After dinner I returned to my room. Again I found it empty. I thought my roommate might be out of town. But glancing at his puja altar, I saw that the line of ash I had noticed earlier on his incense burner had been dusted off. In the bathroom, I found another sign of recent activity: a tablespoon had been left on top of the toilet bowl tank. I tried to imagine what the spoon might have been used for in connection with the toilet, but nothing I could think of made any sense.
I changed into pajamas, got into bed, and read a few chapters of Baba’s book, Where Do I Go Now? By lights out there was still no sign of my roommate. I tried to sleep, but couldn’t. I tossed and turned in anticipation of his barging in at any moment and turning on the light. I dreaded the awkward situation of having to introduce myself from bed. I thought again about the strangeness of the arati ritual in the temple and I became increasingly restless.
After an hour or so of sleeplessness, I tried to turn my mind toward the teachings. I remembered something Baba had said in one of his videos: “A practitioner of Raja Yoga should repeat the Om Namah Shivaya mantra silently to himself while waiting for sleep to come.” But even after following the guru’s instructions, repeating the mantra for God knows how long, I still couldn’t get any rest. I managed to stop thinking about the arati, but I was unable to put out of my head the other sights and sounds I had experienced during the day. I thought about the angel, Gopi: Is she new to Raja Yoga like me? I wondered. Or did she grow up around Baba? If so, is she still a virgin? I pictured her taking her clothes off.
I started to get turned on, and wanted to do something about it. Then it occurred to me that masturbation was undoubtedly against the ashram rules, even if it didn’t explicitly say so in the pamphlet I received. To distract myself from impure thoughts, I decided I was better off worrying about the arati again. I replayed the scene of it in my mind a few more times and, after more deliberation, I decided it was a harmless ritual. I was simply too new to Raja Yoga to appreciate its significance. I drifted off to sleep.
I’m in Lake View Cemetery with Mike McFadden, Elisabeth Jensen, and other friends. It’s snowing and we are passing a bottle of Cold Duck around. It is twilight. The snow is deep and covers most of the grave markers. Within the walls of the Cornell family mausoleum, my friends and their parents are now waving arati lamps at a life-like statue of the university founder, Ezra Cornell. Some of them carry stacks of cash on trays which they lay at the statue’s feet as offerings. Just then, the angel Gopi appears like a spirit. In her hands she holds a large brown paper bag. She tilts the bag toward me so that I can see what’s inside. It’s full of bagels. I hold out my hands and she places a bagel in them. I hesitate before eating it and begin to caress the bread. It is smooth and yielding to the touch and I become sexually aroused. Suddenly, a large snake springs out of the bag like a jack-in-the box and inserts its head into the hole of my bagel. My sexual tension mounts as I watch the snake thrust its head in and out of the bagel hole. I look up at the angel, who is closing her eyes and puckering her lips in anticipation. I lean toward her, but before I can kiss her, she dissolves into radiant white light and I explode in orgasm.
“Five A.M. Time to wake up. Meditation starts in ten minutes.”
An overhead light stung my eyes. I had no idea where I was. When my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I saw a red-faced older man with beady eyes and a pug nose staring down at me. “You have to get up now,” he said. The man noisily let himself out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
I hesitantly reached down and felt my underwear. It was sticky and wet. A tingling swept up the back of my neck and across my face. I was mortified and angry with myself. I immediately remembered something Baba had said in one of his books: “The sins committed in the world are washed away at an ashram. But those committed in the house of the Guru cling stubbornly. They are difficult to cleanse.”
I was full of shame: How could I have let this happen? Since becoming serious about Raja Yoga, I had rarely allowed myself to have any sexual thoughts or feelings at all. This accomplishment, along with the meditation, mantra repetition, and mind training I had been practicing made me feel good about myself. I had been learning self-control and making steady progress on the path, preparing myself to receive shaktipat. I considered this a huge setback. From my point of view, I had debased myself, and worse, I had defiled Baba’s home. I had been there less than twenty-four hours, but had already committed a sin that might take me the rest of my life to wash away. I prayed to Baba for forgiveness.
I wanted desperately to shower, but there wasn’t any time. I hastily cleaned myself off in the bathroom, and changed my underwear. I threw on the sweat suit I normally used for meditation at home, grabbed my asana, and rushed to the meditation hall at the other end of the ashram complex. On my way, I passed other ashramites quietly locking their bedroom doors behind them and heading in the same direction.
To get to the meditation hall, I passed through a long windowed corridor. The sun had not come up yet, and the ashram grounds were dark. But the Brahmananda temple was lit up, and I could make out the silhouette of Gurudev’s statue within it.
“The statue is alive,” I remembered Akhandananda saying. “He knows you’re here.” Does Gurudev also know that I just polluted myself and his ashram? I felt wretched. I prayed to Gurudev to help me to develop self-control and become worthy of living in such a pure, holy place.
To the left of the doors to the meditation hall was an alcove with a huge shoe rack. A sign on the wall said: “Leave your ego with your shoes.”
The gigantic, windowless, high-ceilinged hall was majestic, with crystal chandeliers and tiers of sumptuous pale blue carpeting. An aisle down the middle divided the men’s from the women’s side, and led to a dais holding a throne-like armchair. A large framed portrait of Baba was propped up in it as a surrogate for the guru himself. Above the throne, suspended from the ceiling, was an enormous black and white photograph of a loincloth-clad Gurudev Brahmananda, eyes half closed, seated in the lotus position, absorbed in the supreme state of oneness with the Absolute. On the walls of the hall were large framed photographs of the Indian saints and sages encountered by Baba during his many years of wondering, before he had come to settle down at the feet of his guru in Ravipur. The shakti was palpable everywhere in Baba’s ashram, but here it was strongest. I had entered the spiritual epicenter of the ashram and was full of reverence.
Down front, close to Baba’s throne, a handful of ashramites were seated in perfect meditation posture with ramrod-straight backs. I found a spot toward the back of the group, on the men’s side. A harmonium was positioned near the front on the woman’s side, but no one was seated behind it. I looked at a clock on the wall. The session would begin in just a couple of minutes.
Although the hall was dimly lit, I could see Akhandananda sitting up front, directly to the right of Baba’s throne. His legs were tucked in under his swami’s robes and he was gazing up at Baba’s photo in earnest contemplation. I tried to keep my attention on Baba’s picture too, but it was hopeless. Despite having already determined that she was not among them, my eyes continually scanned the female meditators seated on the other side of the aisle, in search of my angel. Every time one of the doors opened in the back of the hall, my hope of seeing her was renewed.
As I looked around at the others, it did not escape my notice that I was still the only person wearing a name tag. Sita, who had been wearing a name tag when I reported to seva yesterday, was now without one. Just then, the man sitting in front of me shot his arm backwards in my direction, making me start. Then, using the floor for support, he pivoted his body and neck all the way around until he appeared to be looking straight at me. As it happened, the man was my roommate. At first I thought he had turned around to say hello. Then I realized he was doing some kind of Hatha Yoga stretch.
Would it cost him something to say good morning or to acknowledge me in some way? I mused. Suddenly, my face, neck, and ears felt impossibly hot, and I thought I would die of embarrassment. I was afraid he might have heard me talk or, God forbid, moan in my sleep. My chest tightened and my breathing quickened.
Maybe he knew I had a wet dream and was disgusted with me. I wanted to disappear into the floor. If he reports me to Akhandananda or Alan, they might ask me to leave the ashram. Then I’ll never meet Baba!
Regardless of whether my roommate knew about my erotic dream or not, I decided there was nothing I could do to change his perception of me. I resolved to do my best to focus on the mantra during meditation. I would not allow myself to worry about what someone else might or might not be thinking about me.
At five twenty-eight, one of the doors in the back of the hall opened, and a young woman wearing baggy clothes and glasses with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail walked through. She plodded down the center aisle, spread her asana on the floor in front of the harmonium and took a seat. Now that she was closer, I could see that on her forehead was a dot of red kumkum powder, just like Baba’s. Draped around her shoulders was a woolen shawl the same shade of orange worn by the Raja Yoga swamis. What a wannabe! I thought.
Sitting quietly like everyone else, the gawky-looking girl seemed to be glancing around the darkened hall, perhaps to see who was there. When she noticed I was observing her she seemed taken aback, and arched a single eyebrow at me. Then she turned away and looked solemnly at the photograph of Baba on the throne. A few seconds later she cleared her throat, played a sustained note on the harmonium, and led everyone in a few slow rounds of Om Namah Shivaya.
When the chant ended, the lights dimmed until the only light in the hall came from the flickering votive candles on the altars. I assumed the meditation posture I had learned back in Ithaca: legs crossed Indian style, spine erect, stomach in, shoulders back, chin parallel to the floor. My hands, with palms upturned, resting on my legs at the juncture of my thighs and abdominal region. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and continued to repeat the mantra silently to myself.
Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. Am I meditating? Om Namah Shivaya. Yes, this is meditating. Om Namah Shivaya. What is thought? Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. Is thought the same as sound? Am I actually hearing the sounds in my mind? Focus on the mantra. Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. I have to pee. Om Namah Shivaya. A snake fucking a bagel? Does Baba know our dreams? Where is that angel? Probably sleeping. Didn’t see Alan either. Om Namah Shivaya. At least I have enough discipline to make it to morning meditation. Unlike certain old-timers. How long has it been? I wonder what’s for breakfast. My legs hurt. Will anyone notice if I change position? I definitely should have gone to the bathroom. Why isn’t anything happening? I wonder how I would look with a shaved head? Shit! I forgot about the mantra! Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. How much longer do I have to sit here? I have to pee!
Suddenly, my meditation was interrupted by a loud bird sound: “Brawkk-AWK!! Brawkk-AWK!!”
At first I thought a chicken had gotten into the meditation hall, or that somebody had gone berserk. Then I remembered reading about this phenomenon. In yogic terms, the sound I was hearing was a manifestation of kundalini awakening called a kriya. Back in Ithaca, Robert Cargill had told me that after receiving shaktipat from Baba, devotees had all kinds of intense spiritual experiences: they saw lights, had visions, attained exalted states of consciousness, and also had these kriyas—spontaneous vocalizations and bodily movements of all kinds.
“Brawkk-AWK!!” Someone made the bird sound again. A moment later, a meditator on the women’s side began weeping. How can anybody meditate around here with all these distractions?
Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya.
Someone else now: “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”
“Brawkk-AWK!!”
Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”
It was hopeless. I opened my eyes. The man sitting next to me was trembling and shaking his head rapidly from side to side. Someone else was muttering what sounded like obscenities in a foreign language.
Since I couldn’t get into meditation, I decided I might as well check to see if the angel was in the hall. It was harder to see now because the room was darker, but I was pretty sure she was not among the small group of female meditators. Just then, light spilled into the hall for a moment and then was gone. A latecomer had slipped through a side entrance near the throne. The latecomer was Gopi! I could barely contain my glee. Although I didn’t know her, I already felt as though the angel and I had a deep connection. We had probably been husband and wife in a previous life.
In case she looked in my direction, I squeezed my eyes shut again and pretended to be deep in meditation. Two seconds later, unable to resist the urge to look again, I opened my eyes a crack to see Gopi spreading her asana on the floor all the way up front next to Baba’s throne, directly across from Akhandananda. Sitting down, she formed a perfect X with her legs, then gently placed her hands palms-up on her thighs, curling her index fingers and thumbs so that they touched at the tips.
I tried to meditate for a little while, but then gave up again. Instead I watched Gopi meditate. While everyone else around me seemed to twitch or change the position of their legs from time to time, Gopi never made the slightest move. I was certain that, unlike me, her meditations were deep and silent. By now, she was probably already absorbed in samadhi. Her profound serenity was beautiful to behold. I wondered if I would ever attain such a lofty state of consciousness.
After wasting most of the meditation session looking around the room and admiring the angel, I redoubled my efforts to focus on the mantra, but I still couldn’t get into meditation.
Just when I was about to give up, a sustained note sounded, and the odd woman on the harmonium led us in another few slow rounds of the Om Namah Shivaya chant. The chandeliers gradually got brighter and the chanting came to an end. When I got up to stretch my legs I noticed something I never would have expected: despite how distracted I had been, and the randomness of my thoughts during meditation, my mind was still. Stiller than usual, anyway. I felt relaxed and peaceful.
I looked across the aisle at Gopi. She was dressed in a stylish gray sweat suit, her long flaxen hair was tied up neatly in a bun. I tried to catch her eye, but it was useless. Her attention was directed within.
There was a fifteen-minute break between the meditation session and the start of the Guru Gita. Leaving my asana on the floor, I followed the others into the cafeteria where we observed silence and drank sweet, milky tea from colored plastic cups. It was hard for me to believe that it was still pitch black outside, as I had already been up for over an hour. I relished the peaceful stillness as the hot delicious chai gently stimulated my nervous system.
At precisely six-twenty, everybody got up at the same time, like a flock of birds, and bussed their cups to the dirty dishes station. We hurried back to the meditation hall, where we would spend the next hour and a half chanting the Guru Gita. The recitation of this text always felt tedious, but I gave it my full attention. I knew that this chant, in particular, was essential to my spiritual development.
After nearly forty minutes of sitting in the half lotus position, my legs began to ache. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was having difficulty sitting for so long. Everyone else looked perfectly comfortable, like they had practiced sitting that way for years. The same weird woman in the baggy clothes with kumkum on her forehead was behind the harmonium again. She had a powerful singing voice and was definitely the leader of the chant.
The Guru, who is the father, mother, family and Divine Light of devotees, bestows realization of the limitations of worldly existence. Salutations to the Guru.
I glanced across the aisle at the angel Gopi. She held a chanting book in her hands, but didn’t seem to be using it. Her eyes were fixed on Baba’s portrait. She appeared to be reciting the entire Sanskrit text from memory.
Salutations to the Guru, whose existence brings truth to all beings, through whose form the Divine light—like the light of the sun—shines on everyone, and in whose unconditional love we come to love our family and all beings more and more.
I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like there were tears in Gopi’s eyes. She is the perfect disciple, I thought. The embodiment of purity and devotion, a celestial being in human form.
Returning my attention to the chant, I soon became acutely aware that my legs hurt. Unable to bear the discomfort a second longer, I shifted position, drawing my legs up and my knees together.
A couple of minutes later I took another break from the chant. Holding my chanting book closer to my face, I pretended to mouth the words while I glanced around the hall. Alan was there now, along with other ashramites who hadn’t come for morning meditation. I was disappointed in the ashram manager. Swami candidate indeed! I thought. Was I supposed to believe he was meditating in the privacy of his room? Despite my disappointment at Alan’s lack of discipline, I still admired him. He had given up a lucrative career as a lawyer, turning his back on the world in order to devote his life to serving the guru. Like all of Baba’s devotees who had chosen to live in the ashram, he didn’t need a prestigious career to feel successful or material possessions to be happy.
What a relief it was finally to immerse myself in the austere routine of ashram life. I was no longer weighed down by the burden of thinking I had to achieve anything in a worldly sense. Never again would I have to worry about getting a college degree, choosing a career path, or making money. Thanks to Baba, never again would I become the victim of my own ego. After a few years of sadhana, enlightenment and eternal bliss would be my reward. And who knew? If Baba willed it, maybe someday I would also become a guru and have my own disciples. I would serve in any way He commanded.
On the breakfast line, the ashramites were again chanting “Shree Ram Jai Ram,” and this time I sang along. First I was served a bowl of piping hot porridge that resembled oatmeal, with tiny specks of green vegetables and what looked like chopped onions.
“Nutritional yeast?” the next server asked, offering to sprinkle a heaping tablespoon of bright yellow flakes on top of my porridge.
Yeast? How disgusting, I thought. “Um, yeah, sure.”
I recognized the next server. It was the harmonium player with the powerful singing voice from the meditation hall. Even now she was chanting “Shree Ram Jai Ram” louder than anybody else. In the bright light of the cafeteria, I could see she had dark red hair and a pallid complexion. Her big round brown eyes monitored the line from behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that were held together on one hinge by a strip of electric tape. She wore no makeup except for the smeared, bright red dot of kumkum on her forehead.
“Bitter melon?” she asked, taking a momentary break from the chant. She pointed down to a bowl of jagged, pale green squash in front of her.
“Sounds delicious.”
The harmonium player smiled approvingly and scooped a little of the mysterious green vegetable into one of the compartments on my tray. She was wearing a name tag with an orange sticker. It said, “Kriyadevi.”
Brilliant sunlight streamed in through the large windows of the cafeteria, but the blinding glare of the snow made it hard to appreciate the view. I looked around for a place to sit. I didn’t see Akhandananda or Alan anywhere, so I found an empty table in the back and sat down by myself.
What looked like oatmeal turned out to be a savory blend of grains, onions, coconut, ginger, cilantro, and some spices I didn’t recognize. The nutritional yeast was also surprisingly tasty. The so-called bitter melon went well with it too.
“Hey, man.” I looked up to see a groggy Madhu in front of me. His bulky flannel shirt was wrinkled and his hair disheveled. He sat down across from me and began shoveling the savory cereal into his mouth, staring down at his food as he ate. Then, with what seemed like a great effort, he glanced up at me.
“Uh—it’s Dave, right?”
“Doug,” I corrected. “Well, not for very much longer. I’m going to ask Baba for a spiritual name when I meet him next month.”
“Cool,” Madhu said, yawning.
“I didn’t see you at meditation this morning. Or at the Guru Gita.”
Madhu stiffened. “Did you need me for something?” His mouth formed a straight, thin line.
“Need you? Um, uh, no. I didn’t need you for anything. Doesn’t everyone have to go? Isn’t that the ashram rule?”
Madhu rolled his eyes. Then he cleared his throat. “They’re more like guidelines. Believe me—I know—I’ve been around Baba since I was a little kid.”
I changed the subject. “Your mom’s still in India, isn’t she? What does she do in the ashram?”
“Kamala? Yeah, she’s in Ravipur with Baba. She’s the Prasad manager.”
I remembered learning the word Prasad yesterday from Akhandananda. “They need someone to manage the rosewater?”
Madhu let out a guffaw. “That’s a good one!”
I bristled. I didn’t like being laughed at. “What’s so funny?”
“Sorry, man,” Madhu said, stifling another laugh. “Prasad just means something that you can eat or drink that’s been blessed by the guru—usually something sweet or delicious. It’s the guru’s grace in physical form. They named the ashram café after it. There’s one in all of Baba’s ashrams.”
“Why does the ashram need a café?”
Madhu glanced around furtively to see if anyone was listening. “Rich people.”
“Pardon?”
“Prasad is for rich people,” he answered. “The ones who visit the ashram in the summer when Baba’s here, or for the staff and tour people who can afford it. During his last visit, Prasad grossed over half a million dollars.”
I didn’t like what I was hearing and got a heavy feeling in my gut. Madhu was making the ashram sound like a business.
“And of course, The Mission doesn’t pay any taxes on that.”
“Why would anybody on Baba’s staff want to eat in a café when the cafeteria food is so good?”
“Believe me, if you’re here long enough, you’ll get sick of eating this stuff every day, too.”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a gray sweat suit. I turned to see the angel Gopi carrying a tray in search of a table. Her posture, as it had been earlier during meditation and the chant, was perfect. So was her ass. My eyes followed her as she made her way toward the back of the dining room.
“Forget about her, man,” said Madhu, chuckling.
“Forget about who?”
“You know who I’m talking about,” Madhu said, gesturing toward the back of the cafeteria with his chin. “That’s Gopi Defournier—Raja Yoga royalty. She’s off limits.”
I didn’t know what Madhu meant by Raja Yoga royalty, but I interpreted his words as a warning from the guru himself. The angel was off limits. I had to do my best to forget not only about this girl but about all girls, if there was any hope of my attaining God-realization in a single lifetime.
Just then, Kriyadevi, the harmonium player, sat down next to Madhu and poked him in the ribs. “Who let you back in the ashram?” she asked with a straight face.
“Ow! Quit it!” he said, flinching. Kriyadevi bared her teeth and poked him again. I couldn’t tell if she was fooling around or not.
Turning to me, Kriyadevi pointed at a spice shaker containing a deep orange powder on the next table. “Could you pass me the cayenne please?”
I passed the spice to Kriyadevi and then watched her dump a ton of it on her porridge. I took a better look at her. I guessed she was about three or four years older than me. Her clothes looked like they came from the Salvation Army.
“So, what are you two talking about?” she asked, glaring at Madhu. “Sharing divine stories of time spent in India in the presence of our beloved guru?”
Madhu sighed heavily for effect, picked up his tray and stood up abruptly. Then he took a pair of dark sunglasses out of his breast pocket and slid them on. “I will see you in twenty,” he said, pointing to me. I looked at a clock on the wall. It was eight forty-five—morning seva started at nine. Then he playfully jabbed Kriyadevi in the ribs and bussed his tray to the dirty dishes station.
Kriyadevi looked deeply into my eyes, and then glanced down at my name tag. “I feel like I know you, Doug.”
I felt exposed again and swallowed. “You mean you’re having an experience of déjà vu or something?”
She smiled. “No, it’s because you look so much like Shree Ram.”
“You know my brother!” I suddenly felt lighter.
“Of course I know Shree Ram,” she said, smiling even wider. “When I first saw you in the hall this morning I thought you were him. What’s his wife’s name again? Wait—don’t tell me.”
“Carrie.”
“Anshika! That’s it! Anshika and Shree Ram Greenbaum. How are they?”
“Great! My brother just got an internship at NYU Medical Center in Manhattan. So they’ll be up often to see Baba this spring.”
Kriyadevi closed her eyes gently, then opened them again and smiled serenely. “I’m so happy. I told them not to worry. I told them Baba’s shakti would take care of everything, and it did!”
I picked up the spice shaker and was about to add some cayenne to my porridge when Kriyadevi suddenly looked alarmed.
“Careful! It’s incredibly hot.”
I sprinkled a tiny bit on my porridge and then tasted it, burning my tongue. “I see what you mean.”
“So, what brings you to the ashram?” she asked, picking up the shaker and adding even more of the chili pepper.
“I want to know God.”
Kriyadevi’s big round eyes shone with delight. “Then you’ve come to precisely the right place! No one can give you a direct experience of the divine faster than a shaktipat guru.” Then her expression suddenly changed and she looked deadly serious, like an actress in a daytime television melodrama. “But be forewarned, Doug—it burns.”
“Burns?” I asked, eyeing her orange-tinged porridge. “What burns?”
“Raja Yoga is not for the faint-hearted. Of course, it’s full of many blissful moments spent in the company of the guru, but in order to know God, the ego must be annihilated. All your precious ideas about what you think you know about yourself, the world, and even the guru, must burn in the fire of sadhana.”
My neck began to hurt and I reached back to massage it. “Um, okay.”
“Remember, the ashram is an extension of the guru’s mind and body—his shakti. You either learn to surrender to the shakti or get burned to ashes in the process. That’s sadhana, Doug. Your sadhana encompasses everything that happens to you, even the necessity of putting up with schmucks like Madhu.”
I was taken aback by Kriyadevi’s vulgar language. Was it okay to use a word like “schmuck” in the ashram?
Kriyadevi screwed her eyes shut and her face contorted, as if in pain. A moment later she began to sing: “Guru charan kamal balihari re.”
She sang so loudly that some people at the table in front of us turned around to see what was going on. The melody was sad, and conveyed a feeling of deep yearning.
“That was beautiful,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“I offer myself to the guru’s lotus feet. Through his grace duality has disappeared from my mind.”
I ate another spoonful of the savory porridge. “I heard you playing the harmonium this morning. You’re really talented. Is that your main seva?”
Kriyadevi finished off her breakfast and drank down the rest of her chai. “Main seva? All seva is of equal importance, but I spend most of my time in the Audiovisual department. I’m the video editor.”
I thought about how amazing it would be to watch film clips of Baba all day. “Lucky you!”
“I also do sound when Baba’s in Birchwood Falls—I haven’t been on tour yet.” Kriyadevi wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, and then turned to look up at the clock on the wall. “Arjuna Weinberg—the cameraman—is in India with Baba right now getting amazing material. He travels with Baba wherever he goes.”
“How can I get a seva like that?”
Kriyadevi frowned at me, arched an eyebrow, and then stood up. “The savory porridge—it’s good with the bitter melon, isn’t it?”
“Delicious,” I answered, wondering if I had said something inappropriate.
Kriyadevi bussed her tray, and bounded out of the cafeteria with her shoulders back and her chin held high.