Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

Narendra Nath Datta ( eyes widening with alarm ): “But I–I don’t…”

Sri Ramakrishna ( dropping the boy’s hand, stepping back, and pressing his palms together prayerfully as if addressing a deity ): “I know your true identity. You are Nara, incarnation of Narayana. You have returned here to earth to relieve the burdens and sufferings of mankind!”

Narendra Nath Datta ( frankly astonished, and not a little horrified ): “I’m — I’m not sure if…”

Sri Ramakrishna ( excitedly ): “Wait! Wait! One minute!”

The guru dashes back into his room and returns, moments later (carefully closing the door behind him again), with a plate of Indian sweets. He then proceeds to gently push them, piece by piece, between the shocked teenager’s lips. After several mouthfuls a startled Narendra speaks:

Narendra Nath Datta ( embarrassed ): “Perhaps if you gave me the plate I could carry it back inside and distribute these treats among my friends?”

Sri Ramakrishna ( indignant ): “No! These sweets are for you. They’re yours . The others [ waves dismissively ] can have theirs later.”

The guru (who will not be called a guru ) continues to feed Narendra until all the sweets are gone and the plate is empty.

Narendra Nath Datta ( dabbing anxiously at his lips, perplexed, feeling a sudden, slightly sickening sugar rush, glancing toward the door ): “Maybe we should think about joining the…?”

Sri Ramakrishna grabs the teenager’s hand again.

Sri Ramakrishna ( desperate and earnest ): “I won’t move from this spot until you promise me that you will return here again, very soon, and that the next time you visit you’ll come alone.”

Narendra Nath Datta ( clears his throat — uncomfortable, slightly cornered ): “Yes. Yes . Of course.”

Narendra Nath Datta returns to the Master’s room and there he sings a second song. Later, travelling home in a hired carriage, he licks his lips and is startled to discover that they are still sugary from the sweets the Master has fed him. He is both thrilled and appalled by his recent encounter. He is also utterly convinced — more than he has ever been convinced of anything in his whole short life —that Sri Ramakrishna is a complete lunatic, a crazy madman, a cunning and dangerous monomaniac.

Ah …

To be wooed with sweets …

To be hand-fed the prasad

By a crazy man!

Psssst!

Please never go back!

Listen to your wise parents!

Don’t fall for his tricks!

Are you listening, Narendra?

Hello? Hello? Narendra?

Narendra?!

Part 2.

Oh dear. After a good deal of soul-searching … a few weeks later

Narendra Nath Datta returns to the Dakshineswar Kali Temple alone and on foot. The last time he made the journey — when he came with his friends — it was in a hired carriage. He’d hardly noticed the distance. But this is actually — the teenager quickly realizes — a grueling six-mile hike, and he is unsure of the way. He keeps asking people for directions. He grows increasingly stressed and exhausted. He is full of misgivings.

What draws him here?

What is this compulsion?

Eh?

Faith?

Boredom?

Naivety?

Spiritual hunger?

Vanity?

Stupidity?

He has often heard mention of Sri Ramakrishna’s “incredible attraction.” If the dark rumors are to be believed, this famous guru is a still flame who draws fluttering moths to his light and then singes their wings.

Narendra finally arrives at the temple and makes his way to Sri Ramakrishna’s room. Sri Ramakrishna is — unusually enough — alone. His room — with its red concrete floor spread with straw mats — has few possessions in it. There is a collection of pictures on the walls — of Hindu gods and goddesses, one of Jesus.…

On the right-hand side of the room are two beds, one larger, one smaller, pushed up against each other (the larger benefits from the luxurious addition of a mosquito net). Sri Ramakrishna is perched on the smaller of these.

The guru (who will not be called a guru ) greets Narendra joyfully. He beckons him to sit on the end of the smaller bed. Narendra tentatively does as he is instructed.

He observes that the Master is in a strange mood. He seems introspective, preoccupied. He is grumbling and muttering to himself under his breath. Narendra is somewhat alarmed by this and consequently is on his guard.

There is something about the Master which confuses him (and it has confused many others). One might imagine that Sri Ramakrishna (with his childlike, almost feminine demeanor) would be small, even slight. And sometimes he is. But then at other times he seems perfectly … how to express it?… Huge . He seems huge. Nobody quite understands how or why.

(When you inspect the few remaining photographs of the saint (such as a notable one in which he is in a trancelike state being watched by members of the Brahmo Samaj , and supported, from behind, by his nephew, Hridayram), he seems tiny — fragile.)

After the guru ’s death, when questions are asked about his size so that a marble sculpture can be commissioned, nobody can agree on how big he was. Eventually a coat is found (a green coat) and a photograph of the Master wearing it, and by dint of careful reckoning, it is decided that the Master was five foot eight.

Narendra watches the Master with a combination of social unease, teenage hauteur , and exhaustion.

The Master — after a little more muttering — turns, looks hard at the boy, then suddenly stands up and moves toward him. Narendra panics. On no! Is there about to be another of those exquisitely embarrassing scenes? Like the last time he visited?

He has barely begun to process this thought (and its concomitant dread) when the guru lifts his leg and places his bare foot firmly upon the teenager’s body (where, we do not know — the lower thigh? The hip? The chest?) and then everything goes completely haywire. The walls of the guru ’s room collapse backward, everything starts to spin at an extraordinary speed, and the teenager has the powerful inkling that his consciousness — his essence — is about to be swallowed up into a massive, ravenous, rotating vortex, an all-engulfing void.

In terror he hears his own voice scream out (all signs of teenage hubris instantly evaporating), “What’s happening to me? Help! What would my parents think?”

The laughing guru lifts his foot and gently touches his hand to the terrified teenager’s chest. “All right,” he murmurs, half to himself, “let it stop. This needn’t happen all at once.”

And, just as suddenly as it emerged, the giant void disappears. The walls reform. Only a couple of seconds have passed, in real time, but entire continents have shifted within Narendra’s consciousness.

He sits on the bed, slumped forward, struggling to catch his breath. The guru retreats. Once again everything about him appears small and harmless and childlike. He is now incredibly friendly and kind and warm to the visiting teenager. He offers him every sort of hospitality. And he is funny. He sings, he dances, he cracks jokes. He can be a bitch. He can be terse. He is an exceptionally droll impersonator. Before Narendra knows it a whole day has passed in his delightful company and it is time for him to return home again. The guru is dejected at the thought of him leaving. He visibly droops. He perches on the end of his small bed, shoulders slumping, chin on his chest, arms hanging, like a poignant, little Pierrot doll.