Cartwheels in a Sari (12 page)

SEATED BEFORE GURU
onstage, I closed my eyes while Guru recounted his favorite tale about the ashram when he was fourteen and received a direct order from the Supreme to go to America. He had been strolling alone along the shore of the Bay of Bengal, the backyard of the ashram, a site where land dissolved into shimmering blue waters. It was dusk, and the beach was empty. As he looked across the vast horizon, suddenly the sky cracked and flashed, blinding him. In the clouds was the Supreme—a figure complete with a voice and a message for him alone. The Supreme “commanded” him to go to America and be of service to the aspiring souls who were searching for a spiritual guide. As he heard these words, he felt afraid and began to cry. The Supreme consoled him, bestowing upon him the confidence and the knowledge that he had the capacity to be “my instrument, my supremely chosen instrument.” And as he longed for answers to questions of how and why, the figure in the clouds disappeared, leaving him alone, contemplating the daunting enormity of his mission.

For the first time, I realized that while he had been brought into the ashram by his family, he had left on his own, ending his life as a disciple and beginning his life as the Guru Sri Chinmoy. I wondered how difficult the decision to leave must have been and how it had changed his life forever. In
departing the ashram, he had to give up everything he had known—his home, family, and Guru—for the daunting, vast outside world of the unknown.

A few times, years later, Guru suggested some of the opposition that he faced as he announced his intentions to leave the ashram and go off on his own. Nolini told Madal he no longer needed an assistant. His friends became distant. His brothers and sisters—his doting surrogate parents—wondered just who was this thin man in baggy khaki shorts and dusty callused feet who suddenly spoke of Manhattan? When had he arrived? And when had their Madal, the smiley, mischievous noisemaker departed?

I dared to imagine myself deciding and then preparing to leave behind Guru's ashram in search of a different world thousands of miles away. Instantly, I felt both terrified and thrilled.

“Jayanti, all right?” Guru asked. His stories were over, and the other children, even Chahna, stared at me.

I blinked hard, embarrassed to be caught thinking about leaving Guru. My cheeks flared pink.

“Bah. Now let us have a soulful-smile contest. All stand up and turn to the audience. Give your most soulful smile, and the audience will vote.”

From the longest hair contest for the women to the best abdominal muscle contest for the men, Guru enjoyed competitions that set up disciples against one another. I was used to them but still wary. At a meditation I missed due to the chicken pox, Guru had held a contest for the ugliest girl. When I heard that Barbara, a relatively new disciple with a boil the size of a large gumball beside her nose, had won, I sighed with relief, grateful that my mother had kept me home that night.

We turned with our backs to Guru. In the shuffle, Chahna stood beside me. She smiled wide, the gap between her two front teeth on display. Across from me stood the boys, of various heights; some squirmed around, while others adapted a perfect pose. Ketan dazzled a dimpled smile.

I still did not understand what “soulful” meant, even though Guru used it constantly to describe everything as either being soulful or not. What I discovered was that when Guru interrupted midsong the various disciple singing groups who performed at every meditation because they were not soulful enough, when they resumed singing, the tempo had slowed down dramatically. Soulful, therefore, I had deduced meant slow. I worked my lips into a slow, upward-turned arch, hoping I'd faked soulfulness.

When the results were tallied up, I had won for the girls, and Puran, a small, quiet child three years younger than me, won for the boys. Chahna did not even place. I had done it again. I had successfully faked soulful, scamming the entire audience, Guru included. No one had yet figured out what I realized more and more—that I was rapidly becoming the least soulful of all.

THE NEXT DAY
at the junior high school, as always, I was trying to keep a low profile, slinking into classes early to avoid the drama between periods when notes were passed urgently, gossip was exchanged, and the popular girls got their butts pinched by boys. Only once, while walking to social studies, I felt a quick squeeze on my behind. I had turned with great excitement. Attempting to play off an annoyed look, I saw a stunned Andre Banducci.

“Oh God,” he stammered. “I thought you were someone else.”

Since then, I spent the five minutes between classes—an interminable length of time—hidden from view.

“Hey,” a voice urged from the back of the empty room.

I decided not to look, assuming no one would be trying to get my attention.

“Hey, you with the long hair.”

I looked back and saw Colin McLevy in the last seat in the corner. Colin was tall, lanky, and never without headphones and his tape player. Beneath an acid-washed denim jacket covered with buttons and patches, he wore a hooded sweatshirt draped over his head like a monk's hood.

“Come here,” he said. “I wanna ask you something.”

Colin had never spoken to me before even though we had three classes together.

No boys talked to me. In fact hardly any girls talked to me either. This must be an accident.

“What?” I said, making the walk toward him as slow as possible, struggling to portray disinterest.

“Sit down. Pull up a desk.” He leaned over and closed the carefully created gap between the rows, by dragging the desk and parking it right beside his.

I remained standing until he hit his right hand against the back of the neighboring chair, his silver rings—one for every finger, including the thumb—clanking upon the metal.

As I sat beside him, I surmised he had an agenda: he needed to copy last night's homework. He had assumed incorrectly that I had done the homework. Of course I hadn't. I never did. By the time I got home in the early hours of the
morning from the meditation and our special invitation to Guru's house, homework was the last thing on my mind.

“I didn't do the homework,” I quickly said, to spare him from any more efforts.

“So?” Colin said, squinting through the dark brown bangs that hung in front of his blue eyes.

I looked down at my hands, naked of any jewelry—Guru forbade it—and nail polish—also forbidden. My chewed-up cuticles, some with tiny scabs mixed in with rips of skin and lopsided nails, were ugly. I balled my hands into tight fists away from Colin's view.

“Skip sixth-period study hall with me,” Colin said.

With his headphones still on, the faint residue of synthesizers and drums seeped into the air.

Mrs. Catonia burst into the room, her heels snapping against the floor, followed by the rest of the class, talking loudly, recapping the latest hallway scandals.

I nodded.

For a few minutes I worried about breaking Guru's rule against mixing with boys. But since no disciple went to my school—Ketan was already in high school—I figured Guru would never find out. Besides, maybe Colin was really a spiritual seeker and wanted to talk about Guru. In that case, I justified that I was doing the right thing by agreeing to help him in his inner search. Satisfied with my reasoning, I straightened the barrettes in my long, straight, Guru-approved hair, and set off for Colin's spiritual intervention.

During sixth-period study hall, I knew right where to find him. Behind the brick wall of the building where boys played handball was an area reserved for the rebels who
skipped classes. Although teachers regularly patrolled this delinquent domain, since it also served as an extra parking lot for faculty, there were always cars to duck behind and avoid detection.

When I had skipped class before, I had hidden inside the bathroom to avoid a test or project that I had not completed. I had never dared to venture to the official skipping zone. That would have been ridiculous. One needed an invite. Besides, mostly boys hung out there, and the only time I spoke to boys in school had been when I was assigned to be their group partners in class.

Colin sat on the pavement, leaning against the brick wall, still listening to his music. As I approached him, I hoped he would remember that he had asked me to come and prepared an escape route in case he didn't.

“Hey,” he nodded. “You like Depeche Mode?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about. Besides my mother's old Broadway show tunes, I wasn't allowed to listen to any music that wasn't Guru's. According to Guru, it strengthened the lower-vital and slowed spiritual progress.

“Here.” He popped out one earphone from the plastic holder and handed it to me, while he kept the other one shielding his ear.

Because the wire was so short, I had to sit right next to him, close enough to smell the orange gum he was chewing. I scanned the surrounding area, double-checking that no disciples lurked behind the cars.

When I'm with you baby I go outta my head… I just can't get enough … I just can't get enough …

The synthesizer, the cold pavement, the brush of denim—
Colin didn't want to discuss Guru, and I suddenly didn't care. Guru who?

I nodded my head, pretending I knew the whole song. When it ended, he rewound it and started again. I waited patiently, staring at the cracks in the pavement, wishing study hall would never end.

After rewinding it a fourth time, Colin turned his head and looked right at me.

“Hey,” he said.

I slowly turned to find him only inches from my face.

“You know how to kiss,” he said, without a hint of a question.

Before I had time to back away or stall for time, Colin leaned in and smashed his lips onto mine. Within a second, he had pried my mouth open, and his tongue was flicking in and out.

Stunned, with wet slobber oozing from my lips, I followed his lead, my tongue darting into his mouth, attempting to mimic his moves.

The bell rang.

“Oh shit. I got a math test,” Colin said, jumping up and scurrying inside.

THAT SAME AFTERNOON,
dazed with reckless passion, I composed my first love letter—pledging Colin my eternal love, praising his hazy blue eyes, brown hair, and exquisite taste in music.

What I hadn't accounted for was that Ketan would find it first.

Ketan, always keenly aware of what would give him the upper hand in his ongoing battle to wipe out the Chosen One, had discovered a draft of the letter and delivered it straight to the source—Guru.

I spent the entire meditation that evening playing, rewinding, and replaying my kiss. Though I knew I had committed a grave act of disobedience to Guru, I couldn't stop myself from relishing my wild passion. I was a woman in love.

After prasad, Guru summoned me to his throne, pushing the microphone away for privacy.

Uh oh.

“Oi. I am very, very disappointed in you and your spiritual life.”

Oh no.

“Such a special soul, I brought down especially from the highest heaven to serve the Supreme in me. Such disappointment. Such news. Your lower-vital life is breaking my heart. Boys are poison, poison to your inner life, your spiritual life.”

Guru had his eyes closed, as though he could not bring himself to look at me.

“Your disobedience is causing your guru and your own soul great pain. This behavior will not be allowed. The Supreme is your eternity's boyfriend. The Supreme is your eternity's boyfriend.”

I slunk down from the stage feeling fully exposed and utterly mortified. I had fallen and failed. Ready to renounce my entire spiritual life so recklessly for a boy. Some Chosen One I was. What was wrong with me to cause me to deliberately displease Guru? Tears filled my eyes, and I silently vowed to Guru that I would change my life and end my world of darkness. If only Guru would forgive me, then I could settle in
and enjoy my real boyfriend, the Supreme. Since, as Guru explained, the Supreme was my boyfriend, why would I ever even want or need another, especially if, as I hoped, he was utterly devoted to me and me alone, and, more important, if he was cute?

THE NEXT DAY
at school, prepared to break the tragic news to Colin McLevy that I could not be with him, although I loved him, because I was promised for eternity to another, I noticed whispers and giggles as I walked through the halls.

“Ribbit. Ribbit,” Jesse Doran said to me when I passed him on the way to my locker.

Taped to my locker was a Magic Marker drawing of a green frog with a long black tongue sticking out. My name was written across the tongue.

Gigi, who had the locker next to mine and regularly smelled of bananas, came for her books.

Even though I knew that Gigi was about as likely as I was to be in the loop of gossip, I was desperate for answers. When I asked her what was going on, at first she pretended she was too busy looking for her science workbook to respond.

“Colin McLevy has been telling boys and girls that you— you—you…” She stared into her locker, embarrassed by what she was about to say.

“You kiss like a frog.” She dropped her head and looked away.

I ripped the paper off my locker and ducked into the bathroom, where I found the stall farthest from the doorway and converted it into my home for the rest of the school day. It was while seated upon the bathroom floor, inside the locked
stall, that I recommitted myself to my real purpose—that of being Guru's number one disciple—and reconfirmed the uselessness of the outer world and, in particular, of boys, especially Colin McLevy.

I NEEDED TO
atone for my transgressions. Since Guru's scolding, I was trying extra hard to please him, but I had a new problem: I wasn't used to competition for Guru's attention, and the rare times when I sensed it, I didn't like it. Of course there were always Prema and Isha, Guru's number one and number two personal assistants, but they didn't count. They were older. They had their place, and I had mine. But, like me, Pallavi was fifteen. She lived in Avignon, France, with her parents, who were the head of the Avignon Center. When she came to New York, it was always with her family, and she was merely another European disciple, one of the hundreds who flooded Queens twice a year. But this time she came alone, and everything was different.