The Plunge (21 page)
Authors: Sindhu S.
The window had a net screen to keep away mosquitoes, perhaps even snakes. Anjali made the bed and sat down. She turned on the fan, which spun noisily as if in dissent.
Anjali kept her bag on the table, pulled out a bottle of water from her bag and drank in quick gulps. She sat staring at a distant hillock through the tiny window. She then looked around the cell. There were water stains on the wall from the last monsoon. Anjali pushed away Siddharth from her unsettled mind each time thoughts smuggled him in, and tried to focus on the present.
She heard the sound of latches being opened and closed in the nearby cells. Other guests were checking in.
The dining hall was crowded. The tables had been removed and the chairs orderly arranged to accommodate the two hundred and fifty female participants. There were an equal number of men in the adjacent dining room, she knew.
An elderly woman walked in and explained the rules to be followed during the next ten days. Participants were to observe absolute silence throughout. They should not communicate with each other orally, in writing, or even through gestures. They were to keep away from the opposite sex, even relatives, on the other side of the complex, to avoid distraction. The two areas were separated by a hedgerow.
The day began at 4 a.m., when the giant bucket-sized bell at the entrance of the course area announced dawn. Everyone was expected in the meditation hall within half an hour of waking up. The meditation would continue for two hours, after which they would disperse for bath and breakfast.
They would again gather in the hall at 8 a.m., men and women in the separate sections of a huge auditorium within the same pagoda. This second round continued until 11 a.m. Lunch would be followed by a rest period.
The third round of meditation continued in the evening until 5 p.m., when participants were permitted to speak to their guides for about five minutes to clear up any doubts about the Vipassana technique. Tea break lasted an hour.
The fourth session started at 6 p.m. and ended at 9 p.m. This session was lively, as everyone listened to the philosophy of the Buddha and the importance and meaning of Vipassana from Guruji Goenka himself, a recorded video presentation projected on a giant screen.
The first three days were the toughest. Anjali thought she would collapse. She came down with a terrible cold, an aching back and shoulders, and a stiff neck. Constant meditation was rough, she learned.
Anjali could not focus on her breath or body for most of the first two days. By the third morning, her legs began to protest. The knees ached, while her calves felt weighted with lead. Would she make it to day ten?
Her mind wandered towards the aching body parts every now and then. Otherwise, it roamed back into the past, and at times into the future.
Vipassana was introduced on the fourth day, when the guru instructed the participants to observe the sensations in the body, the gross sensations, as well as the subtle ones. Anjali could feel only the gross sensations throughout her body.
As the days passed, she was able to observe the unpleasant sensations with a dispassionate mind, more like a witness. She could look at her aching or burning body parts and know that “it, too, will pass”. Whatever sensation arose would pass, whether it was pleasurable or painful. That was the law of nature.
The realisation helped her come to terms with the concept that whatever arises would subside, including feelings. Everything in this world was impermanent and therefore it was foolish to develop attachments.
Anjali learned that whenever the conscious mind experienced a craving for or aversion against something, the body reacted with a corresponding pleasurable or painful sensation. It became easy to believe that accumulated subtle and gross feelings made living miserable for human beings.
Thoughts crowded her head, and her heart ached as a howling pre-monsoon storm tore through the last four days.
Recalling incidents from the subconscious produced a similar nasty sensation in some part of her body: a heavy heart, breathless lungs, a stiff neck, a lump in the stomach, or a burning sensation in the windpipe. She observed each of those without reacting to the sensation. At times, she failed to be just a witness. But when she continued trying, the icy-tart sensations would slowly transform into numbness.
At times, when she was meditating in the Dhamma hall, tears rolled down her cheeks. She would quickly wrap her shawl around her face and hope nobody had noticed her in the dimly lit hall, where five hundred participants were learning to deal with their emotions by dismissing feelings as impermanent and hence undesirable, trying to uproot long-held mental impressions. They were all chanting in their minds, “
anithye, anithye,
” for transient, transient.
Dreams and nightmares plagued her few hours of sleep at night. Her mind was calm in the early mornings when Anjali walked alone to the meditation hall, holding the scarf wrapped around her head to prevent it from being blown off by the cold breeze. She looked forward to the five-minute walk along the concrete path while it was still dark. The mornings were calm except for the clink of the tiny temple bells in the gathering storm and the smaller bells rung by the Dhamma volunteers every hour to alert participants.
Each block had a volunteer who rang the wake up bell and guided participants to the meditation hall in time. As they moved towards the hall, passing one block after another, the jingle followed, the echo of the last bell merging into the ring from the next block, and so on.
She thought about the many people from her past. She remembered them, countless incidents, both pleasurable and painful encounters, and the many interactions she had been part of. The thoughts never stopped. They catapulted through her conscious mind, or streamed in. The more she struggled with the feelings, the more difficult it became to remain unaffected.
Thoughts of Siddharth disturbed her the most. Contradictory sensations swept through her, ranging from absolute pleasure to extreme pain. She felt her heart would explode. “Whatever rises will pass,” she reminded herself, willing herself to release all of it.
Anjali experienced her first total subtle sensation on the seventh day. It started as mild, cool manifestations on her skin that spread, until every pore breathed freshness, like spirit rubbed over the skin. She greedily observed the blissful feeling as it travelled all over her body like a cool current. Anjali immediately regretted craving more; exactly what the instructor had asked them not to do.
She experienced more of such delicate minty sensations, more like subtle goose bumps, throughout the day, and eventually was able to feel them dispassionately as instructed. When she was allotted her personal meditation space at the end of the seventh day, she knew she had mastered the technique. It was a dark, underground cave among the many similar cubicle spaces built on the outer wall of the pagoda for secluded meditation. It provided the silence that made intense meditation possible.
If only she could continue the practice for the rest of her life!
Only three days left. Thoughts still continued to distract her, mostly painful experiences from the past, and manifested as gross sensations in her body.
On the tenth day, as she packed her bag, Anjali felt peaceful. On the train back to Mumbai, on her way to Shimla, she knew it was time to decide. She would face reality and free herself of all the miseries she had accumulated over the years, and the many past lives.
.
A
cold morning.
Her teeth chattered in the December chill.
The day that began as a still dawn gradually changed direction with the winds from the northwest blowing towards Shimla. The temperature had dipped to thirteen degrees Celsius.
Most residents and tourists would be indoors before evening, leaving Mall Road and the Ridge desolate.
Yesterday had been no better. Intermittent spells of rain had continued until late afternoon. A thick blanket of mist had covered the hills throughout the day. By evening, the rain had stopped and Lakkar Bazaar, Mall Road, and the Ridge were bustling with activity.
Every now and then, a mild drizzle warned of approaching snowfall. The overcast sky made her heart sink. Once it snowed, everything would be frozen in Shimla. Even the hyperactive monkeys were absent from their usual hangouts, probably sheltered in abandoned buildings or roof pockets.
Anjali strained her eyes through the window of her hotel room hoping to spot some movement outside. She had to wait for a long time before sunlight brought in some relief.
Then she saw the newspaper boy ambling around from house to house. She imagined someone shake him out of sleep and thrust the newspapers into his reluctant hands.
A porter lumbered towards the hotel carrying numerous bags tied into a bulky bundle on his back, followed by a young couple. Porters in the hills were courteous and undemanding. They carried heavy baggage up the hills with amazing ease.
“It’s better to stay here than any hotel near the Mall Road,” the porter had advised her before leading her to this hotel last evening. The Mall Road was just a five-minute walk away, he had said, before walking down the valley along a mostly abandoned path. The narrow slope led to a flight of steps, followed by another slope, and more steps; it seemed endless.
“Oh no!” she had protested when he kept walking. They had just climbed a steep road leading to the spot from where they had to go down to reach the hotel.
“Mall Road starts here,” he said. “This is Scandal Point. The hotel is just a brief walk down from here.”
He had thought she was a tourist. Hmm, a year later, she still did not appear to belong to the hills. Strange.
The timid knock snapped her out of her reverie. The room-service boy brought tea and toast. She was hungry, but she knew she could not eat much so early in the morning. Food made her want to throw up. Was she falling ill? Maybe it was stress.
Ajay had promised to pick her up by 11 a.m. They could hire a taxi and reach the institute by afternoon.
She wore her favourite sari, a gift from Shreya, Anup’s wife. The brown chiffon sari had a navy blue silk border, a beautiful combination.
Anjali felt an unusual peace. Siddharth would arrive near Christ Church in half an hour. It was a nearly seven-minute walk from the hotel, considering the climb. That meant she should leave the room in another fifteen minutes.
She glanced at the mirror. Was she looking a little fat? She had never been fat.
It had been almost two years with Siddharth, first knowing him and then seeing him. The latter half was eventful.
Did she still love him as much as she did the first time she heard his voice and fell for it? Sometimes she felt she still loved him as much. Other times she hated him just as passionately.
Perhaps Siddharth had never loved her. It was a mere sexual dalliance for him. That is what Swapna thought. Priya, who was not even aware that the man was their old colleague Siddharth, was angry with her for ruining her career and life. Whenever they called or wrote, both kept asking her to leave him and Shimla for good.
“You have truly and royally screwed up your life.” Priya had been as blunt as ever when she spoke to her two weeks ago.
Anjali decided not to pursue that thought any further. It depressed her.
Other guests were checking in as she walked across the lobby: families with parents, children, and grandchildren. They all looked happy.
She crossed the Army Headquarters gate marked ‘No Trespassing’ without hesitation. It was a shortcut for people who lived on that slope to reach Mall Road. The regular route was much longer, the porter had said.
A few people, mostly men, walked down the steps near the winery. Another flight of steps and she would be at the church. There was still ten more minutes to the appointed time.
As she entered the church, an old lady was on her way out. A young man was holding her hand, perhaps her grandson, distant relative, or neighbour, Anjali assumed.
Siddharth was not there yet.
She knelt down and closed her eyes, fingers crossed in prayer.
“God, please guide me. Let me do the right thing, whatever is best for me. Please. And help me bear this pain.”
Tears blurred her vision. Anjali tried to witness her sadness like an outsider, dispassionately. She observed her grief and chanted: “This too will pass.” She felt peaceful.
When she walked out, Siddharth was waiting for her a little away. He wore a black pullover. He looked handsome. Anjali failed to hold back a sigh.
“You have been waiting for long?” he asked with concern in his voice.
“No. I just arrived.”
“Why did you ask me to come here? We could have met at the institute.”
He could not hide his anxiety; his raised brows were a giveaway.
“I’ve just come in from Igatpuri.” She stopped herself from saying, “You forgot.”
Instead, she said, “I thought I would meet you here and then go to the institute. It’s better here.” She looked into his eyes before adding, “We can speak more freely.”
She chose not to explain why she preferred meeting in a public place.
“Shall we walk towards the Ridge?” he asked.
“You look lovely,” he said without hiding his affection as Anjali laboured up the path.
“Let’s sit here for a while. I can’t walk further,” she said.
They settled on a bench at Scandal Point.
Anjali found the name of the spot fascinating. Some believed the place was called Scandal Point because the English residents used to gather there, sunbathing and gossiping, during the long winters.
Some said it was the spot from where the maharaja of Patiala had eloped with an English woman. Why did so many women fall for him? Perhaps being his mistress was better than marrying a commoner.
Did it not make sense to be the mistress of the man you loved than the wife of a random guy? Scandalising thoughts, Anjali shook her head as if to dismiss them.
“I could stay here tonight.”