, what was I saying?”
I took a sip of tea. “I asked if you knew Gurudev Brahmananda.”
“Of course I did!” Palash answered with a gleam in his eye. Then he held his arm out in front of me. “Look at it!” he said, looking down at his bare arm. “Look at it! I have gooseflesh just thinking about him.”
I couldn’t see any goosebumps, but gave Palash the benefit of the doubt.
“Wow.”
“You see that banyan tree?” asked Palash, pointing to a large tree with many secondary trunks arising from its branches.
I glanced at my watch again. If I left right now, I could still be back before they stopped serving lunch. “Uh, yes, very exotic.”
“Unlike me, my father and grandfather did not believe in swamis or holy men— they were Parsis, not Hindus.” Palash sipped his tea, and then bit into a cookie. “What’s more, they were military men. But one day, several years before I was born, they had set off to a nearby village by motorcar when on the road they met a young sadhu by the name Brahmananda.”
My interest was piqued. I wanted to hear Palash’s story and decided to skip lunch at the ashram. “What happened to make them believe?”
“I’m getting to that,” Palash said. “Brahmananda asked them for a lift. At first, my father flatly refused, but my grandfather insisted they oblige him. Respecting my grandfather’s wish, my father grudgingly stopped the car and let him in. A few miles down the road, Brahmananda requested my father stop the car because he needed to urinate.”
Suddenly, Palash’s story was making me feel uncomfortable. I had never thought of holy men like Gurudev and Baba having bodily functions. But I wanted to find out what happened.
“My father again refused the sadhu, even after my grandfather insisted that they accommodate him. At that very moment, the car stalled and came to an abrupt halt. While Brahmananda went about his business behind a bush, my father tried to get the car started again, but was unable. So he and my grandfather got out to check the engine. In addition to being an army officer, my father was also a highly skilled auto mechanic. Yet despite all his knowledge and ability, he was unable to find anything wrong with it. When Brahmananda rejoined the men in front of the car, he placed a hand on the engine. A moment later, he asked my father to start the engine. Skeptical and irritated, my father turned the key and, just like that,” Palash said, snapping his fingers, “the car started again!”
Now I had gooseflesh. “What about the tree?”
Palash rubbed his chin. “Tree? What tree?”
I gestured toward the strange tree Palash had pointed out to me earlier. “The banyan tree.”
“Ah yes! My father and Gurudev had many philosophical debates under that tree.”
I was amazed. I tried to imagine myself living in Ravipur during the days when Brahmananda was still in his physical body, receiving personal teachings from him. My skin tingled all over.
Checking my watch again, I saw that it was time for me to head back to the ashram to check in with Housekeeping. I made my excuses to Palash. I wanted to hear more about the so-called “Witch from Surat,” but it would have to wait for a future visit.
Palash got up and walked me to the gate. “Do come back again to take a dip in one of our bubble baths!”
I shook his hand, and as I turned to leave, a burning question came to me: “Mr. Palash, one more thing. Why don’t I see any pictures of Baba Rudrananda here in the village?”
Palash slowly folded his arms in front of his chest. A tight smile spread across his lips. “Ask no questions and you will hear no lies.”