Shortly after my 13th birthday, I summoned my courage and walked into a travel agency. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my best friend, who shared the enchantment that claimed me. We must have looked peculiar to the man behind the counter. Our hair was pulled back into long braids, we wore improvised saris that only approximated the real thing, and the lipstick tikkas adorning our foreheads were starting to melt.
“How can I get a ticket to India?” I asked in a quavering voice.
“Where in India?” He was trying not to smile.
“Anywhere!” My friend and I breathed the word in unison, at which the agent lost control and burst out laughing.
I look back on this moment with amusement yet also with wonder. What is it about India that captures our imaginations so powerfully? Yes, the region offers countless treasures of history, culture, and beauty, but other countries of the world can claim these merits. I believe that India possesses a rare quality I call, “archetypal shine.” Archetypes are psychological motifs shared by all human beings in one form or another. Coming of age, learning from a teacher, falling in love, standing up to tyranny--these templates of experience (and countless others) give meaning to our existence. They elevate the events of daily life into stories with universal significance.
India’s mosaic of archetypal symbols is so varied and multi-splendored that its light dazzles the mind. One suddenly believes that anything is possible. In the creative collision of ideas, old structures crumble and new realities are born. Innovations arise that change the course of human history. As the scholar and philologist Max Muller said, “If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions…I should point to India.”
Against the backdrop of my romance with India’s myth and mystery, I received an unexpected surprise. Catherine Ann Jones asked me to read her newly-completed book of short stories of India. I had long been a fan of the author’s books, stage plays, movie scripts, and seminars. So, I looked forward to enjoying her latest work. I knew I would find the rich interweaving of psychological insight, spirituality, and great storytelling that characterizes all of Jones’s writing.
But I also looked forward to this experience for a more personal reason. This author had forged an intimate relationship with the country I loved from afar. Every winter for over 30 years, she returned to her second home in South India to meditate and study with a revered spiritual master. At the age of nineteen, she had fallen in love with and married Raja Rao, a renowned Indian novelist born in Karnataka. They later had a son and lived fascinating lives on two continents. “Here is someone who knows India from the inside as well as the outside,” I thought to myself. “Here is someone who can deepen our understanding of this land and its people.”
My own study of oracle traditions around the world attuned me to a feature of these stories that has special meaning. The word “oracle” derives from the Latin orare, meaning “to speak.” To receive an oracle is to be spoken to by a sacred agency that offers guidance or illumination. Signs, prayers, dreams, and the arts of divination have, from the earliest times, given us inspiration to surmount obstacles. They whisper assurance that we are never alone, for Something Greater knows who we are and can show us the way forward.
In a similar manner, the Stories of India take place on multiple levels of reality. Themes from ancient mythology are woven into worldly events. Forces of destiny thwart one’s desire then open splendid new gateways. Ardent love from a past incarnation reaches across the centuries and heals a wound of the heart. Uncanny dreams warn of danger ahead. For me, following these stories was like watching a drama unfold on the stage, then looking up at a higher platform and seeing the gods enacting a play of their own.
This collection of short stories vividly reveals facets of Indian life that range from sublime mystical encounters to the vilest acts of human depravity. They introduce us to characters we would never encounter during a casual visit to the country, such as the homeless orphan girl who possesses a profound connection to Divine Presence, and the lowly plantation worker who carries heartbreaking secrets as she mirrors the plight of countless other victims today. Stereotypes about monastic life fall away when we encounter Threptin Choden, a young Tibetan monk with a surprising destiny awaiting him. And what would it be like to step off a bus on an ordinary afternoon and suddenly find yourself in another dimension of reality, where deities from Hindu mythology come alive? All is revealed as “The Hill” takes us on an extraordinary adventure. Never again could I picture Indian life in flat storybook colors, for Catherine Ann Jones had shown me complex portraits of humanity ribboned with strands of dark and light.
Yet India is more than its people. One must experience sights, sounds, and feelings to experience a land. Reading these stories, I could hear mosquitoes droning in tropical Kerala and feel the crisp ice air of the alpine Himalayas. I appreciated the way Jones often mentions the food her characters enjoyed in their daily lives. “I ate a hearty breakfast of roti and potato curry with hot coffee mixed with buffalo milk and sugar,” one woman mentions casually. It was interesting to learn about green gram, idly, coconut chutney, bhindi, and other foods that were little known to me.
I found special delight in the sensory complexity that Jones brings to her description of locales. For instance, in “The Ashram”, a young American woman visits Varanasi, where Hindu pilgrims come to die or have their ashes scattered in the sacred Ganges River. We can well understand Kayla’s feelings of tremulous awe as she encounters a universe of “layers behind layers confusedly blended into One.”
I walked with intimidation in the streets, the sounds of temple drums, cymbals, and chanting of Sanskrit slokas mingled with the smell of lit camphor, incense, and spices sold in the crowded markets. Near the Ghats where people bathed in the holy Ganga, purifying their souls, I noticed colorful graffiti murals on the walls: Shiva, standing on the demon of ignorance, dancing the dance of life and death, and another large, overpowering mural of a naked sadhu (one who has renounced worldly life) standing, holding a skull in his hands, with raised arms reaching to heaven. Another reminder that death comes to us all.
One reads fiction not only to absorb experiences, but to expand one’s knowledge. I had hoped that Stories of India would enrich me with glimpses into India’s rich cultural heritage, and this wish was generously fulfilled. “My Life as a Devadasi” presents fascinating historical details about the devadasi tradition in which young girls were dedicated to the temple and worshipped The Divine (Deva) all of their lives by playing classical music, performing traditional dances, and sometimes serving as “sacred prostitutes” for noble patrons of the temple. In the story of “Tea with Mrs. Gandhi”, I learned about the inspiring and sometimes grim political realities of India while Indra Gandhi was prime minister. “The Philosopher” includes rich descriptions of the Ajanta Caves and legends associated with them. Jones’ description of an ancient Theyyam ritual dance performance is so vivid that one feels transported thousands of years back in time.
After reading Catherine Ann Jones’s book, I sat in silence and reflected on what I had gained from her fifteen diverse stories of India. I became aware of how my understanding had increased in depth and breadth. Not only did I make the acquaintance of characters worth knowing, I absorbed rich details about Indian history, mythology, and experiences of daily life. Seeing India’s contrasts of dark and light that only increased the brilliance of its timeless ‘archetypal shine’.
I recalled again that teenage girl standing at the ticket counter with a smudged tikka on her forehead, reaching for a mystery beyond her understanding. She knew few details about the land she longed for, but perhaps her instincts were right after all. India’s soul contains stories within stories, a million layers deep. Strange and familiar, ancient and contemporary, human and divine, they beckon us to know them so that we may better know ourselves. Stories of India opens a gateway to wonders we will long remember.
Dianne Skafte, Ph.D., is the author of Listening to the Oracle (Harper, San Francisco, 1997.)