WHILE MOST OF the American staffers rejoiced in having Thanksgiving Day off, I was stricken with the empty terror of aloneness. No matter that I lived thousands of miles from home and that the holiday passed unacknowledged by the billion people surrounding me. Because of my body memory and my sensations, my heart knew it was Thanksgiving. The morning smells of cooking turkey and marshmallow sweet potatoes, the sounds of the parade and baton-swirling babes in miniskirts with off-key bands and football on the television, and the after-dinner hefty belly echoed with the sensations of yearly rituals spent with Castor and Sarah, and before that with my mom and dad. Now, as I desired when I came to Delhi, I was alone. In the morning, still Wednesday night in Arizona, I called Sarah and the voice mail answered. I left my message. “Call me. I need to talk to you about the unveiling.” I hated getting innuendo messages; but I still had no sure idea of my plans.
In a display of my Diasporic Jewishness, I went for a pre-sunrise walk in the New Delhi streets. The fall wind had arrived and it was a brisk 55 degrees. The street noise hummed. Even the tent homes along Aurabindo Marg, the main road, remained oddly still. I made my way down the narrow, semipaved and dusty streets past the Aurabindo Market into Hauz Khas Village, where the glitzy shops, galleries, and restaurants weren’t close to opening yet. The street ended by the Hauz Khas ruins, a tomb with other smaller buildings overlooking the royal reservoir surrounded by ten-foot stone walls dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Now, more of a park than sightseeing stop, it was kept neat and garden-like because of its proximity to the wealthy homes and apartments. As almost everywhere, homeless people lived there, but not nearly as many as I suspected the first time I’d strolled over there. They slept not in tents, which I was told was not allowed, but in straw and mud constructs or makeshift box houses on the grass or on the stone floors of the monuments and tomb.
I stood by the wall that overlooked the dry reservoir bed trying to imagine the life of seven hundred years before. Imagining only reminded me of when Castor, Sarah, and I visited American Indian sites at Telakapakai in Arizona, and we searched the grounds, not to possess but only to touch, for an archaeological memory of the lost and beaten cultures. Unable to find anything more than a few old rocks, later, the three of us bought souvenirs in the refurbished mining town of Jerome.
As the sun rose, I heard Sarah’s newly saddened voice hovering inside me.
Sunrises and sunsets filled her with mystical hoo-ha, which inspired her abstract paintings and her belief in humankind. In the cold-aired winter mountain peak sunrises of Vermont and the hallucinogenic colors of an Arizona sunset, she brimmed, content with spiritual uplift. I wondered what she felt sitting alone, gazing out from the top of Thumb Butte in Prescott, what treacherous or vengeful god she saw now.
Behind me, a baby began to cry. I turned and saw the teen-aged child-mother with a bare breast and a baby so small I was sure it was a newborn. I closed my eyes, turned and slipped away. The crying quieted by the suckling on the mother’s breasts, but the yelps of hunger pierced too deep and I heard Castor’s cries as the doctors prodded and toggled him from Sarah’s beautiful vagina. Sarah at first hesitant to breast-feed, vainly fearing it would ruin her figure, then letting him go longer, too long before saying “no more.”
Unhappy and ever more diasporic, incapable of escaping my external or internal nightmare, I rushed toward Aurabindo Marg, where the traffic had picked up and I waited, checking to see if it was safe to cross. I looked to my right and was accosted by the six grinning faces of an American sitcom, Big Brother-like from a gigantic billboard. Their series’ myopic view of life in New York, where everyone was white, rich, even though they never seemed to work, and didn’t have a care except who they dated, was coming to Indian cable TV. From that too, I guess, there was no escape.
Once at the apartment I thought I’d take a Valium and sleep the day away far from poisoned memories and cultural vapidity. Instead Holika awaited me, sitting cross-legged on the couch in the living room, sipping tea that Vishnu had made for her, thumbing through the pages of a new copy of Mystical Mistakes. “After you mentioned him, he seemed so important to you, I went and bought his books.”
Her perception and her desire to know about him impressed me. I felt the need to say, “Thank you,” which I did. She half-smiled, not parting her lips and continued.
“I understand why you wanted to see him. I especially like this passage.” She sat up straight and read in a straightforward but determined voice. “‘The honest, most difficult leap of faith is to disbelieve in god, and to surrender to the mystery of having one life with no return, no salvation, and no final judgment.’”
“It’s a good one, but right now I’m having no problem disbelieving but finding faith in the mystery.”
“You will. It takes time. I think it is good and very lucky that you have talked to him.”
“Me, too.” I wanted to say maybe they could meet some time. I didn’t feel comfortable making that offer.
“Neil, let us have breakfast and then take a ride.”
Holika had not come over that morning particularly because it was Thanksgiving, though she knew I was off from work. We didn’t have a sit-down breakfast but picked up some delicious bread and cakes and coffee at the bakery in Hauz Khas Village. Then she drove us over to the Lakshami Temple in the Mandir Marg section of New Delhi. Lakshami is the powerful and popular four-armed female goddess of money and wealth.
Holika had driven by herself. She owned a Maruti, a car made by the Indian government in conjunction with Suzuki. Very few Indian women drove in New Delhi. Hell, I was in no rush to try it. She seemed quite recklessly sure of herself as she negotiated her way. While zipping in between a weaving rickshaw and a moseying cow, she asked me what I knew about the caste system. I said I’d read some. I knew the technicalities of the four major varna or castes—a word the Portuguese used first—and that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of subcastes called jatis. The use of Untouchables as a name was banned so they adopted the name Dalit, and any prejudice against them was illegal. I knew there was much dispute on the societal, religious, and historical roles of the caste system. She never interrupted or corrected me.
We parked across the street from the temple and all she said was, “Come.” Before entering the temple the Brahmin handed Holika a gold silk scarf to cover her head. We took off our shoes and stepped almost daintily on a red carpet, up and through the sandstone and white marble gates of the temple. She asked me to remain quiet, not to ask too many questions in the temple, and not to give one rupee to anyone. I asked why not. She whispered, “This mafia of Brahmins and Trusts control the money.”
We strolled around, reading many of the plaques with inscriptions from the Vedas, of battles from the Bhagavad-Gita, of the transmigration of the souls from the Gita, of the unknowability of the omniscient god from the Upanishads. Then she stopped in front of one tablet and leaned her head forward. I carefully read the inscription:
For those who are wandering in the world characterized by the veils of birth, death, old age, sickness, and suffering and are caught in the wheel of illusion (maya) characterized by three trends light (satya), movement (rajas), and darkness (tamas), the only way to be saved is to take refuge in god with pure heart.
—GITA
I looked at her, lifting my right eyebrow, understanding why she brought me there and beginning to understand her. Unlike Holika, I was tantalized by the beauty of the structure, the (to me) exotic rituals, the vibrant colors. Her face expressed the same raw frustration I felt when I attended a temple service at home. I wanted to tell her that and more, but she spoke softly with an undercurrent of admonition, “We will talk later.”
We walked past scores of people making their offerings. The smell of marigolds and sandalwood dominated the air. As we exited the temple, she gave back the scarf, and the Brahmin, in his orange dhoti, sensed Holika was the wrong person to ask for money, so he focused on me. She stepped between us and said, “We must go.”
As we crossed the street to the parked car, I said, “So seriously, unlike our little joust in the library, you too are a total disbeliever.”
“I believe in myself, in women. In India. We are a great country. I do not believe in hypocrisies and illusions created by the gods of men.” Before I could ask her what she and her friend Preeya were actually working on for the women of India and what her uncle thought of her disbelief, five homeless children saw my face and ran to my side of the car. I reached to give them some rupees. She commanded, “No, do not!”
“Why not?” I was taken aback by the ferocity of her tone and reaction. I understood her reluctance to give the official types money; I felt the same way about the Jewish hierarchy in New York. I’d seen many people react with such callousness to the kids, but I didn’t expect it from Holika. “That kid is hungry and that isn’t an illusion.”
“Please, do not.”
I didn’t. She started talking to the eldest boy in Hindi. He was about eight or nine and thumbtack thin, with blue-green eyes. They argued, her voice aggressive, his voice brazenly resistant, his visibly cut and scabbed hands waving in disgust. After two minutes, the boy stormed away. We got in the car. A furious Holika slammed her small foot hard on the gas pedal and began to join into the honking madness. When she cooled off, I asked her what that was all about.
“I asked him to get in the car and I would take him to a home where he could get food and clothes and off the streets. He refused. He maintained that his life was freer on the street and that I was a rich woman and did not understand.”
“Why wouldn’t he come?” I was baffled.
“Because he is on something. Maybe glue. Speed. Something. I want to save these kids, and giving them rupees that will be immediately taken away is not the way to do it.”
Of course, I’d been so blind. It hadn’t registered. What a doctor.
“If you must give them something, give them food and watch them eat it. Their bosses take money from them. That is one reason why I showed you that plaque. Because maya as a philosophical excuse for earthly suffering, and this caste system, which most of the people you meet will tell you is dying away, is not dying. And it must die.”
“Not so long ago you said you believed in maya.” I said trying to lighten the intensity just a notch.
“No I did not. And we were jesting then.”
“Aha, another quantum woman.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Quantum physics has determined that light sometimes acts as a particle and sometimes as a wave. I used to joke around with Sarah, because depending on what she wanted to serve her purposes whether she believed in god or not, karma or not, her right to change her mind or not, she was a quantum woman believing what suited her.”
Her shoulders sunk, her cheeks pulled in tightly, she inhaled through her nose as she barely missed hitting a cow lingering on the edge of the road as she pulled down my street and jammed on the brakes too hard, and muttered, “Shit.”
“What’s wrong? Did I say … should I just shut up?” I thought I’d screwed up by mentioning Sarah.
“No, Neil, I know about quantum physics. My husband used to call me the freest of the Free Radicals.” Her voice was filled with remorse. She struggled to park the car in an extremely large space, bumping the tires against the sidewalk, then turned off the engine and twisted her torso toward me. Her hands still gripped the steering wheel.
“You must know I sensed right away we shared something deeper.” Holika’s well-built wall of composure was collapsing, “I promised myself I would tell you today. He died almost ten years ago. It was the hardest time of my life. So, that is why I know, at least, I have empathy for how hard it is for you. His death informs almost everything I do and say, even now.”
The subject of her widowhood, even for a liberated, educated woman from Holika’s background, was not one for wide public discussion. But this wasn’t public; this was private between the two of us. I thought that was all she was going to tell me. It wasn’t fair. Or right. Fairness had nothing to do with it. I could feel her ache, but she wouldn’t allow me to comfort her as she had comforted me.
“I’m sorry.” I made a motion to touch her head. She flinched with her hands and then crossed her arms in an unwelcoming gesture.
“Preeya and I have an appointment with Sharmilla. She runs my Uncle’s charities. We are raising money to buy supplies for some villages.”
“Can I help?” My question was open-ended.
“No. Not now.” She lifted her arm off the steering wheel and started the engine. If she didn’t want to talk that was her choice, but I wanted her to trust me. And I knew, no matter our immediate connection, trust takes time.
I stared at her and then away and then at her again. She gazed straight ahead but I could see her jaw quivering. The car engine idled, vibrating the seats ever so slightly.
“Do you know the name of Siddhartha Singh?” She turned forty-five degrees and spoke softly without relaxing her body and hands, which still held the steering wheel as if it were a lifeline.
“No. Should I?”
She inhaled and then her words spit out with turns of anger, regret, and even phrases of lost innocence, not in any linear fashion, but quickly, to get the torture over with fast.
“I wish yes. Siddhartha was from a lower class and caste and the youngest professor at Nehru.” I felt her pride in him still. “I was a student. We were married when I was nineteen, eleven years ago now. He was so much older than me—thirty-three,” she almost smiled. “It was not an arranged but a true love marriage, so you can imagine my family, especially my Uncle Vijay, was most distraught.” Even in the upper castes and classes, the vast majority of marriages are arranged, with the traditional formalities. “Siddhartha was brilliant and with so much vitality. A true Indian nationalist. He led a small group of people who called themselves the Free Radicals. Those who wanted to change my country and make it truly great and free.” Her voice trembled. “And then after only two years, he died.”
She spoke no more. I leaned over to try to hug her. Her posture refused any tenderness from me. “No, please, I must go.” I didn’t understand her reticence. I sighed, feeling helpless and unrightfully confused.
“I must go. I will call you tomorrow.” She dropped her arms and took my hand in hers. “Neil, I see you are vexed. Later you will understand.”
“Please, you must go now.”
I got out of the car and watched as she pulled away; after all that had happened in those few days, suddenly I was back in time.