The Two Krishnas (7 page)

When she returned, barely fifteen minutes later, Pooja heard Ajay’s painful wailing even before she had entered the apartment on the second floor. She rushed up, abandoning the sack of groceries on the stairs, its contents spilling out. She blasted in to find Ajay sitting in a puddle of the steaming milk from the uncapped bottle, Rahul helplessly trying to dab Ajay’s scalded arm. They rushed to the emergency room just a few miles away but feeling like it was across the world, Pooja pacifying Ajay in her arms; but the fight between them—a rare occurrence—had been terrible.

“You’re so self-absorbed!” she cried. “How could you let this happen to him? How could you endanger our child’s life? Can’t you watch him for five minutes?”

“Are you insane? Do you think I did this on purpose?” Rahul, while regretful, grew equally incensed. “Why are you talking this way?”

“Why? Why? Look what you’ve done to him! Look!” she said over Ajay’s crying, “And all because you couldn’t get your eyes of that bloody television set!”

At the end of the night, after a bandaged Ajay had been put to bed and the chaos had subsided, Pooja sat down next to a depressed Rahul at the dinner table. She laid her head against his chest, broke down crying in regret over her furor. He put his arms around her, understanding of the maternal instinct, but she had hurt him. The damage had been done.

“Don’t you think I love him just as much?” he asked.

She didn’t answer because in her heart, she suspected nobody could love Ajay more than she did. There were times when she felt jealous when she saw Ajay bubble up with laughter when Rahul tickled his stomach or kissed and licked Ajay’s nose, as if she was competing for Ajay’s attention with his father. The love Pooja felt for her son, the euphoria she experienced every time Ajay tugged at her breast or felt his hands and feet clamber over her lifted all her despair over leaving her family behind, and she felt as if she wanted to absorb him back into her where there would be no separation.

In time, the scar had become a part of Ajay much like the broken tusk of Ganesha, but for Pooja it signified much more. It was proof that she was indispensable to Ajay, that he could only truly be safe with her.

“Mom,” Ajay’s voice brought her into the present. “So tell me. Tell me the story.”

“Story?”

“You know, about Ganesha”

“Oh, you don’t really want to hear it,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Do you?”

He gave an approving grunt, continued relishing the meal.

“Well, you know when Shiva, in his anger, had—’’

“No, no,” Ajay said, shaking his finger. “From the very beginning, Mom. The beginning.”

“Okay, okay.
Vinayaka,”
she said, smiling and touching his hair.
“Vinayaka
because he was born without the help of a father. Parvati, the beautiful, fair daughter of Himavat, the God of the Mountain, created Ganesha by rubbing herself with scented oil and from the dirt of her body. She created him because, you know, when Shiva went away for such long periods of time in his quest for enlightenment—men,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She became so lonely in his absence. And sometimes when he returned, he refused to recognize her space, expecting things to remain just as they were. You know this is where you would ask ‘but, Mom, why did he leave her there? Why couldn’t they go together?’ And I’d say, ‘because the path to enlightenment, to find out who you truly are, has to be taken alone.”

Ajay found himself drawn into the tale as if he was listening to it for the first time. He started eating more slowly, his eyes glued on the theater of her face.

“Ganesha was flawless. Big and strong, so handsome,” she said, her face now glowing, “just like you. And Parvati gave him all kinds of precious ornaments and robes. She told him that he was created just for her. That he belonged to her and that from that day on, he would be her gatekeeper, protecting the honor of his mother from one and all. And Ganesha bowed to his mother, and taking a large stick in his hand, stood guard outside her door.”

Ajay’s cell phone began ringing, piercing through them. He quickly unclipped it from his belt, and barely giving it a glance, pushed a button to silence it.

“Then one day,” she continued, “Shiva returned from his long absence when Parvati was taking a bath with her handmaidens…”

Ajay moved his thick brows up and down mischievously and she gave him a playful slap on his arm.

“Naturally, Ganesha, who had been commanded not to let anyone in, barred Shiva’s path with the stick. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. ‘No one can enter at this time without the permission of my mother.’ Shiva, now in a rage, asked Ganesha, ‘Do you know who I am, stupid one? I am none other than Shiva, the husband of Parvati. How dare you prevent me from entering my own house?’ As he tried to force his way in, Ganesha struck him and a fierce battle ensued. Some say Ganesha single-handedly defeated entire armies of gods. Others say that it was a more private duel, just between father and son.

“In the end, Shiva prevailed by cutting off Ganesha’s head. But when he saw Parvati, dumbstruck and grief-stricken, waves of affection and regret flooded Shiva. He asked his bull Nandi to bring him the head of an elephant, which he fixed on Ganesha’s neck, bringing him back to life.” Here she remembered how little Ajay would trumpet around like an elephant, flap his hands like giant ears. “Parvati looked on, her eyes full of tenderness. So, in a way, Shiva does eventually play a part in Ganesha’s creation, you see? And from that point on, whenever Shiva went away, meditating or doing his dance of destruction on some part of earth, Parvati would spend her time dictating stories to Ganesha, who became a tireless scribe, the universe’s first author. And at the end of it, she would kiss his broken tusk and stroke his broad, wrinkled forehead in appreciation.” Pooja’s eyes, which had wandered across the room as she had narrated the story, returned to her son just as he polished off the meal. “More?” She asked, pointing a manicured finger at his plate.

“No, no. No way, ” he said, leaning back and patting his stomach.

“Maybe I should have extended the story.”

He laughed. “No, really, Mom. I’m stuffed. I’m gonna’ have to make up for this with another hour at the gym.”

“If you want to go, no need to worry about me, Ajay. I’ll be fine.”

“Ah, it’s alright. I’ll just go tomorrow.”

“Really,” she said. “Go. Go work out. I’m okay now.”

“You sure?” he said, studying her face intently.

“Very, very sure,” she replied, touching his.

“Okay, well, just an hour or so of cardio. Thanks, Mom.”

“I’ll just clean up.” She pointed at his cell phone. “It’s probably going to explode if you don’t turn it back on.”

Ajay rose to his feet, kissed her forehead. He sprinted up the stairs and disappeared into his room, where he changed into his gym clothes. She sat in her chair for a few minutes longer, culling a strange comfort in the sound of him moving through the now respiring house. Only a short time ago, she had sought solace from sounds of other peoples’ lives but now her world had come alive again. She had bonded with her little Ajay again and he had wiped away her tears just as she had licked them off his cheeks when he was a baby, each tear a glistening, briny pearl.

Before leaving, he gave her another concerned look, the softness in him returning. She assured him that she was okay, reminded him not to mention it to his father. She cleared the table, loading the dishes into the dishwasher thinking of what he had said about her tears— “It’s only water.” She waited until she heard the sound of Ajay’s red Mustang pull out of the driveway, and then, taking deep breaths, went up to their room and locked the door behind her, the gold bangles on her wrist clinking hauntingly in the air.
It’s only water.

* * *

Self-acceptance was a prerequisite to tolerance from others. Atif realized this early on when he moved to Los Angeles as a lonely teenager. Since God, in his malleability, was always used to justify oppression, Atif figured it was best to seek answers in the many works authored by Him.

Atif started with the Koran. Allah seemed contradictory and wily. Verse 4:16 said: “If two men among you is guilty of lewdness, punish them both” yet in Verse 76:19 God promised: “And round about them will serve boys of perpetual freshness: if thou seest them, thou wouldst think them scattered pearls.” So it was prohibited on earth, but Muslims could look forward to homosexuality in Paradise. The word of Allah made him more confused than he already was.

In a dusty book in the Eastern Studies section in his college library in Burbank, Atif found a story from the Shiva Puranas in which Agni, the same fire-god that consecrated marriages, was summoned to swallow the scalding semen of the god Shiva so that the warrior-god Kartikeya could be born to slay a demon. The epic Hindu tale failed to mention why the all-powerful deity couldn’t simply impregnate a woman or just take care of the nuisance himself.

So he ventured further, into testaments new and old, and found that the Old Testament vehemently condemned homosexuality, while Christ never even bothered to mention it, too busy making wine out of water when not walking on it. According to the Kabbalah it was a disease, much like chickenpox or leprosy, which could be cured. Only in Sufism and Hinduism did Atif find an unconditional acceptance of same-sex love, in its mythic tales and stirring poems, although he was aware that both Muslims and Hindus were notorious for their intolerance of it.

Legendary mystics like Jelaluddin Rumi and Farid ud-Din Attar had written evocatively about the love between two men—the ecstasy in their melding, the scorn and outrage it incited amongst the people, and the superhuman lengths to which such lovers went to keep their love alive. The tales of Shiva and Agni, of Shiva and Vishnu, Krishna and Arjuna, again validated Atif. He resented how believers ignored these stories or tried to homogenize them into some kind of convenient metaphor for loving god.

To Atif, there was nothing ambiguous about who was crying out for whom, whether the soul to god or the lover to the beloved. Rumi’s verses were addressed to Shams, the wandering mystic who introduced him to Sufi mysticism and with whom he lived for several years, as others were to god himself. No reason to confuse the two. It was people’s inability to digest such relationships that compelled them to unnecessary interpretation. It seemed to Atif that in doing so, they had completely missed the point: that loving another person, regardless of their sex, was a way of loving god after all. The divine is neither man nor woman, neither good nor bad, so why should the heart make that distinction in loving?

More than ten years later, when he brought this up to Rahul, he received a mystified look, as if to say: who manufactured this fiction? I’ve never heard of any such thing. Atif, proud of his research, had presented him with books, some out of print, lovingly covered in clear Mylar dust jackets, to prove his point. Rahul groaned. “Oh, Atif, all that ancient stuff, nobody reads it. The Gita, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata—well, okay, maybe not that last one—too much strife. Anyway, that’s what they all read. All this other strange stuff, Puranas this and Puranas that, nobody cares about them.”

“You know what’s so damn frustrating?” Atif countered. “That you have one of the oldest, most progressive religions in the world. But all anyone ever wants to focus on is the same old sanctimonious crap.”

Rahul smiled. “Isn’t that how all religions are? People want a standard, uncomplicated belief system, Atif. They’re not trying to change the world or even accept it. They just want to feel right about how they think.”

This was tragic but true,
thought Atif.
Ultimately, if you looked hard enough, you could always find something to support your claim. In the end there was no right or wrong. Only interpretation.

Just as there weren’t words enough in the world to help him justify his sexuality to his own parents. None of Rumi’s yearnings or Allah’s contradictory promises could help him here.

Standing naked against the sink while gently peeling Rahul’s semen from his chest, he saw his father’s face and thought,
so this is what you disowned me for, the right to love another man. You’d have preferred me dropping mine into the womb of an unsuspecting woman, my eyes shut to keep from seeing her face while thinking of another man.
Even after six years, it hurt him to think that in the eyes of his parents, his aberration had been so severe, so monstrous, that it had not warranted a proper conversation. He could not understand, no matter how hard he wrestled with it, how any relationship, most of all a paternal one, could be dissolved with so little resistance.

His mother’s trembling face during their last cruelly brief conversation played in his mind and a chill spread over his body. Would he ever see them again? He put his arms around himself, closed his eyes to the tears. Anger and hurt bubbled within him and as his head fell forward, he felt himself weakening and wanting to call Mumbai so he could hear his mother’s voice. But he knew he was not welcome anymore, that even that rare chat with her could only take place when his father wasn’t around.

It had all started with Hiten Khanna who had come from Mumbai to study business at USC. The son of wealthy parents who owned a textile manufacturing company, Hiten came from a different social class and knew Atif only distantly back home. He came armed with the confidence and money that Atif lacked. Spoiled and condescending, they were nothing alike, yet in a strange country, surrounded by the biases of another culture, they had forged a convenient friendship. Equipped with the fake ID cards Hiten had secured for them, they even went to their first gay club in West Hollywood together.