When Hari Met His Saali (30 page)

Of course, Nagpur had always been like this. Slow. But, having lived in a big city like Los Angeles, her appreciation for the relaxed pace had increased. It’s strange that she was now craving the very same things for which she had left this town years ago.

After a week, Tia decided she was ready to go to Pondicherry and asked her mother if she wanted to go along with her.

‘I think it’s best that the three of you resolve this on your own … and however you resolve it,’ she joked, ‘this time, it is going to be permanent, right?’

Tia nodded.

Her mother had some parting advice.

‘Tia, I am going to tell you what I told Hari before he left for Pondicherry and that is that I know my Tia is strong-willed and assertive, but my Simi is not. She is delicate and innocent, and not as worldly wise. She is a
bholi-bhali ladki.
And I told him that he has already broken Tia’s heart, but if he breaks Simi’s heart, he’ll have to answer to me!’

Tia knew that her mother was a very strong woman. Not in the way it’s depicted in movies, not a power suit wearing, drinking and smoking, cursing type of strong, but strong in her simple ways. This was resilient strong, and she also knew that she herself was like that, partly due to those genes she had inherited from her.There were certain things you didn’t mess with her mother about, and now it was Simi.

The message was loud and clear.

South India

When Hari landed at Chennai airport on his way to Pondicherry, he was accosted by taxi drivers offering their services. He had, like any normal person would have, picked a guy who was dressed decently and who looked the most hygienic.

Alas, his taxi, an old Padmini Fiat, was exactly the opposite of his appearance. It was old and dirty. The taxi driver’s name was Kutti and he was very happy to hear that he had gotten a long fare but what Hari didn’t know was that he had gotten into a shared cab.

Many short distance passengers were picked up and dropped off, and at one point, Hari was the one who had the least space in the backseat. There
were ten fully-grown adult men plus Kutti at the wheel. The smell and the rubbing of bodies were too much for him and he told Kutti that he wanted to travel alone. What he didn’t know was that ‘going solo’ was expensive in these parts.

‘It’ll be five thousand rupees and that is a discounted rate because you look like a
shareef aadmi
’, Kutti said. Of course he was bullshitting, but Hari didn’t have the energy to argue so he paid. Another mistake, he shouldn’t have paid in advance.

‘That is on top of the meter, huh. Telling you now. Don’t want any
jhagda!
’ Kutti saw how easily Hari took out his money and he figured why not fleece him completely.

It also occurred to Hari that maybe Kutti was going around in circles when he noticed that they passed the same temple for the third time. When he broached it with Kutti, he got a strange response.

‘That’s because you a foreigner, all temples look same to you. They are of all different Gods.’

But one hour later, when Hari started noticing the same beggar outside the temple, he stopped the taxi and got out. Kutti was happy to let him go. He had made five grand and was only about half a kilometer away from the airport. He drove away laughing.

Hari had wasted three hours and Chennai to Pondicherry was only a two and half hour drive. He remembered someone and dialed his number.

‘Suresh Reddy?’

Half an hour later, an air-conditioned Renault Duster picked him up. The chauffeur was dressed as a chauffeur should, complete with a cap. He opened all the doors and asked Hari ‘Is this vehicle
OK, Saar
?’ as if he was a server in a restaurant showing a wine bottle to the patron before uncorking it.

It was common for some people in South India to pronounce ‘sir’ as ‘saar’.

Knowing the Reddy brothers, they would have sent a Mercedez to pick him up if Hari hadn’t said that he didn’t want to arrive in a flashy car at the ashram.

The chauffeur, Ramanna, had also brought tiffen for Hari. He was hungry and gorged on mutton curry and rice and then topped it off with fresh coconut water, which Ramanna had sliced right in the car. In no time, Hari was dropped off in front of what looked like a vast farm. It was pretty inconspicuous and had a small sign which said
X-Ashram.

Mr. Ayyangar was the first to receive him. He took him towards his accommodation and while walking Hari noticed that the farm was lush
green with beautiful mountains in the distance, there were large trees left untouched, there were sporadic water bodies and then there were cottages situated small distances apart.

When he entered his cottage he realized that this was back to basics. It was so minimal there wasn’t a bathroom or even a ceiling fan.

‘I’ll inform Miss Simi that you are here?’ Mr. Ayyangar offered.

‘No, I want to surprise her,’ Hari insisted. ‘Where can I find her?’

He had walked almost for twenty minutes before coming across a riverbank. Such a beautiful river, so peaceful, he thought as he sat down.

This was so unlike Hari. He had overlooked oceans as blue as … a pristine ocean, he had not even blinked at the historic monuments in the good old U.S.A. — like the time he had yawned at the Grand Canyon thinking ‘big deal’ — and here he was, just breathing in the river, which could only be categorized as an ordinary river in India.

He heard some kids playing and followed the sound. Then he saw Simi was playing with a dozen children against the setting sun.

‘Hey,’ he said simply. She turned around and as she saw him, her face lit up.

She ran towards him and hugged him.

‘Hey! What are you doing here?’ she said, removing herself from the embrace.

‘Came here to see how Uncle Xavier was doing.’ Hari lied.

Simi told him all about the ashram, or as locals had named it the X-Ashram.

It was started by Xavier’s father; Xavier Sr. He was a priest at a local church and use to do charity work for destitute children. The vast land was donated by a rich industrialist after one of his factories had caught fire and lives were lost. Initially, the idea was to educate the kids of the laborers who had died in the accident. Later it was thrown open to all children in the area.

Xavier Jr., the magician was also a kid at the time and would entertain the other children at the ashram. Seeing his interest in magic, one of the donors sponsored him to go to China to learn magic. Albeit, against his father’s wishes. Xavier Senior thought that once kids go abroad, they never come back. But Xavier Junior came back and they ran the place together thereafter.

After his father had a bout of ill health Junior took over, and to keep the kids occupied he started teaching them magic. And after that the place became known as X-Ashram.

‘Wow, some story, huh? So how many kids are here?’ he asked.

‘It just depends. Lots of kids run away, some of them come back, so on an average about twenty to thirty are here at any one time. We feed them, we teach them math and such, we make them exercise and then they learn magic,’ Simi told him as they reached her cottage. It was about ten cottages away from his.

‘We?’ Hari asked.

‘What?’ Simi was startled by his question.

Is he asking about them, the two of them? Is he refering to that ‘we’?

‘You keep saying we feed them, we this, we that. Have you taken up a job here?’ Hari clarified, and she started breathing normally again.

Simi had had some time here alone, away from her familiar environment, and she had thought a lot about herself … and Hari. That was evident as she toyed with him.

‘What if I have?’

‘I would say that’s great, I mean if this is what you want to do,’ he replied.

‘And then what would you do?’

‘I’ll … I’ll just … I’ll also work here.’ Hari hadn’t even thought about it but saw this as a natural extension if he wanted to be with her.

‘Really? And leave your home, leave America?’

‘Yeah, I have lived there all my life, I’m kinda bored with it,’ he said sarcastically.

‘They also have a branch in Rajasthan, so I might be sent there. You know Rajasthan right? It’s a desert! Then what?’

‘Then I’ll come there too.’ He knew she was toying with him. He played along.

‘You are something. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to freshen up. You also do the same and come to the mess hall. Everything is on a timetable here. Prayers at seven forty-five p.m., dinner at eight p.m. and lights out by ten,’ she informed him as she went into her cottage.

Hari arrived late at the mess hall. The prayers had started already. Everyone turned to look at him. He figured they were staring at him because he was new and was the only other young adult apart from Simi, but when she signaled towards his shoes, he realized no one else was wearing shoes, so he went outside and removed them.

The prayers were simple and short and mostly thanked God for everything he had afforded these people. Xavier was in the mess hall on his bed.

‘We bring him here so that he realizes he is amongst his people,’ Simi told him later.

Next to him was Xavier Sr., in a wheelchair. He looked like he must have been one hundred years old and would go ‘Brrrr, brrr!’ from time to time.

‘He has a phobia that people around here will forget about him but doesn’t have the energy to talk so he keeps making some sounds from time to time,’ she later told him.

During dinner everyone sat on the floor. There were no chairs and tables. This was not a dining room. It was just a big hall that was used for multiple purposes and was referred to differently depending on the event.

‘Games at the sports complex, lunch at the mess hall, meeting in the conference room.’ But it was the same big room.

There were three age groups at the X-Ashram. One was the under-tens, those were the kids, then those above fifty, the staff and volunteers all of whom he came to know when Mr. Ayyangar introduced everyone.

‘He is Mr. Gupta, that’s Mr. Mukherjee, that’s Raghavan, that’s Khan
Saab
,’ and although he didn’t immediately understand the diversity, he thought it was along the lines of those Banana Republic advertisements.

Then there was Hari and Simi, they had a whole age group to themselves.

Sitting next to him at dinner was a nine-year-old boy with a shaved head and a jutting ponytail, like a mini
pandit.
He kept looking at Hari.

‘I am Vishu. You must be American,’ he said, finally introducing himself.

‘No, I am Hari.’ Hari smiled at him but he didn’t really like all those kids looking at him while he was eating as if he were from some other planet.

After dinner Simi went to her cottage and Hari to his. He was skeptical at first about whether he’d be able to sleep on the hard mattress, but no sooner than he laid on it, he was snoring.

But life was not easy at this place. For instance, the next morning, when Hari had woken up, he couldn’t tell where the bathrooms were. And he had to go — badly. He ran outside his cottage and was searching for someone to ask when he saw little Vishu walking towards the river.

‘Hey, buddy,’ he called out.

‘I am Vishu, not buddy.’

‘Yes, yes, listen where’s the bathroom?’

‘Come, I am going there myself’

Hari had walked with him until they reached a bushy area next to the river.

‘Where, where? I don’t see any bathrooms here.’

‘Right here, buddy.’ Vishu was laughing. As Hari looked at him in disbelief Vishu lowered his pants and squatted down. And by the time Hari’s next line
of questioning started Vishu was halfway through finishing his business.

‘Take one of those banana leaves to cover yourself and sit down,’ Vishu instructed.

‘Are you serious?’ Hari asked. He was flabbergasted to say the least, but the call of nature was such that he grabbed the nearest leaf, lowered his pajamas and squatted down.

‘So you’re here for Simi
Didi
, huh?’ Vishu wanted to have a conversation now, whereas Hari was looking this way and that. He was having performance anxiety, which was not good for his bowel movements.

‘Shh … I am trying to concentrate.’ Hari had his eyes squinted as he tried to do what he had done so effortlessly every morning.

He also kept saying ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ every time he passed gas.

‘Tch … I am doing the same,
na
? Why sorry?’ Vishu said generously.

When Hari asked what to use for toilet paper Vishu gave him two choices.

‘Either cool down for two minutes in the natural air or go to the river like a frog and use the water,’ he told him, looking at Hari as if to say ‘How can you not know this?’

Nobody knows which option Hari used as the only witness, Vishu, had used the
dry
method after he was done, and then ran away.

‘Bye!’ he called out as he left Hari alone.

Hari had freaked out.

‘Buddy, buddy … Vishu … stop hiding … Vishu.’

The next day — X Ashram

Simi took permission from Mr. Ayyangar to allow Hari into one of his magic classes in the big lecture hall. He was amazed to see kids performing complex magic tricks. These were not your simple card tricks; these were illusions.

To showcase their talents, the kids even performed an illusion on him. Vishu, the most talented of the lot, asked him if he had money in his pockets. Hari fished out a dollar note and gave it to him. Vishu crumpled the note in his palm and then asked his assistants to empty Hari’s pockets inside out.

‘Abracadabra!’ he said. ‘Do you have any money in your pockets now, Hari?’

Hari played along thinking how cute, my money is in his palms.

‘No!’

‘Raise your hands up!’ Vishu instructed.

But when Hari raised his hands, money started pouring out of both of his
pockets like an ATM dispensing money — and it was one hundred dollar bills too. Hari could not believe it.

‘What is this, an
X-Men
ashram or something?’ he joked with Simi and then tried to explain that ‘
X-Men
is this film …’

‘I know what
X-Men
is, Hari. I have seen them all,’ Simi cut him halfway. ‘What did you think of our magic? You give us a dollar, we give you back hundreds?’