Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Prem said something, and Guru-ji translated for me, still gazing down at the river bank. 'He says they call it "Free Body Culture". I don't think it's free, or cultured. They are deluded. There is a time and place and an age for everything. There are stages in life when certain things are proper. A sadhu who meditates naked in a jungle is truly naked. He has left all culture behind. These people are still clothed in the traps of language. They think they are free, but they are bound by their rebellion against proper shame. Truly we live in Kaliyug, when everything is upside down.'

There were a few women among the naked, and two of them were watching us now. One was light-haired, typically German, but the other had thick, curly black hair, and she was very tall. She was a German all right, but her skin was tanned brown.

'Come,' Guru-ji said. He folded his hands in a namaste at the girls. 'They will think we are looking out of some dirty curiosity.'

He spun his wheelchair around. As we moved away, away from the river, I looked back and the dark item was watching us still. Guru-ji was right, she was shameless, fearless. Kutiya. But by the time we were back at the entrance to the park, I had forgotten about her. I was with Guru-ji, and I was much easier in my temper than usual. The irritation came and went. We went back to the mansion, and we ate a quiet lunch in the great hall, the sadhus and Guru-ji and I. And afterwards we sat in the garden next to the bedrooms again, enjoying the sunlight. I was sleepy and relaxed, content, not sad at all. If this was a node in time, the probabilities had all counted down to this silence. I was at peace.

'There is something you haven't spoken to me about, Arjun,' Guru-ji said suddenly. 'Is there something else?'

Of course there was. I should have known better than to keep it from him. He always knew. And not just with me – on his website there were testimonies from dozens, hundreds of devotees from all over the world that spoke of his ability to sense their troubles, to see through their hesitations. Somehow, he knew. 'It's something very small, Guru-ji. After all the big things we have been talking about, it seems silly to even bring it up. That's why I kept quiet.'

'Arjun, nothing is small if it bothers you. A small grain of sand can stop a mighty machine. Your consciousness controls the world you make, and if your mind is crippled, your world is broken down as well. So, tell me.'

'It's the girl.'

'The Muslim girl?'

'Yes.'

'What is wrong?'

'Nothing exactly. I mean, I don't see her as often nowadays. She is very busy with her films and work. And I have much to do also. When we do meet, everything is good. She is beautiful. She is obedient.'

'But?'

'But sometimes I get afraid. I don't know. I don't know if she really loves me. I look at her and I watch her eyes, but I can't tell. She says she does. But does she love me?'

Guru-ji shook his head. 'That's not a small question, Arjun. That is a big question. Even the sages can't look into a woman's heart. Vatsayayana himself wrote, "One never knows how deeply a woman is in love, even when one is her lover." That is exactly what is happening here, to you.'

'But you, Guru-ji, do you know?'

'No, I do not. And even if I did tell you, that "Yes, she loves you," what of it? Are you sure the same will be true tomorrow? Women are fickle, Arjun. They cannot control their emotions, they are changeable as prakriti itself. Would you try to love the weather for its constancy, or a river for staying in one place for all eternity? This bodily love is not love. It is only a momentary infatuation. It passes.'

'Why then does she come back to me? And pretend?'

'She is ruthless, Arjun. As long as she gains from you, you will feel that she might love you. That is the skill of the whore. It is a skill that comes naturally to women. It is not their fault, they must act from what they are made of. They are weak, and the weak have these kinds of weapons: lies, evasions, acting.' I must have looked sad, or exhausted, because he moved over closer to me, so that he could rest a hand on my wrist. 'You can only know this truth by experiencing it, Arjun. If I had told you not to be with her, you would have obeyed me. But you might have thought that I was a grumpy old man, suspicious of pleasures. But now you know. You have seen through maya. We have to go beyond this.' He pinched the flesh on my wrist between a thumb and a long forefinger. 'This is useful, but it also blinds us. The pain you feel now is the gateway to wisdom. Learn from it.'

I knew he was right. And yet my flesh fought against it, against this decision I knew I must make. My stomach bubbled with hopelessness. Was there to be only this great bleakness, left behind by the vanishing illusion of love? I felt like I was standing on an endless open plain, every dead brown yard of which was lit by some strange, equalizing light. I saw this, and I winced away from its emptiness.

'Yes, Arjun,' Guru-ji said. 'Everything has been burnt up, and all that is left for you right now is ashes. But this grey desolation is also an illusion, just a step on your path. Trust me. Keep walking with me. Beyond this charnel house of romance, there is peace and a larger love.'

And he kept me close, for the rest of the day. We were together until I left, late that evening. He held me tightly, and the last words he said to me were, 'Have faith, Arjun. Don't falter in your faith. I will be watching over you. Don't be afraid, beta.'

I wasn't afraid. I drove through the night, to Düsseldorf, and caught a plane to Hong Kong. I followed all procedures and protocols, my own tricks learnt over a lifetime, and also K.D. Yadav's tradecraft, to make sure I wasn't being followed. I did it out of habit, but I knew I was safe. I had Guru-ji's protection over my head. On the plane, I leaned my seat far back and went to sleep. I was very tired. In two days I had been reborn. Something had died in me, and now there was a newness in its place. Guru-ji had remade me again. Throughout that long flight, I dreamed of Guru-ji's hands. That was the one part of him that I took with me, this one close-up shot. He himself may have been divine, but his hands were of this world. They were small, and they were very white. His nails were absolutely clean. When I woke up, I wondered why I kept seeing these hands in my sleep, why they were so vividly real, so present, so human. He had given me a new name, and a new vision. And together we would set in motion a new cycle of time.

* * *

An ambush was waiting for me in Singapore. I went first to Phuket, to the yacht, and organized Guru-ji's shipment. In two weeks, our new channels of communication were in place and working and impervious to breaches. No doubt that bastard Kulkarni was watching me closely, but he wasn't going to hear anything. I called Pascal and Gaston, my very old comrades. We had been using their ships and their expanded resources (yes, they had grown with me), but now I told them that they had to make one journey for me themselves. They had to become crew and captain, just like in the old days. Gaston complained, and grew as truculent as a moody child. He had diabetes, he said, and he had an old slipped disk that would bounce around at the slightest bump. I told him to stop whining like an old woman, put on a truss and get his boat ready. He grumbled, but he did as he was told. He owed me. It took us three weeks to put everything in place, and then they set off, Gaston and Pascal, along with two of their best men. The pick-up, off the coast of Madagascar, went cut-to-cut and smooth, and the journey back was peaceful, over calm waters. They dropped the cargo off near Vengurla, and went home. Guru-ji's people took delivery and carried it further, wherever they needed to. I paid Gaston and Pascal triple their usual rate, and that was that. No problem, no fuss.