Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Sorry, bhai.'

'Don't go far. If I need you I'll call you.'

'Of course, bhai.'

He shuffled off. He had big ambitions, and he had been trying to talk me into investing in a website with him and his brother. He had yet to show me how he would make money, since I had never once paid for an Indian beauty on the web. But he kept talking, and coming up with new ideas every two days. Once the door clicked shut again, I leaned back and locked it. Then off I went to Guru-ji's website, www.eternalsacredwisdom.com.

Guru-ji travelled all over the world, he travelled all the time. He had centres in a hundred and forty-two countries, with others being developed in twelve additional countries. But wherever he was in the world, whatever he was doing, there was always a new pravachan on his site every three days. You could read it in more than a hundred languages, including of course Marathi and Hindi. But of late I had been reading Guru-ji's words in English, under 'Discourse'. It took me a while, and some struggle and pain, but I always got through to the end. I kept the Marathi version open in another window for reference, but I stayed mostly with the English and so absorbed not only wisdom but also language. Guru-ji had praised me for my diligence, and had mentioned me in one of his summer discourses on time management, of course without mentioning my name. 'A successful man is one who never stops learning,' he had said. 'I have a bhakt who is very successful, who commands money and respect across the seas. But despite all his worldly achievements, he is not arrogant. He realizes what he does not know. A wise man said long ago, to realize that one is ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.' And then he had gone on to tell the story of my reading the discourse in a language I had not mastered.

Today the discourse was about sex. Guru-ji was never afraid of controversial topics, and never backed off from speaking about something for fear of offending. He was fearless. I read on: 'Celibacy is held up as the ideal by all spiritual traditions.' I had to look up 'celibacy' in the English-Marathi dictionary. 'But to reach for celibacy when one is not ready is a mistake. Celibacy will come to you when you are ready for it. A celibacy that you enforce on yourself is itself a form of sensuality. The struggle with your body will become a passion. And desire will express itself, you cannot dam it, you cannot block it, you cannot kill it. Even the images you make of celibacy will be beautiful as a woman's hip, the hymns you sing to celibacy will be like a lover's kiss.'

These six sentences took me fifteen minutes to get through, and not only because of the English. I paused to reflect, to absorb, to admire. He said things so simply, in such direct, forceful language, and yet how deep the words went. I felt them in my heart, under my stomach. What an endless tug-of-war we fought with desire, I thought. How much we pulled, how much it pushed. What torments, and what ecstasy in our torments.

And yes, it was strange even to me, that I, Ganesh Gaitonde, who had once scorned all mention of gods, and regarded any talk of religious solace as weakness, was now a dedicated follower of a guru. How had it happened? It came about because Guru-ji and I started talking. After our first conversation, when I had compelled him to call me in jail, I had not expected to hear from him again. He had, after all, to protect his public image, his vast mission across the world. But ten days after I got out of jail and the country, he called me. He had asked his people to get the number from Bunty, and suddenly, there he was on my handset, Shridhar Shukla himself, with his solid bronze voice and his exquisite punctuation. This was a man who was eagerly sought after by millions, and yet he took the time to call me, to ask after my well-being. I was cynical, I waited for him to ask me for something, as every last caller did. But he had no matter to settle, no need for money or revenge, he just wanted to talk to me.

'I see, you want to talk to me,' I said. 'What do you want to talk to me about?'

He surely heard the sneer in my voice, but he answered calmly: 'About whatever is on your mind.'

'All right. I have a question to ask you.'

'Ask.'

'I don't believe that you are a true guru.'

He laughed. 'That's not a question. But that's fine. You don't have to believe anything about me.'

Then he was silent. It was infuriating that he was not provoked at all. I waited, and thought of slamming the phone down, and then finally spoke, because I was in fact curious. 'You can't be a true guru because of what you are having me do for you.' I meant, of course, the many weapons that I was bringing into the country for him. 'People who are truly spiritually advanced are peaceful. They are against violence.'

'Who told you that?'

'Everyone knows that.'

'So you think you yourself are not very spiritually advanced?'

I flushed, and sat up. 'We're talking about you.'

'All right, Ganesh, all right. But I was curious about where you got this idea about spiritual achievement and what everyone calls being peaceful. It's all over the place nowadays, everyone repeats it, nobody can say why they believe it.'

'It's obvious, no?'

'No.'

Then again he was silent. Bastard. 'Listen,' I snapped. 'Don't play games, just tell me. I'll ask, all right? So tell me, how can you be a true guru and do what you are doing?'

'Do you know what I am doing?'

'I know a little. I know my part, and it is not peaceful.'

'Yes, you know your part. You know the little you can see. And you have been told that to be a mahatma you have to be peaceful, whatever that means. But, Ganesh, can you imagine the whole picture?'

'Of course I don't know what your plan is.'

'But think of the picture that is even bigger than that. Think of life itself. Do you think it has no violence in it? Life feeds on life, Ganesh. And the beginning of life is violence. Do you know where our energy comes from? The sun, you say. Everything depends on the sun. We live because of the sun. But the sun is not a peaceful place. It is a place of unbelievable violence. It is one huge explosion, a chain of explosions. When the violence ceases, the sun dies, and we die.'

'That is different. It's not the same as killing a man. Or many of them.'

'All men die.'

'But they don't have to die because you blow their heads up with your bullets.'

'So by not killing you bring peace?'

I knew that wasn't true. I wanted to contradict him, but I knew that non-violence never brought peace. If anything was obvious, that was. He was a frustrating bastard, this guru. 'That's different,' I said. 'We live in Kaliyug, so we are doomed to fight. But you are supposed to be a holy man, so you should be telling us not to fight.'

'Why, Ganesh? Why? You are a very intelligent man, but even you have fallen into this trap. Even you. But it's not your fault, this propaganda is very popular in our time, all over the world. But think back on your own history, Ganesh. Have not holy men fought before? Have they not urged warriors to battle? Does spiritual advancement mean that you should not take up weapons when confronted by evil?'

He reminded me then of Parshurama, that great sage who took up his axe to cleanse the earth. And of Rama himself, most perfect of men, who took up his bow and fought against all odds. 'And what about the advice that Krishna gave to Arjuna on the battlefield?' this strange guru said to me. 'Arjuna wanted to be peaceful. He wanted to retire from the world. Should he have gone? Should Krishna have let him?'

I had to agree with him, no, it was clear that Krishna was correct. I said so, and then Guru-ji told me about the great Shankaracharya, and his defeat of Krakaca's kapalika army. And also about the Sanyasi Rebellion, during which sadhus and faqirs fought against the East India Company. 'We must resist this so-called peace which emasculates spirituality and makes it weak, Ganesh,' he said. 'We must see the big picture. We must know when we have to fight to bring peace. We must be strong in our faith. Our entire history, thousands of years of it, gives us examples of this. And if I am a holy man, Ganesh, so are you.'