Bruce Wagner - The Empty Chair

And as in a fairy tale, there came that time when the road took one no further. For today, all of Maharashtra seemed congregated in that mangy Mogul corridor and the throngs blocked our passage. Kura was undeterred. I held on to his coattails while he employed that extraordinary assassin’s energy, feinting and dodging his way to nirvana. In just a short while, we’d cut to the head of the line of the shop with the TOBACCO sign (in English)… but we were still outside, VIPs without backstage passes. Two weaponless military men graced the door. While their presence seemed mostly ceremonial, entering the shop didn’t look feasible. It was so crowded in there, it may not have been humanly possible — I doubt we’d have been able to squeeze in, even if the guards themselves gave us a shove.

Something was wrong with this picture but we were just too frazzled and sick to notice. (My turn to be feverish.) The Great Guru gave satsang every day, which by anecdote and definition was a dignified, orderly affair. Then how to explain the unruly, chaotic scene that presented itself? Kura’s investigations had informed that no more than 30 to 35 devotees showed up on a given morning; the energetic integrity of a true Master saw to it there were never too few disciples, nor too many.

But this mob was off the hook.

I watched Kura intently. I’d seen that look of laser-like determination before. He espied a pole and sprang into action. He ascended about 10 feet before stopping short at the bottoms of the bare feet of a gaggle of men who clung at the top like monkeys on a swizzle stick. Like them, Kura could now peer over the heads of the storefront lookee-loos and straight into the shop itself. I read his lips: “His chair!” he said to himself, in transport. “His chair…” I wondered if the fever was returning and I suppose it was, in the form of obsessive devotion. He was utterly fixated on storming the sanctum sanctorum. I saw the algorithms of egress play across his face, rippling its features… when he signaled, I met him at the base of the pole and we exchanged places — and thank God, because all I wanted was to get to higher ground. In that moment I remember acquiring that itchy, creepy case of nerves one can catch in a faraway place on too little sleep. I shimmied up, found my footing on some sort of electrical box, then turned my eyes to the crush of spectators. They didn’t look very spiritual— au contraire. Not like seekers and disciples, anyway. The way they were decked out, they might as well have been auditioning for a Bollywood musical. In the photo montage Kura put together in Paris, the pilgrims of Mogul Lane wore a wide array of costumes but the emphasis was decidedly on the modest, the simple, the austere. Some were “dressed,” but we’re talking Sunday best, nothing glam. You didn’t need Emily Post to tell you satsang etiquette skewed toward less is more. (Bless is more?) But these folks… these folks were bejeweled, bedizened egos on parade. Of course the Great Guru never wore anything but a threadbare kurta — at least he didn’t wear a nappy , which definitely would not have been okay! [laughs] Not a big fan of the Gandhi look. What I’m saying is, to sit at his feet dressed to the tits was gauche. You’re in the man’s home , for crissake, not the parliament building. And even then. At the time, the discrepancy meant nothing to me. I was just a decadent trespasser, a cultural interloper, a wannabe seductress — a pole girl! — an American expat junkie runaway with three kinds of VD by the time she was 13. But I’m sure I found the fashion show enthralling. I must have interpreted all the finery as part of just another holiday. You know, Indian Holiday #6,342 .

Below me, the untouchables were being pushed, whisked and twirled into the street by fresh packs of snappily dressed cops. I’d seen many soldiers in the short time since we’d arrived but now it seemed like whole dragoons were being summoned to Tobacco Road. Jostled from multiple directions past women in glittering saris, the disenfranchised surged to the sidewalks where they received further prods from handsome householders in gold-embroidered sherwanis, the goal being not just to herd them from the shop’s entrance but to whirl them out of existence. In the midst of my surveillance, I saw a figure improbably squeeze through the bottleneck at the door of Satsang Central. Kura! The bouncers missed him completely, as they were busy hassling with a clutch of urchins that delighted in a game whose main objective was to make a big show of rushing the door and then swiftly retreating just in time to elude the authorities, a maneuver which scored the most points if finessed without being kicked, grabbed, molested or otherwise apprehended. The most adroit of these mischief-makers found time to brazenly ape the look and mood of the policeman who had given chase or whatever fancy onlookers expressed disdain. To escape capture, the dirtball scalawags took impressive, flying leaps into a mosh pit of their peers that extended into the street, ruffling a few feathers and unraveling more than a few dhotis of the hydra-footed gorgon of perfumed devotees waiting peaceably on line.

I redirected my gaze. The sun no longer reflected on the glass. The inside of the shop, a-brim with those awaiting satsang, was totally visible. To my astonishment, Kura had already reached his goal: breathless and illumined, he stood before the Great Guru’s humble throne, beautifully surrendered. He brought the palms of his hands together in prayerful salutation, touched them to his forehead and crumpled into a lotus, neatly filling the spot that only seconds before barely contained the fidgety blob of an obese woman who, in a seizure of urgency, had decamped to answer nature’s karmically ill-timed call. Kura’s assured, brazen, somehow dignified arrival caused nary a stir. Befittingly, he now had the best seat in the house.

I will never forget that princely, boyish head swiveling, eyes trying to find my own. He squinted through the window, scanning at street level before remembering where he’d left me; his gaze lifted and caught me on my roost. A sunshine smile split open his face because he knew I’d bore affectionate witness to his mystic, acrobatic victory.

I still think now what I thought then — in spite of everything that was to happen, Kura had come home.

The next day, we ate a late lunch.

“Wasn’t that delicious? The chef’s from Morocco. Are you sure you had enough food?… I know it’s cold, Bruce, but I’d rather do this outside. They’ll bring heaters and it’ll get toasty right away, I promise — and some coffees and candies… Esme? Can you bring two cappuccinos? And a shitload of agave… some fruit and cheese? And those faboo little pastries? And more wine! Thank you, Es!”

After settling, I gave her a précis of where we left off. She excitedly dove in.

As it turned out, there would be no satsang, for …

… the Great Guru was dead.

Pretty dramatic, huh?

At the end of that first day, we learned he had shuffled off this earthly plane just a few weeks prior — around the same time that our earthly, private plane was being diverted to Algiers. Needless to say, word of his demise had never reached us. This was a century before the Internet, when news traveled at a more civilized pace… though I do believe that as renowned as he was, if the Great Guru died today it would still be likely that his death might slip through more than a handful of news cycles. His was the kind of passing that obits generally reserve for retired diplomats, African bishops and former child stars, i.e., ones that can be reported later than sooner. (Scratch former child stars — enquiring minds want to know!) That his life and teachings would eventually be widely written about and even popularized was never in doubt. Time has born that out.6