Like, Misunderstood (the plot thickens)

[Guest guest]

CHAPTER 72: THE GREAT FLOOD

 

Later I’m sitting on the dirt and chanting on my beads near the ancient

red-stone temple of Radha Madan-Mohan. The temple sits high up on a

hilltop. In the distance I am shocked to see a huge black mushroom

cloud roiling with intense lightening as if a hydrogen bomb had gone

off in Delhi; it looks exactly like an atomic war.

 

‘Oh Krishna!’ I say to myself. ‘If this is the end, then I am far away,

safe in Your holy Vrindavan.’

 

Little do I realize that my mushroom cloud is actually the start of my

first ever monsoon. Hey, that friggen cloud must have contained, like,

15 zillion tons of ocean water, because it brought the Great Flood.

 

Jeez, Krishna, it’s raining non-stop. The entire place is one foot deep

in brown flood water, and at the end of my soaked burlap sack is a

hissing cobra raising its hood: Sssssssss!

 

‘Alright, already!’

 

Slowly I inch my way back out of the tiny door. The floodwater is waist

deep and dozens of scorpions are squirming and drowning on the surface

of the water. I splash the dangerous and desperate bugs aside as I wade

to Gurudev's porch, just above the floodwaters.

 

Gurudev is seated in his lawn chair. I bow down, mumble quick Guru

Mantra, and say, ‘I'm sorry Gurudev! There's a snake in my room.’

 

In Bengali Gurudev calls someone, ‘Vasudev, hey, Vasudev, ae-kana

ashun!’ (Vasudev, come here) Or, in surf-speak, ‘Yo! Vasudev!’

 

A very stocky and dark bow-legged Indian man dressed in saffron with a

shaved head comes through the water, up the steps, and bows to Gurudev.

 

‘Vasudev, Hrisikesher ghare sarpa sheelo!’ Gurudev tells him. (Vasudev,

there's a snake in Hrisikesh's room). Without a word Vasudev bows and

wades over to pick up a bamboo stick and heads through the water

towards my room.

 

Gurudev tells me, ‘I have a cave-room, it is dug out below my bedroom.

I use for bhajan, for many years I lived and chanted in that room, but

right now it is filled with water and snakes and scorpions. It is like

Hell there now. To go there, isn't it? You know, Hell is found right

here on Earth.’

 

‘How do you sleep, Gurudev?’

 

‘My room is dry but snakes are a worry.’

 

‘What about the rain?’ I ask. ‘We're sleeping on the roof?’

 

‘Here the rain is divine! Take everything as mercy, then you will find

Krishna.’

 

Later, after the floods, Gurudev is standing watching the ashramites

eat, seated on the bare open dining area floor, eating off banana

leaves using only their right hands. He sees me at the end of the line.

 

 

‘Madhav Maharaj has said that you learned the Sanskrit alphabet?’ he

asks me.

 

I’m stoked! ‘I'm remembering most of them, Gurudev. Now I can use the

dictionary. I made notes of the alphabet page numbers.’

 

‘You are feeling better? Your health? Since hospital last week?’

 

‘I feel weak, Gurudev. And when I go to paikana there is still blood. I

keep getting sick after the hospital makes me better. The doctors say I

have, ah, colitis, ulcerative colitis, they say it'll kill me unless…’

 

‘What do they want to do?’ he asks me.

 

‘Operate, Gurudev, Cut out my big intestine. I won't do it. I would

rather die here in Vrindavan than operate.’

 

‘So, what will happen?’

 

I explain to him that Dr. Gopal's father in Agra has an idea that he

wants to try, combining Ayurved with some kind of cortisone enema. I

have no choice to try, as I feel so dizzy I can hardly stand up, and I

can't eat the spicy dal without getting sick.

 

‘I just pray to Krishna,’ I tell him, ‘and I am ready to die here,

while I have this chance.’

 

Gurudev disagrees (or agrees?): ‘No, you must die in Vrindavan, very

well, but not now. I have received word from Swami Maharaj, your Hari

Nam Guru. He has written that you should stay here and learn about

Krishna from me. He is in America and will not come back here for some

time, so you may live here to learn about Krishna, as Swamiji has

written and as you are learning from all the devotees here.

 

‘Hopefully Krishna will empower Dr Gopal and his treatment will cure

your problem,’ he adds, ‘for time being any way.’

 

‘Sometimes the cramps, the cramps are worse!’ I complain. ‘Fighting the

pain, it's like hanging on a ledge when bracing against the pain. Like,

if I let go I will die! So I push against the pain. I hold on like

hanging from an icy cliff with my fingers. I cannot relax, to relax is

to die…’

 

Jeez, Gurudev likes to hit the bottom line: ‘Pain is pain; same for all

beings. I know what is pain!’

 

‘Yes Gurudev, I mean, I'm sorry, no! Of course you know everything.’

 

Oops! Pissed again: ‘Krishna knows everything; we try to know Krishna!’

 

‘Anyhow, you must recover to come with me to Golden Anniversary of

Prabhupada in Mayapura. You can meet all my God brothers – if you can

go.’

 

‘I wanna go, please, I'll try, Gurudev!’

 

‘Only if Krishna saves you will the treatment work, and if Krishna

saves, who can stop? So if you recover in time. Hmmm! We shall see. We

hope to take you to Mayapur; it is another holy land, same as Vrindavan

 

‘Mayapur is the same as Vrindavan, Gurudev?’ Go figger!

 

‘Yes! Yes! Same and different – vedaved prakash.’

 

‘You know, Gurudev, I have seen Mayapur as half of Vrindavan depicted

on Swamji's Bhagavatam, on the cover, in a lotus, the center is…’

 

‘That center is our heart!’ Gurudev interrupts, ‘Vrindavan-Mayapur are

in your heart, this is heart of the matter!’

 

Heart of the matter? Little did I know what Swamiji’s letter really

said.

 

We cut to Gurudev's small study room. He has an oil lamp and is reading

a letter from his godbrother, and my first Guru, addressed to yours

truly: ‘My Dear Hrsikesa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due

receipt of your letter of March 14, 1968, and I am greatly surprised. I

am greatly surprised for Bon Maharaja's initiating you in spite of his

knowing that you are already initiated by me. So it is deliberate

transgression of Vaishnava (devotee) etiquette and otherwise a

deliberate insult to me. I do not know why he has done like this but no

Vaishnava will approve of this offensive action. I very much appreciate

your acknowledgement of my service unto you and you will always have my

blessings, but you must know that you have committed a great blunder.

Hope you are well. – Your ever well-wisher A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami.’

 

Gurudev folds the letter and slides it into his drawer. He gazes at the

oil-light with a disturbed look on his face. Jeez!

 

 

PART VII – Having a Flash-Back

 

CHAPTER 73: Three years later

 

I’m returning from a trip to Agra with two other Bengali monks to

collect rations. A rickshaw pulls up full with two gunnysacks full of

ground flour and three large tins of mustard oil stacked on the seat.

Swami Madhav, Gopesh and I, are walking barefoot alongside the

rickshaw.

 

 

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