The widow stood, signaling she was nearly done.
“Each time you pressed Baba’s feet at satsang’s end, it was confirmed in the most captivating way. He would tell me your touch never failed to convey the ‘congeniality’ of your energetic configuration…
“I warn you, dear friend, do not make this more complicated than it is! Take your place in the chair! Do not be bothered that most of them will have need to declare you were appointed by royal decree! Six puffs of smoke from the roof, from Baba’s favorite cigar! They shall see it through the crudest lens, they always do! Your challenge will be not to believe it, any of it! Making you feel special is not the devil’s work, it’s the mind’s. The mind will summon you to its bloody battlefield… a clarion call not easy to resist. To hell with how it will look. In time all will come ’round, I can assure—
“Think it over, my American friend, I urge you! Carefully consider why you flee from your destiny. Your life is in certain danger! There isn’t much time and I shan’t come begging again. For all is predetermined! But mark my words, soon enough all will shout: ‘The Great Guru is dead, long live the Great Guru!’”
I’ve been telling this story as straightforward as I can but it’s convoluted by nature. Shall we do a timeline?
That last scene (hope you enjoyed) occurred roughly a month after the Great Guru’s death and some 48 hours before Kura found his place at the foot of the chair — a position, by the way, he would occupy for seven years. (As it happened, his apprenticeship to the American lasted precisely as long as the latter’s under the Great Guru.) Now we circle back to a question: When Kura and I first arrived at Mogul Lane just what the hell was going on? With that insane and glittering mob?
You see, mornings had become especially difficult since Baba’s death. As the hubbub of bereavement began to recede, the void once filled by satsang became a continuous reminder of the Great Guru’s absence. By unspoken rule, the lobby was off-limits between 9:30 and 11 when he would have held forth; its use as a walk-through vestibule or nostalgic loitering place felt disrespectful. There was a new wrinkle — devotees still gathered outside as they used to, only much earlier. Occasionally the satsang-less queue outgrew the sidewalk, snaking into the street with dangerous nonchalance. The police delicately brought this “hazard” to the attention of a Cabineteer, who brought it to the widow, who brought it to the American, who was only annoyed by the bureaucrats’ bogus distress. As far as he was concerned, the whole of India was a hazard. That was when he made a brilliant decision to open the doors to the Master’s house for what he privately referred to as “ghost satsang.”
They filed in like it was a cathedral, festive young voices abruptly stilled by the humble oratorium. Attendees, lost in prayer and self-reflection, were so quiet the unexpected sight of them invariably startled this or that auntie passing through on official business. The American was touched by their earnestness. Now and then he found himself discreetly joining the throng near the shop’s entrance. It was more séance than satsang but if he shut his eyes the presence of his beloved teacher could most definitely be felt. At a few minutes before eleven, when the Great Guru would have begun closing hymns, the voices began to whisper, a chorus of throats gargling with sutras before joining in song as one. It gave him gooseflesh. Naturally, they asked after the Great Guru’s books and tapes. The American put a disciple in charge, a solitary Norwegian woman who moved to Bombay fourteen years earlier so she might give her life to the saint. Each morning she laid everything out.
And so it happened that all appeared unchanged, except for the absence of he who once presided — though it must be said that the empty chair, dramatically indifferent in its thing-in-itself-ness, proved a worthy stand-in for its vanished occupant.
Word of ghost satsang spread. In time, the early morning pilgrims (whom the American wryly dubbed tobacconistas) were joined by the simply curious. The shop began to groan under the weight of lurid mythology. Pop-up folklore had it that the Great Guru’s emanations radiated from the chair but were only visible to those of strongest faith. Another claim promised visitors to the shrine a spectacular rise in income, if not an outright windfall within the year. It wasn’t long before the infirm of body (there were already plenty infirm of mind!) hobbled and rolled onto Tobacco Road. The rich sent servants to keep their places in the queue in order to secure a coveted spot near the empty chair. The widow took the American aside, pointing out the pony-tailed thuggee she’d warned him about. By the time the dangerous guru reached the door, the shop was filled to capacity. He implored to be let in but was sent gloomily packing. “Good riddance!” she said, adding that he’d merely come “to case the job.”
A command performance limned by an understudy (the chair) nonetheless became the hottest ticket in Bombay. In lieu of demanding VIP treatment, local politicians made a great convivial show of waiting on line. As elections loomed it was important to demonstrate they were men of the people, if not for the people. Once inside, the burdens of municipal business fell away, allowing a pause for prayer not less than three minutes nor more than five. These enterprising gentlemen made the most of their time, shedding tears for “our Baba” and receiving imaginary blessings. On taking leave, they cavalierly waved away constituents’ offerings of handkerchiefs to wipe wet eyes blinking above wetter cheeks. The same politicos soon found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Three aficionados — one Canadian and two Englishwomen — were fatally struck by cabs in as many weeks. Even worse, a cow was hit, and perished. (Not a good omen.) Pickpockets were rife as rats. Initially thrilled by the Great Guru’s promisingly lucrative afterlife, vendors began to fight amongst themselves over choice sidewalk billets, the closer to the tobacconist’s the better. Mogul Lane became the up-and-coming destination for tourists led by irreligious guides. These scruffy docents spoke into microphones as they drove, delivering nonsensical lectures about the concepts of the Great Guru, his rumored wealth, the speculation he’d been poisoned and whatnot. They delved into the spiritual, in cocksure possession of an hermetic knowledge of the liminal, subliminal and sublime. Meanwhile, the governor was harassing the mayor to bust things up — to restore the neighborhood to relative sanity and let sleeping gurus lie.
Election time — a sticky wicket!
What, then, finally pushed the American into the widow’s camp and the chair itself? I think it was attrition as much as fate. Because it was my impression he was bully-proof. And I never thought him capable of abrogating his integrity by servicing a brand name legacy — nor could I envision the American plotting against those who might wish him harm. He was tired, he was grieving, he was noble, and had no fight in him. He just wanted to be left in peace. But instead of his teacher’s death providing a reflective respite, he suddenly found himself absurdly challenged. Aggressively so. It was a bitch of a conundrum… the whole business was wildly inconvenient. He kept reviewing the widow’s words. Whatever her flaws, stupidity wasn’t one of them. It was true that the American’s concept of his guru’s opposition to so-called successorship had hardened into dogma. The widow’s assertion that her husband had spent his life battling the perceptual policies and prejudices of man neatly overturned the American’s reasoning. She was right and he knew it. The old siddha wasn’t for or against anything, including someone taking out the chair for a spin. To see it any other way would mean that he’d wasted years at his guru’s feet. To sit or not to sit? became the burning question that his egotism, laziness and outright terror threatened to ignite into a conflagration. To answer it would take everything he had, everything he’d learned in the last seven years and more.