Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

How ludicrously sincere and focused this music is — how utterly romantic, how ridiculously overwrought. Our hearts are beating so violently. The fragrance of the flowers, the warmth of the incense, the glow of the full moon. The flutes … the clarinets …

And in the midst of all our sudden excitement (our perspiring hands, our trembling breathlessness), the little wooden box of precious slides goes cascading down onto the floor, disgorging its contents. We drop to our knees. Our hands pat around blindly to retrieve the slides. The floor is so dusty — the edge of an old Turkish rug, frayed and curling, an old drawing pin, a mothball, a spider’s web, the badly sanded floorboards splintering into the pads of our tender, exploring fingers … Oh, but what joy! Eh? What drama! What mystery! What seriousness! What obviousness! What silliness! What … what fun !

Five minutes later …

Sorry, but I — Did something … something quite significant actually just happen there?

“Like an apple tree among the

trees of the woods,

So is my beloved among the

sons.

I sat down in his shade with

great delight,

And his fruit was sweet to my taste.…”

—Song of Solomon 2:3

Remember how Sri Ramakrishna once said:

“The use of these words:

‘ Guru ’, ‘Father,’ or ‘Master’

Pricks my flesh like thorns!”

Hmmn . So if those words simply won’t do, then … then how about … uh … how about: “Incarnation”?

Might that possibly suffice?

“When the lamp is lit

No invitation is sent,

But moths come in swarms.”

Aw. Lighten up a little, will you?

“You’re in the orchard!

Why waste your time counting leaves?

Eat fruit! Be happy!”

Chowringee,

Calcutta

12th July 1879

My dear Dr. Wainwright,

I trust that this letter finds you in excellent health. I am very well. Papa — as I’m sure you can imagine — is positively blooming. He spends every waking minute at the Indian Museum cataloging and displaying his precious and beloved artifacts. I wish I could give you a more complete description of Mr. Walter Granville’s new building, but suffice to say that it is handsome, well aired, and generously proportioned. Papa never stops singing its praises (although it would be difficult to imagine worse or more cramped environs than those dreadful rented rooms in South Kensington!). He says that he feels “the pure and adventurous spirit of Warren Hastings” constantly guiding him. In fact, after a late supper on Thursday evening he even went so far as to lecture poor, darling Celeste (who is currently indisposed and surviving only by gnawing listlessly upon thin strips of sugarcane and drinking copious quantities of double-boiled water) on “the ancient primacy of the Brahmanical writings…”!

Of course, I immediately thought of you and raised a wry smile. Indeed, this small exchange was — in all probability — the spur that turned my thoughts to your many hilarious stories about the several weeks you spent observing the curious antics of your eccentric golden-skinned Brahmin “Truth-seeker” at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, and — still further — resolved me to visit these now legendary premises to try and meet with the infamous “guru” for myself.

As luck would have it, I had recently shared lunch with a Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lamb, who are staying at our lodgings and are eager for diversions. Mr. Peter Lamb is fascinated by anything waterborne (aside, of course, from the dreaded cholera), and Mrs. Peter Lamb has a passion for all things horticultural. So it was that we ended up adrift on a barge on the sparkling Hooghly — with Saaras, our trusty Hindoo guide (a Renaissance man who speaks several languages, although it would be difficult to count English among the foremost of his many tongues) — excitedly heading for an encounter with your dear “Sri” Ramakrishna.

Saaras knew Mr. Ramakrishna by reputation alone and seemed rather perplexed and alarmed by my desire to meet up with him, but then Saaras is a very modern-minded Bengalee. His dream is one day to become an engineer. Or a mechanic. Or even possibly a train driver. It was rather difficult (from his profusion of excitable hand signals) to decipher which of all of the above he truly aspired to.

I shall not bother you with my horribly labored and ill-wrought descriptions of the grandeur of the temple, our magnificent approach from the river, the tumult at the ghat as we disembarked, the beggars, the bathers, the profusion of oiled bodies, the flies, the unspeakable heat, the blithely flowering oleanders, the overpowering scent of the roses in the gardens; I shall only trouble you with a description of my meeting with your beloved “guru” himself.

After several lengthy conversations in Bengalee we were directed to Sri Ramakrishna’s room, which is not — as you previously described it — in the grand owner’s house, but at the northwest corner of the courtyard and adjacent to the river, with a semicircular balcony, two verandahs, and perfectly enviable views on all sides.

Sri Ramakrishna was to be found sitting (cross-legged and perfectly alone) on one of these verandahs, loudly telling his rosary. The legendary charms — the childlike innocence and beaming smile — were not, I must confess, initially to the fore. Fifteen long years have passed since your delightful sojourn here, Dr. Wainwright, and — by my half-baked calculation — the “guru” is approaching his fortieth or so year, and now looks — it would be fair to say — somewhat less than golden; rather, a little jaundiced and world-weary. He has gained some weight. He is no longer “just skin and bone,” as you once described him. First impressions were not propitious. The “guru” was somewhat curt and abrupt to our guide during our initial introductions, but then, on espying my two mangoes (did you not say the “guru” had a well-developed sweet tooth?), was suddenly the very acme of cordiality — palms were firmly pressed together, low bows were executed, etc. etc. The mangoes were then hurriedly snatched from my hands and carefully hidden away — Saaras claimed that they would be offered to the temple goddess during the evening worship and happily distributed among the devotees afterwards. Sri Ramakrishna then took us on a swift tour of the temple and the gardens. He seemed — to all intents and purposes — perfectly focused and sharp-witted, yet, every once in a while — and quite without warning — he would lean against a pillar or a tree or a wall, as if subject to a fit of uncontrollable swooning, then laugh, then talk to himself in what Saaras assured me was pure gibberish.

At one point he formally presented me with a fallen lotus flower (slightly crushed), then prostrated himself at my feet, then stood up again and chanted and danced (again, his dancing was not nearly so perfect or so effortless as you had previously described it), before sitting himself down under the shade of the large portico and proceeding to enthusiastically pray, encouraging myself and the Peter Lambs to follow suit. The Peter Lambs were nonplussed and we quickly beat our hasty retreat.

Sri Ramakrishna waved us off — most cheerily — after asking our guide for some kind of monetary remuneration for his time and his services (which was politely proffered by a tight-lipped Mr. Lamb). And that — or so I thought — was an end to it.… Oh, but it wasn’t quite, Dr. Wainwright, because as the barge pulled away from the ghat and I called out, “Goodbye, Mr. Ramakrishna!” a respectable-seeming Bengalee gentleman who was seated nearby shook his head, leaned over, and quietly murmured behind his hand, “That sorry article is not our esteemed Paramahamsa, madam!”