“Have you woken Madam Ami?” Dev asked the man.
“The American? Yes, I gave her wake-up call, Five a.m.”
“So where is she? Maybe she fell asleep again. You must go check,” Dev wasn’t sure why the man didn’t share his sense of urgency. It would be a fairly easy ride to the airport, but still, international flights required extra time for check in.
“But she is leaving thirty-forty minutes ago,” the clerk looked surprised.
“Leaving?” Dev repeated this information. “But how? I am waiting for her.”
“No, I am quite sure. The American girl is having me order taxi last night for trip to the airport. This morning she is leaving by five-forty.” He looked down at his guest log and pointed to her name. “If you aren’t believing me, go check her room.”
But he knew the clerk was right. He could sense Ami’s absence, an empty slumping feeling in his gut. Even if he drove to the airport, he’d miss her. She’d already be at her gate by the time her got there.
Dev thanked the desk clerk, walked back out the door and climbed into the car. It was early still, and he could have used the sleep, but he didn’t feel like returning to Meena’s house. Instead he started to drive. He drove through the quiet streets of Delhi, marveling at the absence of people. And it was a Sunday, too, so the streets would stay that way, almost empty.
Maybe a few women selling pillow shams in the market, but most of the shops and restaurants would be closed. Pigeons ruled the parks and sidewalks. The blue of an early morning sky seemed to hang down, almost touching the pavement as Dev drove.
image from www.traveladventures.org
Ami didn’t cry in the back of the taxi. She reclined her head, pretended to sleep as the turbaned driver sucked at his moustache and propelled them forward through the still-dark. She pretended to sleep, but really she was awake, watching, taking in as much as she could through narrowed eyes.
Headlights coming at them. Lorries, Ta-Ta trucks racing toward Delhi, the city pulling all traffic into it like a giant magnet.
The driver hummed to himself a little. He had a deep, warm singing voice. This was, of course, the man Ami had imagined as her chauffer from the beginning. A fatherly sort, grounded, dependable. She had to laugh at the way things had turned out.
And then she thought of Dev, felt bad at the idea of him waiting for her, dawn just cracking the night sky. She felt worse at leaving without a proper goodbye, but what could she say? If she thought of it all too much, she feared she’d bolt upright, demand that the driver turn around, take her back.
But back to where? She didn’t know how to find Dev, where he’d go once he’d realized she’d left. She could go back to the tourist agency, she figured, but for what? That would be starting over at the beginning, and could anyone ever really go back?
She forced her mind quiet, breathing in and out, eyes focused on some distant point that came closer and closer as they drove. The future. She gazed into the future and refused to look away.
And then there was the usual rush and confusion—the taxi pulling into the terminal, the hassle with bags, a wad of cash changing hands and the driver, pocketing his tip, pressing his palms together and bowing slightly.
Namaste.
Sweet silence, stillness in the midst of a sea of chaos. This is how India said goodbye to her, and she didn’t know how to return the gesture.
Then the tumult of the airport check-in, her ticket scrutinized, her bag collected, tagged, set on a conveyer belt. The L.L.Bean bag she’d worried over so much on the trip to India. Now she just let it go. It didn’t matter anymore, she was on the home stretch. Homeward bound.
And that thought stayed with her, buoying her as she boarded the plane, buckled in, pressed her spine into the seat, braced for take-off.
Only when she was airborne, floating high above the Indian subcontinent did Ami find the flaw in her mantra. Homeward bound. But where, exactly was home? She racked her brain, calling to mind all the faces and places that symbolized safety, security, normalcy, reality. She thought of her job, her apartment, the river she jogged along, people she’d meet for drinks, parties where she’d tell of her adventures. She thought of Holly, who would understand.
Only Holly wouldn’t understand, because she hadn’t seen the same India. Hadn’t seen the same tilt of the sun over Jaisalmer, hadn’t heard the thwack of washing hitting the lake in Udaipur, hadn’t felt the wind lift her hair as she raced around Nakki Lake on horseback.
Hadn’t dreamed above gardens where peacocks strutted, hadn’t watched mustard fields blur through car windows—now gold, now green, hadn’t climbed onto the roof of a temple, spying into an eagle’s nest, a honey comb.
Hadn’t loved and lost; loved and let go; loved without realizing love; loved callously, recklessly; loved with abandon; loved futilely; loved and then turned away; loved and left but not relinquished.
Not relinquished, she told herself, and curled tight—knees to chin—in her seat. Curled in tight enough to contain every last memory, every whiff of smoke, stench of urine, stench of rancid cooking oil, hair grease, cow dung. Clung to each vision, each memory playing like film against the screen of her tired mind. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the vision and promised herself not to relinquish.
Of course, it was a futile promise, but one she vowed it none the less.
image from www.jeremybwilliams.net
Dev parked the Ambassador on the street and climbed out of the car, stretching his stiff legs. The city was still quiet, still the eerie blue of dawn, all forms bathed in cool fog, sound seemingly muffled and senses heightened by the twilight. The time when two worlds touched; the time when the banal wrestled with their sins and the devout prayed for deliverance into daylight.
The Sri Vinayaka Mandir, a relatively new temple in a land of shrines dating back centuries, slept in the early morning, but Dev walked to the door anyway. Surely someone would be up and about inside. The sadhus started their prayers long before sunrise and the priests started puja as early as 6am. He checked his watch. Already past seven.
The gate was unlocked, so he let himself into the temple complex. It was, admittedly, a place he rarely ventured. He usually spent his time in Delhi sleeping or playing with his niece and nephews rather than going to temple. But he had been to the place a few times, enough to know the layout, the pink and blue paint on the buildings, the elaborate reliefs of deities and the complicated trim, all in traditional south Indian style. He trod softly through the garden leaving fast-fading prints on the close-cropped lawn. No one stirred. The place appeared empty.
Dev let himself into a sanctuary, eyed a white-robed sadhu chanting his mantra in the corner, and prostrated himself before the idol. The other gods and goddesses were all depicted in varying degrees of ferocity or saintly-hood, brandishing weapons, wearing sculls, gripping books and instruments. But the red-bellied deity held only two modakams—sugar-stuffed rice-balls in each fist. He was hardly a god of war, or knowledge or renunciation; and perhaps that was the very reason he was so loved. The elephant-boy was ruled by his cravings, by his sweet-tooth.
Dev looked again at the stern sadhu performing his jappa, and then back at the statue, and the swinging trunk, the rotund gut, the sheer joy of the expression. And he knew—as he always knew when faced with this dichotomy—that his loyalty was with the god of candy and worldly pleasures. So, drawing himself to his knees, Dev began his prayer.
It was a prayer he’d prayed many times before, a prayer worn thin from use and altered according to necessity. A prayer that was really less of a devotional and more of a bargain. Please, take away this loneliness and I promise to bring you an entire platter of sweets. Kulfi, jaggary, whatever you like.
The prayer tasted stale in his mouth.
The statue remained, stone-faced, its smile fixed between its tusks.
Please. Anything you like, anything. Just help me.
The sadhu droned on. Gam Ganapati, namo nama. Gam Ganapati, namo nama.
Dev closed his eyes, let the chant wash over him. He was tired—hadn’t slept well. Three weeks on the road was a long time, and then there was Ami…
Gam Ganapati, namo nama.
Dev sat, cross-legged, palms open, just breathing. He felt a shift in the atmosphere, as if the holy man was no longer chanting to the idol, but was sending his prayers directly to the distressed devotee, the only other being in the chamber.
And the sound came in waves, seed syllables, vibrant resonations. Each repetition of the jappa washed over Dev, flooding his weary mind, pouring into his aching heart. Darkness gave way to light, and bitterness to the sweet offerings of the chant.
It was some time before Dev opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether he’d been asleep, or in deep meditation, but when he surfaced, the room was quiet and filled with daylight. He looked around, spotted the sadhu, now submerged in his own meditation, thumb and forefinger pressed into a mind-stilling mudhra.
Dev rose, stretched his legs, and gazed at the statue. Ganesh stared back with no expectation, not a flicker of judgment across his pachyderm face. Just love. The love of a child for a favorite toy, a special candy, a holiday about to unfold.
Nothing had changed, and yet everything was different. Dev felt it, felt the day calling to him, felt the lure of the road and the excitement of something new just around the next bend. He smiled to himself and patted his pocket.
The envelope was still there, imprinted with the logo of the bank where Ami had used the ATM. He’d been holding on to it, planning to open it after he dropped her at the airport. After their goodbyes. After the journey was completed. It was his ritual.
Dev retrieved the envelope and weighed it in his palm. A stack of bills thick enough to make a bulge in the paper. Thick enough to pinch between thumb and forefinger, in the same mudhra the sadhu held. A hundred dollars, Dev guessed. He knew how a hundred American dollars felt when changed into a stack of rupees, didn’t need to count it. He’d done this enough times, could estimate his tip long before the tourists even thought of stopping off at the bank.
A hundred dollars wasn’t enough to buy his dream. It would help. But the dream was just that—a dream. It would wait.
He crossed the room to the sadhu, the man who swept the temple and looked after its inhabitants. The man who prayed to Ganesh and meant it. The man who offered his submission at the feet of the elephant-boy. His prayer wasn’t a bargain, it was an oath.
The old priest looked up, his eyes bright against his white beard. He folded his hands in a silent Namaste.
Dev mirrored the gesture, bowing, then offered the envelope.
“For puja,” he said. “For Ganesh.”
And then he left the temple, returned to the world, to the Ambassador which was waiting faithfully by the curb. He looked at his watch, took account of his day. Enough time to swing by the office, report in to his boss. And then he’d stop by the market and pick up something for the children, maybe something nice for Meena. And his mother. He needed to find a gift for her, as well. After all, he was long overdue for a visit and really, he couldn’t imagine a more perfect day to travel.
image from www.cache.daylife.com
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