Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

To cut a long story short, Dr. Wainwright, we had been duped! The Bengalee gentleman, it quickly transpired, was an ardent devotee of the “guru,” and the individual we had recently spent our time with was merely his nephew, a man by the name of Harryday. I struggle to recall any mention of him in your many stories — but wasn’t he perhaps the handsome but somewhat hapless character who followed the “guru” around, preserving him from harm and dutifully cleaning up his various messes?

Our new friend, a Mr. Ghatak (a matchmaker by trade — which, under the circumstances, seemed extremely appropriate, nay, propitious), then proceeded to tell us all about his “guru’s” countless virtues. He told several funny stories. He said that while the “guru” had the spirit of a child he was in fact a genius, that every sentence he uttered in conversation would be weighted with great gems of spiritual enlightenment. He also claimed that he was a brilliant mimic and a joker and that his singing voice, once heard, could never be forgotten. He said that there was never a man on earth in whose presence you could feel more loved, or seen, or cherished.

Well, the Peter Lambs were perfectly captivated by Mr. Ghatak’s descriptions, and resolved, on the spot, to visit this adorable “guru” with Mr. Ghatak, by hired carriage, the following afternoon. I had already promised my services as typist to Papa and so was regretfully — most regretfully, I must confess — unable to accompany them. Of course, you can well imagine how intrigued I was (after several hours of pummeling the keys) to find out all the gory details of the Peter Lambs’ second visit.

And goodness me — it transpired that the second visit was still more perplexing than the first! When the Peter Lambs climbed into their hired carriage, Mr. Ghatak was already comfortably seated within, and on his capacious lap he proudly held a magnificent cauliflower as a gift for his precious “guru.” Ah, Dr. Wainwright, this innocent vegetable was shortly to be the unwitting subject of the most horrendous and embarrassing of scenes.

But first, the “guru” himself …

The Peter Lambs were utterly charmed by him. When they arrived at his room (yes, the same room as the day before) the door was open and the “guru” was sitting on his bed — or cot (he’d been suffering, I’m told, from a slight fever) — deep in conversation with a small group of pilgrims who were lounging on grass mats liberally spread across the floor. Of course, he doesn’t speak a word of English (and even his Bengalee, I am told, is of the roughest hue) but the Peter Lambs found him captivating. At any given moment, they said, he would chuckle and break into song. And he was so graceful in all of his movements. Mrs. Peter Lamb found him delightfully gentle and feminine. Mr. Peter Lamb found him to be a pinnacle of uncompromised machismo. The “guru” is, it seems, all things to all people.

I shall not waste your precious time by extemporizing about his golden skin and his heavenly trances (all of which you are familiar with to the point of tedium), but I must tell you about the reception of that most fateful of vegetables, the cauliflower. On arriving at the “guru’s” room the cauliflower was presented to him, much to his very evident delight. He took the cauliflower from Mr. Ghatak and held it in his hands, simply marveling at it, then he passed his palm over the top of it and murmured something, looking up, his eyes all aglow. Mr. Ghatak happily interpreted (and I dare say he may have got his translations slightly confused), “God is everywhere. God is in all of us. God is here — even here — in this humble cauliflower.” His eyes momentarily filled with tears. He pressed his cheek against the cauliflower’s yellow crown. Then an intense anxiety suddenly gripped him and, glancing worriedly over his shoulder, he exclaimed, “We must hide it! Quickly! Quickly! Before my nephew, Harryday, comes.”

Yet no sooner had he uttered these words than the aforementioned nephew strode into the room. His eyes scanned the scene and settled, almost immediately, upon the cauliflower. The “guru” gasped, as if in terror, and tried to hide the cauliflower behind his back. The nephew pointed, his face darkening with fury. “What is that?” he demanded. (These are mere approximations of the exchanges, obviously.)

“Please don’t be angry!” the “guru” whispered, cradling the contested vegetable to his chest. “It was a gift!”

But the nephew was not remotely satisfied with this explanation. He leaped forward and tried to snatch the offending cauliflower from the “guru’s” terrified embrace. All the time he was harshly remonstrating with him: “You know that you cannot digest it, Uncle! How many times do I have to tell you? Your stomach will not tolerate such foods!”

It did not take him long to wrestle the cauliflower from his desperate Uncle’s arms. In that moment, Mrs. Peter Lamb explained, almost tearfully, the “guru” looked so tiny and defenseless that it quite literally broke her heart in two (Mr. Peter Lamb, of course, wholly disagreed — the “guru” was, he opined, the perfect example of masculine restraint and affronted dignity). Either way, Dr. Wainwright, the startled Peter Lambs — and the assembled devotees — were not best placed to know how to react. Perhaps sensing his embarrassment at his extraordinary treatment at his own dear relative’s hands, one of the pilgrims asked the “guru” a lengthy question of a spiritual nature. The “guru,” after a brief pause, began to answer him. The nephew, meanwhile, stood in the doorway, holding his trophy, taking every opportunity to roll his eyes, boredly, at each of his Uncle’s intelligent pronouncements. Finally he left. The “guru” smiled mournfully upon his departure, and — his cheeks streaking with childlike tears — confessed that he didn’t understand why, if God had released him from all earthly ties, he still allowed his nephew to humiliate him so monstrously. Then, in the very next instant, he was cheerfully singing the nephew’s praises again. Extraordinary!

When the Peter Lambs finally took their leave of the “guru” (both now utterly besotted — Mr. Peter Lamb is even considering learning “a few choice phrases of the old Bengaleese” which he felt, on the “guru’s” tongue, sounded like a “damnably fine language”) the nephew approached the Lambs and asked them for money. He explained that his Uncle could not ask for himself (the “guru” despises money, it seems) but that he (the nephew) was solely in charge of his upkeep (although Mr. Ghatak insists that there are others responsible for his day-to-day expenses, and that he also receives the minor privileges of a temple priest). The “guru” was a child, his nephew maintained, and could do absolutely nothing for himself. And he had a poor wife to support. He also explained (and quite cordially) that his Uncle had destroyed his stomach during years of spiritual training and so now could hardly eat a thing other than boiled rice and boiled milk and barely seasoned bitter squash soup. Cauliflower, it seems, made him subject to the most horrendous trapped wind. Mr. Peter Lamb failed to specify whether money finally changed hands. But it certainly may have. Mr. Ghatak was very upset about the trouble his cauliflower had generated. He claimed that the nephew guarded the “guru” like a jailor and was constantly impersonating and undermining him. But he also admitted, in almost the same breath (just as the “guru” himself had), that the “guru” needed constant support and attention, which the nephew offered unstintingly.

So that is where you currently find us, Dr. Wainwright. Of course, I am terribly eager to return to Dakshineswar to meet this captivating “guru” for myself (although, what’s an uncontentious gift to take … a kilo of rice, perhaps?).