Guru Siddhartha
"She doesn’t have great legs but exposing like hell, I mean she is those good in bed types" Randy who had been staring at linny commented.
"What's your point?" I asked randy getting a little bit irritated because Randy was loud enough for even linny to hear that smart comment just made.
"Well look at those thin legs but she’s got a real nice butt, really tempting, doesn’t it excite you ever." Randy said as he stood there staring at linny who was cooking her breakfast in Jindu’s restaurant kitchen much to his displeasure who saw good money lost as he couldn’t make any profit in the fair that linny cooked for herself and her friends .
"Well did you do her?’ Randy asked.
"Hey you have gone crazy, stop smoking." I answered getting a little angry by this sudden invasion in to my private space.
"Ah then what were you doing in her room yesterday afternoon for a full two hours." Randy asked smiling cunningly.
"Nothing, she was telling me about her life." I answered looking at the mountains who were still in there place. I wondered if I really was expecting them to move away somewhere else. Looking down upon insignificant mortals, brushing them off as they tried to reach the summit. It seemed as if they could no longer stand the tickling sensation. People who had gone trekking were lost never to be found again, preserved in the snow for eternity they were reminders of things that went horribly wrong when you tried to tamper with nature.
"hey what are you thinking, you didn’t answer my question." Randy asked.
"Nothing I was wondering, what if these mountains were alive, listening in to our conversation right now, thinking what jerk off we guys really are." I replied changing the topic.
"I know what they are thinking boss.’ Randy said.
"What?" I questioned back.
"They are wondering how the fuck we knew about this plant which gives us this cool stuff." Randy said as he drew smoke from his spiff.
"Humm... That is something I never could have thought off, you are a genius." Randy was unable to catch the sarcasm in my statement.
"Thanks man. So what was it that you and linny were discussing so passionately about yesterday?" He asked.
"Nothing." Was my answer.
Linny had called me to her room the previous afternoon on the pretext of smoking hashish but after a couple of joints our conversation had wandered off to discussing her personal life.
She was sad, her story right out of a masala bollywood flick.
"The man who is my father is not the man my mother married; he screwed her and left her before marriage. My grand mother who was a woman of principles threw my mom out of the house and she was left to fend for herself." Linny said.
"Was it such a big deal?" I asked linny, I knew in India this was a big deal for a girl to become pregnant before marriage but in Italy I thought things were different and it rather came as a surprise that out there people were just as rigid as they were in India.
"Go on then what happened?" I asked as I was really keen on knowing what happened after that.
"My mother who had no shelter approached a college friend of hers and he gave her shelter, eventually he married my mom but he could never come to terms with the fact that I was not his daughter, he used to beat my mother and when I was five years old ,my mother started hating me blaming me for all the misery that was in her life."
"After a while my father left us and from there on life was hell, to reduce the pain and anguish I started taking drugs trying to find a solution but my mothers face would appear every time I would be high. To escape that each year I come to India stay here for six months because this is the only country where you can live like a king for six months on a small budget plus I have so many friends here that it is a home away from home." Linny said.
"Did you ever ask your mother your fault? Did you ever try to reciprocate love if there was ever a time when she felt lonely?’ I asked linny.
"Well, I did do that but my mother has transformed in to a machine who does not know what caring all is about, she is living in her past. The nail in the coffin was when my grand mother died and she came to know about it six months later when a letter that she had posted to her came back with receiver deceased on it." Linny said.
"I am sorry." That was all I could say. I could not think of any better sentence and I was rather busy brooding over the fact, what a little money could do for you in this country especially if it happened to be a foreign currency that was better than the dollar.
Linny had this advantage of being born in such a country and was in a way utilizing this advantage to the maximum. Each year she would come back, year after year, looking for a quick fix and a solution to her problems which of course were just not there so she would dope crazy, cursing, and mistrusting people around her.
"Why don’t you trust people around you? Why do you have this wall around you?" I asked linny.
"I will tell you Siddhartha. Two years ago I was visiting this place and at time I was not even high on drugs, I had this guide whom I had hired for a trek in to the Himalayas. It was a six day trek and one night he raped me, although he is in jail now paying for his sins but that incident sealed my fate. I will never be happy again." Linny said.
"What?" I was shocked to hear this and was filled with sudden remorse, I felt like hugging her but couldn’t as I wasn’t sure how she would have reacted. Linny rolled another spiff and passed it on which I duty fully lit.
"Ever thought of adopting a child and bringing her up the way you always wanted your mother to bring you up?" I asked linny.
"Oh yes, but you know what I met this doctor and he told me to adopt the little girl inside me, nurture her, cherish the beautiful feeling inside me, bring her up the way I always wanted her to be." Linny’s answer left me speechless. Here was a girl I thought was enjoying her life but in reality her misery was much greater than what I was undergoing. I had everything and the only problems that I had were self made. I felt like taking care of linny but I knew she wouldn’t have agreed to it .She was a person who believed in finding her solutions herself.
"You know Siddhartha I generally do not discuss my problems with anyone and the only reason why I did it with you was that I find realms of positive energy around you, I feel good in your company. I feel safe and you speak the truth no matter how harsh it is. I remember the first day when you had told me to start believing in myself, I knew that this person had something which will help me out in the long run and although now you know about my life, I feel safe in the fact that this information is safe." Linny concluded.
"Do you believe in God?" I asked linny.
"Yes I do, but not the idol worshipping, I know God is testing me and although I maybe a fallen angel bound to suffer I will not give up my faith, I saw this picture of some God in your room, it seemed to impart so much peace and sense of achievement. I wanted to ask you if I could have it." Linny said.
"Sure you can." I got up and went to my room to get it but linny’s room was locked when I came back. I stood there thinking if all this was real. During dinner I saw linny and I knew she was avoiding me. I had felt the same way before. When you tell about your life to some one you are taking of your inhibitions till there are none and then you are naked standing there thinking why you did it.
I walked up to linny and she looked at me trying to avoid me.
"Hello linny, how are you feeling now?" I asked her.
"Thank you Siddhartha for being such a great friend and a spiritual guru." Linny gave me a warm hug.
Now was I a spiritual guru or not this was something only linny could decide but one thing was sure I had come to a conclusion that my problems were not the least complicated in comparison to linny’s.
"Well linny actually it was me who wanted to thank you not because you told me about your self but because I realized that my problems do have a solution unlike yours and they are not the least complicated for that matter." I said as I moved to sit on the next table. Linny had looked at me and smiled.
"So what were you and Linny discussing yesterday in her room?" Randy asked me again and I was transported once again to the present.
"Nothing, spiritual stuff and the likes of that." I tried to evade the topic once again.
"Hah, Spirituality you must be out of your mind all that female needs is a good bang." Randy laughed.
I wasn’t very pleased to hear this and decided not to go further on but Randy didn’t stop there. Although he changed the topic sensing that he had blurted out something that wasn’t really cool.
"She considers me to be her guru." I told Randy who went hysterical on hearing this.
"So now you are a guru…" He started laughing like a madman.
"Sir, you, yourself are confused about life, why on earth would you leave your job and come to the mountains to seek answer to a solution which already existed in your life. You were a chef and that’s what your aim in life was. God had provided the solution and yet you left it in search of a stupid quest which generally ends here in the Himalayas.’’ Randy had spoken words of wisdom or at least he thought so.
"Well I really don’t know if what you speak is true" I said looking away trying to hide my shame. It was the truth and I had been evading it till now but even Randy was able to deduce it and this was something I could not fathom.
"You know Siddhartha; the truth is that all the solutions that you seek lie in your head and your head has gone crazy smoking this stuff." Randy pointed to the spiff in his hand.
"I think you are right but I am not sure, I know about this from long ago and I have to seek answers to some other problems in life." I said as I moved towards my room.
Randy was right. Why was I here? What was I searching for? Peace, it was still nowhere around. God, I had lost my faith years ago. Love, this was the strangest of places where I could find it. So what was I looking for? I was actually confused.
Break up with Linny
Our mind has a strange power. It can conjure up things, which in the real world would be impossible to achieve. It can make you in to a movie star, a rich business tycoon or a head of state or in my case a hopeless lover. Yes I was in love. In love with Linny. I knew she wasn’t a girl whose company any self respecting man would even tolerate but I was a man with no self respect.
I had started out on this journey when I had lost it all; now looking back I found self respect was amongst them. I would sit and dope crazy with Jindu and Randy while thinking of my past that suddenly seemed to be much better than my present condition. I was a hopeless lover with no job, no self respect and a drug addict. Of course I hadn’t admitted my love for Linny as I was afraid that she would leave me if she came to know of my feelings for her. To solve this problem, I would, each day think of new ways to propose to her. The in sanest being hiring a helicopter and taking her to the highest peak and propose my love there. This plan had to be let off when I came to know that such ambition would burn a hole in my pocket by thirty thousand. An amount I wasn’t willing to spend on something that didn’t guarantee success.
I just loved Linny, her five foot six inches height, shoulder length brunette hair, small nose, and flat chest. Hell, I even loved the four strands of hair on her chin, which were probably a result of some hormonal changes, a side effect of excessive drug abuse.
"Hi Sid." Linny my sunshine had woken up.
"Hi… How are you doing babes?’’ Our relationship had reached the Sid and babe routine. Well, she had asked me to call her babes as she found it sounding nice the way I spoke it while I in return had asked her to call me Sid not because I didn’t like my name but the way she pronounced it calling me Shit heart.
"I was thinking last night about what you said about peace and tuning of mind to listen to your inner self. Meditation really is helping me to keep on top of things.’’ Linny said.
"I told you that meditation is the best remedy for all problems, its about freeing your mind from the grasp of trivial things and to seek a higher plain in life." I replied.
"Very true." Linny said.
"What will you have for breakfast?" I asked Linny looking for the cue card that I had made in the night about spiritual stuff to tell her, to impress the wits out of her. Some how I had misplaced it and now was at a loss of words.
"You are such a jerk." She turned and went back to her room. Obviously I had uttered the wrong words. Words that made no sense at that point of time. I heard some one laughing. Surely it wasn’t the mountain Gods who were busy meditating. It was Randy who had been observing this exchange of words with deep concentration. The next best step was to seek advice from an expert.
"Hey Randy good morning you heard the whole thing where do you think I went wrong ,was it the way I spoke it or was it something I said" I asked him.
"well, well, well what can I say, you said the wrong words, she was expecting you to say something spiritual and all you could say was did you have break fast, now if I was in her place I would have definitely made out that you are some kind of an imposter trying to seduce her in to sleeping with her. " Randy said.
"You surely know that is not the case.’’ I said.
"On a serious note I feel that she is playing with both of our emotions , have you ever seen or realized the fact that she hasn’t purchased any dope till date and the last time I had asked her to get some, she had asked Jindu to put it on our tab fifty-fifty. Now what kind of a girl would do that until and unless there is something fishy going on." Randy said.
"Now who’s getting paranoid?" I said getting annoyed.
"Suit your self; ever since you and Linny have started this Sid babe routine, you have lost it completely. Believe me she is just using you, trust me on this one." Randy said.
"I love her and I want to marry her one day, it’s just that I am not sure how to propose her." I said.
"Yeah sure till that time you treat her to free dope and spiritual parties, and love, yeah sure, I am in love with Jindu’s wife, come on do a reality check buddy. She’s a foreign number, she can’t shit without gobbling those one thousand tablets or so it seems, she spits, she’s flat. Hell she’s even got a goatee, what on earth attracts you to her." Randy retorted.
""You won’t understand." I replied as I got up and walked thinking about what Randy had said. The little town was left behind, I kept on walking. The mountains looked down upon me. They seemed to be smiling, laughing at me, and talking to each other.
They seemed to discuss the end of this love story blossoming at their feet but they were the Gods and they knew the ending. It was me who had to find it.
I looked up and suddenly everything went quiet. Dark clouds appeared from nowhere hiding me from the eyes of the saints. The temperatures dropped and I felt a sudden chill. The weather was changing. It seemed that even Gods didn’t want me to be happy. After two hours of rain and snow, my sleepy little town had once again turned white. The mountain saints had seemed to grow their beards miraculously in the last two hours looking more daunting now.
I slipped and fell thrice before I could reach Shiv Shakti guest house. All this time I thought of Linny and I had decided that it was in the best interest of both of us that I should talk to her and let her know that I loved her. At least this way I would no longer suffer from guilt or fear of losing her.
Randy who was sitting in his balcony waved as he saw me approaching.
"Hey, where had you been and why are your clothes dirty. I am sure you fell quite a few times before you could reach back." He smiled.
"Yeah I did." I said ignoring that smile of his which seemed to make fun of our relationship.
"When you were gone, Linny and I saw some great things being formed in those trees due to snow; she was hoping that you would be here to explain the deeper significance of those forms. Guess my reasoning was just not good enough for her." He said."
"What did you tell her?" I asked as I felt a strange void around the place. Some thing was definitely wrong I could feel it in the air.
""Well, nothing regarding your feelings towards her for sure, she didn’t like the fact that you left her behind when you went for a walk. I had to tell her that it was something personal that you had to sort out, like buy some condoms to keep your dick warm at night." Randy Laughed.
"Yeah sure bastard." I said.
"It snowed pretty heavy out here and Jindu tells me that its going to snow for the next three days, the weather forecast has it all sorted out on the radio." Randy filled me with important information which I was least interested in knowing.
"All right, where is she?" I finally asked Randy as he was now getting on my nerves giving me information I was least interested in.
"She jumped of that cliff." Randy said pointing to a nasty cliff near the guest house so seriously that for once I thought he was telling the truth.
"Cut the bull crap, I want an answer now." I demanded.
"There." Randy pointed to house in the valley. Surely I could make out Linny standing in the Balcony with someone.
"She’s got a friend staying there, who was in goa and came back in today." Randy said.
"Who is he?" I asked Randy. I knew it was all over and what was left, was the postmortem of a dead situation.
"Her boyfriend, surely she must have told her Guru about him, oh she didn’t, so sorry Mr. Spiritual guru your student hid an important aspect of her life from you." Randy rubbed salt in to my wounds as I stood there on the verge of crying.
"I had told you before, she is using us but you wouldn’t listen. Today he came and she packed her bags and moved with him. Jindu tells me he is a British guy and stays here." Randy said.
She was gone. Just like that, no thank you, no good bye, all that was left was a void. I could see her standing down there in that balcony with a guy, maybe they were kissing. She seemed to have already forgotten me or else she would have at least told me about him. Maybe I should have told her while I was still ahead in the race. I had finally understood that we all were travelers in this journey called life. Getting attached to some one meant complicating things. To achieve Nirvana one had to let go of worldly desires.
They say throw away the thing you love the most, if it ever comes back to you, it was yours, else’s it never was.
It snowed for the next three days. The temperatures dipping as low as -5 degrees it seemed impossible to do anything except sit in front of a wooden heater and smoke dope. I was worried about Linny who had moved to her boyfriend’s house.
"Oh don’t worry her boyfriend will keep her warm, its us who have worry about wood being put in to the oven. Jindu get some more wood, this stupid fire is about to extinguish." Randy who was wrapped in a blanket said.
"This God damn Jindu tells me that he has run out of dope and can’t get it stops snowing." Randy said.
We discussed events of the past day and deducted that Linny Infact was extremely shrewd and had used us. Although I was in love with Linny to avoid any arguments, I had agreed with Randy. I was feeling strange, maybe I was sick.
"She will suffer in hell, only if we had all that dope she smoked." Randy was beginning to loose it now.
"Uh… Yeah" I whispered not sure if Randy even heard it. I was surprised what dope could do to you and was reminded of that beggar, I had met in the by lanes of Delhi, Who had thrown that fifty paisa coin on my face. Did I look like him now? The cramps were getting stronger with each passing minute. My mind stopped functioning, strange colors started to appear before my eyes.
"May be I should drink some tea." I thought." My childhood had started to appear before my eyes now.
"Hey, it’s my turn to bat." My brother shouted as I ran after getting out.
"Later, I got to study, tomorrow." I said.
"Siddhartha, you scored excellent marks." My mother had said on the phone after my high school result came out and I was to nervous to go and check it.
"Should I marry him?" My girl friends face appeared in front of my eyes now.
"Come Siddhartha, lets go. I have come to release you of this misery. You have suffered enough in this world…" An angel’s face had appeared now. I was at peace.
"But my aim still eludes me, I cannot go." I said.
"Siddhartha, Siddhartha." Randy was desperately calling out.
"Huh, what happened?" I was brought out of my dream or was it real.
"Man you stopped breathing." Randy said, sweat dripping down his face. The room seemed to be extremely cold and I knew that it was all real.
I got up and came out of the room. It was snowing outside. I looked up and saw zillions of snow flakes coming towards me, each one a fallen angel condemned to die a silent death.
"Why me God, why me?" I shouted looking towards the sky. A tear rolled out of my eye and instantly froze. I kept crying till I could cry no more. My heart felt a sudden relief, I knew somehow the dark clouds shall pass over and the silver lining was round the corner.
"You alright Siddhartha?" Randy came stumbling behind me.
"Hey, you are crying, don’t worry I have asked Jindu to get some more dope." He said.
"No, I wasn’t crying." I said as I wiped my face with snow.
"Let’s go inside and eat something." I said as I got up to go inside. It was extremely cold outside and now the chill had started to seep in to my body.
That night we ate as if there was no tomorrow. My belief in God was strengthened by this near death experience.
Next morning the sun was out in full force, Snow fighting a loosing battle melted making the grounds slippery and difficult to walk. Jindu was busy clearing the walk ways while Randy and I sat enjoying the beautiful morning sun.
"I tell you I love the food that Swarnalata cooks." Randy said.
"Yeah, tell Jindu about it." I said as I nibbled my toast tossing the sides to crows that religiously gathered everyday on our balcony for their morning meals.
"Who were you talking too yesterday?" Randy asked.
"When?" I asked knowing well what Randy was referring to.
"Yesterday when you went in to your trance mode." Randy said.
"Oh that was nothing; I don’t wish to discuss that." I said.
"But…" Randy’s sentence was cut short by some commotion in the doorway that was blocked by ice. A familiar face appeared and she came running straight to me. It was Linny, she was back. She kept her back pack down and ran towards me. Before I knew it she gave me a warm hug as tears rolled out of her eyes.
"What’s wrong?" I asked.
"Ï am sorry, I left with out telling you." She replied.
"It’s alright, go and rest." I said pushing her away from me. Something had broken inside me and it was hurting a lot. Linny sensed it.
"What’s wrong?" She asked.
"Nothing." I replied.
"He is not well." Randy butted in sensing my awkwardness.
"What’s wrong Sid?" She asked.
"The name’s Siddhartha." I said as I turned away to look at the mountains covered from top to bottom in a layer of white. They looked back at me and smiled.
The silence intrigued me. Silence yet it conveys so much. Linny was no longer close to my heart or was it my ego that had forced me to take a decision that I was going to regret. At that time it was the best I could have thought of and I did what my heart said.
"Hey Jindu, get the keys to the room next to Randy’s." Linny shouted at Jindu who was busy clearing the snow unaware of what had just happened. Linny picked up her bags and walked down the staircase grumbling in anger.
"The bitch got guts to stay here after all this has happened. She knows pretty well what’s wrong with you and yet she behaves innocent. I am not offering any dope to her from now on." Randy shuffled in his chair and went back to eating much to the displeasure of the crows who flew away to look for food elsewhere.
"I won’t be smoking any more." I said.
"Cool, so I can have all your stuff." Randy said.
"Sure, if I have any." I replied.
Randy looked at me and looked away, I think he could read my mind at that time and he knew that I was not going to smoke anymore, this however did not bother him as it was time to change loyalties which depended on whether you have it or you don’t and I was the looser here as that evening I saw randy team up with linny discussing Nirvana and its theory while I sat in a corner missing the high that had given me friends and a care free life. I looked up but the divine thing had occurred and I decided not to give in to the devil that seemed to coax me. The cramps appeared and reappeared but I stood stuck to the notion that I was no longer going to be dependant on anything, it was always better to leave before they hurt you right down there in the balls.
Jindu who also owned a restaurant was keen on getting some tips from me how to increase his revenue. It was a small place constructed above the four rooms of the Shiv Shakti guest house and had a breath taking view of the Himalayas. There was a small kitchen and eight tables with cheap plastic chairs .Every season with the advent of summers he would open it, hire some help and run it serving cheap food and hashish but one thing was there, he had build it esthetically and used lot of wood to decorate the ceiling so the place looked like a good restaurant serving cheap hash.
"Why don’t you get some proper chairs and table?" I asked Jindu one day.
"No use, my clients are the same bunch of dope heads who come year after year to smoke, they don’t care for what I give them nor they are wiling to pay more its like a no win situation." He had answered.
This was a fact as all the clients he seemed to have were Linny, her boyfriend Daniel (yes they had gotten together after the break up) and there friends who would sit in the restaurant and ask Jindu for food. Jindu maintained a book and all there food bills would go in there it was a no win situation as I had often seen Jindu fighting over five or ten rupees which generally did not matter. I suggested Jindu a lot of changes but the only thing he seemed to agree on was to increase the prices of dishes after I explained him the concepts of overheads. This was not really welcomed by his regular guests who seemed to know the prices of dishes by heart. They complained and eyed me with distrust as I was a criminal out there to rob them of there travel money.
Jindu however stuck to the new rates which were nominally increased after much due consideration .Although I taught his help some finer points of cooking Jindu wasn’t very happy with the idea of putting garnishes on the dishes as he considered it a waste of good vegetables.
How ever I no longer had to pay for my meals as I had become a kind of in house chef innovating and introducing new menus and would help Jindu run the place making accounts and keeping a tab on the expenditures. The business started to pick up and soon we were doing good business of two grand a day much to the displeasure of the regulars who no longer could smoke dope openly as lot of people would come every day to taste the food that we were so meticulously making. Jindu was excited as he never thought he could make money from this place. Our customers just loved the mushroom masala and carom board, a smaller version of pool.
However linny and gang became extremely impatient as they did not have their clubhouse any more and for this they blamed me. They started to complain of poor service and lack of hygiene but it was Jindu who put his foot down and told them if they had a problem it was them who had to leave. This shut them up for some time and things were smooth from there on.
Randy would often sit with them although he sympathized with me. I guess hashish was big drawing factors in this part of the mountains where friendships are made and broken depending on the fact whether you smoke or you don’t smoke.
"Hey sid, you sure you won’t smoke?" he would often ask me tempting me before passing of the chillum to his wild friends. Linny would eye me and was surprised how some one could be so strong to leave some thing like hashish just like that.
I had made a couple of new friends now that a lot of long staying guests else where had made it a point to eat at the Shiv Shakti guest house every day. Each day a young girl in her early twenties would visit us for breakfast. She was pretty average looking but there was some thing about her that intrigued me especially her eyes .She had the most amazing eyes that I had ever seen. I would wait for her to come every day and I knew what she liked to eat which was muesli with curd. Each day I would try some thing new with her muesli decorating it in a different way. I would make it a point to put some extra banana in her milk shake. We never talked besides saying good morning and her placing her order .After the breakfast she would disappear in the mountains behind the restaurant, come back in the evening and eat dinner.
"Hi, Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask you some thing?" I mustered the courage to ask her one day.
"Yes, of course." She replied.
"Well, I was just wondering if you could tell me where you go every day in those mountains." I said pointing to the mountain she would disappear in to every day. I had often seen her walking on to a trail until she would disappear behind the mountain.
"Oh, I discovered that route and each day I walk as far as I can, it’s a great exercise." She said
"Have you been there?" she asked me.
"No, I haven’t, never got the time to go in there." I lied.
"Would you like to come with me some time?" She asked me looking at me as if she could read my mind.
"Yeah sure." I replied.
"Now"
"Ok" I said.
"I am Rizzla, Its what you make of it." she said.
I smiled and said "I am Siddhartha like in Herman hesse also as in Guatam Buddha." I had found it easier to explain my name to strangers this way as most of the traveling kind had read the book Siddhartha by the great writer.
"Yeah no deep meaning in my name though, its what you make of it sounds like a rolling paper." She laughed and the ice between us was broken that awkwardness of talking to a stranger disappeared and we were soon sitting there discussing food and the mountains.
"Let me inform Jindu that I will be gone for the day." I said as I got up to tell Jindu.
Rizzla was from South Africa and was traveling alone. She had been to Rajasthan and goa before reaching the Himalayas. She was a traveler and I knew that craving. I had once done that and I knew it well that although she could turn back and go to what she had left I would never be able to do so. This was life and I had left what I had in life there was no turning back now. The climb was steep initially but slowly it turned in to a more even trail.
"So you are not on a mission like self realization or soul searching?" I asked her as we walked on that mountain trial. She stopping now and then to pick up crystal stones which looked like gems however were of no value in the commodity market.
"You see life has so many things to offer, you just have to reach forward and grab them as they come, like these stones, you kick them and you get nothing, you put them in a necklace and you get some thing, you feel great, when you create it brings in harmony and peace within oneself, the positive energy starts to flow." She answered.
"Humm…" I said scratching my chin wondering how she knew so much about life, while here I was much older and yet wondering about my aim in life.
"But what if you don’t know what you want from life?" I asked her wondering if she had the answer to my questions in life which every one whom I seem to know didn’t .Was my search going to end here. Was I about to find out what I wanted in life?
"Why do you ask me this? Do you feel that way? I see you every day working at Jindu’s restaurant and you are in command of what you do. I like the food you cook, the innovations, the garnishes. Let me explain it to you in your language. You create dishes wonderful dishes don’t you feel any thing?" she asked me.
"But that is some thing I don’t want to do and if that is what I wanted to do why did I leave my job in the first place? Why this trip?" I was confused now and wasn’t able to understand the point Rizzla was trying to make here.
"Think again." She said and went quiet as we kept on walking. Her words now haunted me, I was a chef and that is what I enjoyed doing most. Was it time to go back I wondered. Back to my old life back to those hell kitchen.
"I know a lot about you Sid, You are on the run, running away from routine life, looking for adventure but you didn’t even bother to look for this route even if it was there right behind you." She said. Her words now hit me hard but were true. Every single word that she spoke was true and I could no longer look her in the eyes that had intrigued me so much till now.
"Life’s little desires are not the things you get but are the things that have been always there but you are too blind to see them, cribbing to God that he hasn’t given you enough, when all you have to do is to grab them, look for opportunities and make you move after all you need is food shelter and clothing." She continued.
We had reached the end of the trail which had led us to a beautiful water fall.
"Life’s little pleasures" She said as I stood there looking at that beautiful fall, a perfect view, a place yet to be exploited by mans petty economics.
"I lied to you Siddhartha; I have been coming here every day, cleaning it up, the mess left by so called campers and trekkers. People who do not realize that there is some one who is coming behind them and some body has already been there where they are going. Over the days I have been picking up empty packets and other non bio- degradable stuff and look at it now, as good as new, how ever I know that this is not going to be for long yet I am trying." She said.
"What is your profession?" I asked now completely smitten by her. I had been looking for so long for a girl like her and now that she was with me I couldn’t match up to her. Suddenly I started to feel so low, so shallow.
"I am a healer." She replied.
"Humm… So you are also on dope." I thought.
"I know what you are thinking." She suddenly surprised me.
"What?" I asked her.
"That I smoke illicit stuff, you don’t have to smoke dope to understand life Siddhartha, it’s a common thing which most of us don’t understand or don’t want to understand." She said.
"That is not what I was thinking, well actually I was but I stopped doing it once I realized it wasn’t the answer to what I seek in life." I said trying to be philosophical.
I was by now pretty clear in my head that you didn’t need to take help of some thing to realize what you wanted to get in life. Here was a girl who wasn’t doing any thing of that sort and yet was so clear and there was Randy who did nothing but smoked and yet was so confused in life about what he wanted from it. Strange things were going on and I was getting all the more confused not that I didn’t knew about all this but I had tried not to understand it till now and yet again the same things were now being told to me which I had always thought were not true. Should I believe her and go back or should I continue on my quest. I had no answer for it. Not yet.
"Hey you got all tensed up, relax, and tell me some thing about yourself." Rizzla smiled at me.
"Well there is nothing much to tell about" I said. I wanted to be alone now but was with her and she was making me think again of all the things I had done in life so she now appeared as a potential enemy in my plan of seeking my aim in life.
"Any girl friends" she asked me.
"No, had a couple of them, both of them left me for other guys." I said as their faces appeared one of them unmistakably linny.
"Oh I am sorry about that." She said as she looked at the mountains that looked even more majestic form here.
"What about you, any boyfriends?" I asked.
"Oh I have a steady boyfriend, I have known him for the last four years, and Kevin is the most amazing guy I have met. He is a dentist. Although he doesn’t understand my need to travel but never stops me from doing so, he gives me my space. In a relationship it is extremely important for you to give your partner the much needed space or the relationship begins to go sore and then it hurts, when you fail to understand the other persons need and try to impose your feelings on them." She said.
"So you have been in India for how long now?" I asked her trying to change the topic however she had told me before that she had been here for the last six months and had been to Rajasthan and Goa before arriving in that small sleepy town of mine.
"Six months" She said looking at me wondering if she hadn’t told me before.
"You know I am headed for Kerala tomorrow. Would you like to come with me?" She said and I knew she was attracted to me. The girl I had looked for was asking me to come with her and this was the perfect opportunity to say yes. To be with her.
"No, I cant I got a commitment here." I answered and instantly I knew she was disappointed by this answer.
"I understand" she said.
The sun was disappearing behind the mountains which turned pink. They seemed to cry as they bid fare well to there beloved sun. We had reached Shiv Shakti guest house, she loaded with her rocks had refused my assistance in any manner to carry them back for her.
That night we ate dinner together. Jindu smiled at me and Randy looked at me in displeasure for not telling him where I was headed for.
"I hope we meet again some day." She said as she got up to leave.
"Yes I hope so." I said.
She walked towards the door and then suddenly turned back and came running towards me and kissed me. At first I was surprised and then I gave in to my emotions and kissed her deeply and passionately.
"You want to stay back for a while." I asked her.
"No I got to pack." She said as she went out. Jindu came to me and congratulated me on this success. Randy ran up to me only to knock Ganguly down carrying a tray full of used utensils. Unperturbed he got up and came to me.
"So dude, what’s cooking?" he asked me with that familiar smile.
"Kidney bean soup." I smiled back at him.
"Bull shit, who was she? You lucky bastard." He asked me.
"She’s just a friend leaving for Kerala tomorrow." I said as I got up to go to my room. I knew linny had been watching what was going on and had sent Randy to investigate or so I thought but I wasn’t interested in getting her to understand that I was in love again or with her for that matter so I didn’t tell Randy any thing as discussing any thing would be foolish.
A hot bath was in order and as I stood under the shower I wondered if it was right decision or should I have had gone with her. Why did I do what I did? Was there some thing in it was it an opportunity that Rizzla had talked about. I did not know the answer. That night I slept like a log to tired from the day’s hike.
Slowly I had begun to realize that it wasn’t just Rizzla or me who were confused but a lot of people were. some who weren’t my gurus .To others I was their guru. It was funny as I had never considered myself one but yet now I was being cast in to this mould where I would discuss lot of spiritual stuff with lot of strangers who would be there and listen to me talk to them. I would often go in to the trance mode and tell them stuff they wanted to hear and stuff they were unwilling to hear. One such person was Jasmine, an Australian girl who had come down to the Himalayas after she had had a divorce and her boyfriend had left her. She was confused and would often come to me for spiritual guidance some thing I didn’t know I could actually help her out with.
"She doesn’t have great legs but exposing like hell, I mean she is those good in bed types" Randy who had been staring at linny commented.
"What's your point?" I asked randy getting a little bit irritated because Randy was loud enough for even linny to hear that smart comment just made.
"Well look at those thin legs but she’s got a real nice butt, really tempting, doesn’t it excite you ever." Randy said as he stood there staring at linny who was cooking her breakfast in Jindu’s restaurant kitchen much to his displeasure who saw good money lost as he couldn’t make any profit in the fair that linny cooked for herself and her friends .
"Well did you do her?’ Randy asked.
"Hey you have gone crazy, stop smoking." I answered getting a little angry by this sudden invasion in to my private space.
"Ah then what were you doing in her room yesterday afternoon for a full two hours." Randy asked smiling cunningly.
"Nothing, she was telling me about her life." I answered looking at the mountains who were still in there place. I wondered if I really was expecting them to move away somewhere else. Looking down upon insignificant mortals, brushing them off as they tried to reach the summit. It seemed as if they could no longer stand the tickling sensation. People who had gone trekking were lost never to be found again, preserved in the snow for eternity they were reminders of things that went horribly wrong when you tried to tamper with nature.
"hey what are you thinking, you didn’t answer my question." Randy asked.
"Nothing I was wondering, what if these mountains were alive, listening in to our conversation right now, thinking what jerk off we guys really are." I replied changing the topic.
"I know what they are thinking boss.’ Randy said.
"What?" I questioned back.
"They are wondering how the fuck we knew about this plant which gives us this cool stuff." Randy said as he drew smoke from his spiff.
"Humm... That is something I never could have thought off, you are a genius." Randy was unable to catch the sarcasm in my statement.
"Thanks man. So what was it that you and linny were discussing so passionately about yesterday?" He asked.
"Nothing." Was my answer.
Linny had called me to her room the previous afternoon on the pretext of smoking hashish but after a couple of joints our conversation had wandered off to discussing her personal life.
She was sad, her story right out of a masala bollywood flick.
"The man who is my father is not the man my mother married; he screwed her and left her before marriage. My grand mother who was a woman of principles threw my mom out of the house and she was left to fend for herself." Linny said.
"Was it such a big deal?" I asked linny, I knew in India this was a big deal for a girl to become pregnant before marriage but in Italy I thought things were different and it rather came as a surprise that out there people were just as rigid as they were in India.
"Go on then what happened?" I asked as I was really keen on knowing what happened after that.
"My mother who had no shelter approached a college friend of hers and he gave her shelter, eventually he married my mom but he could never come to terms with the fact that I was not his daughter, he used to beat my mother and when I was five years old ,my mother started hating me blaming me for all the misery that was in her life."
"After a while my father left us and from there on life was hell, to reduce the pain and anguish I started taking drugs trying to find a solution but my mothers face would appear every time I would be high. To escape that each year I come to India stay here for six months because this is the only country where you can live like a king for six months on a small budget plus I have so many friends here that it is a home away from home." Linny said.
"Did you ever ask your mother your fault? Did you ever try to reciprocate love if there was ever a time when she felt lonely?’ I asked linny.
"Well, I did do that but my mother has transformed in to a machine who does not know what caring all is about, she is living in her past. The nail in the coffin was when my grand mother died and she came to know about it six months later when a letter that she had posted to her came back with receiver deceased on it." Linny said.
"I am sorry." That was all I could say. I could not think of any better sentence and I was rather busy brooding over the fact, what a little money could do for you in this country especially if it happened to be a foreign currency that was better than the dollar.
Linny had this advantage of being born in such a country and was in a way utilizing this advantage to the maximum. Each year she would come back, year after year, looking for a quick fix and a solution to her problems which of course were just not there so she would dope crazy, cursing, and mistrusting people around her.
"Why don’t you trust people around you? Why do you have this wall around you?" I asked linny.
"I will tell you Siddhartha. Two years ago I was visiting this place and at time I was not even high on drugs, I had this guide whom I had hired for a trek in to the Himalayas. It was a six day trek and one night he raped me, although he is in jail now paying for his sins but that incident sealed my fate. I will never be happy again." Linny said.
"What?" I was shocked to hear this and was filled with sudden remorse, I felt like hugging her but couldn’t as I wasn’t sure how she would have reacted. Linny rolled another spiff and passed it on which I duty fully lit.
"Ever thought of adopting a child and bringing her up the way you always wanted your mother to bring you up?" I asked linny.
"Oh yes, but you know what I met this doctor and he told me to adopt the little girl inside me, nurture her, cherish the beautiful feeling inside me, bring her up the way I always wanted her to be." Linny’s answer left me speechless. Here was a girl I thought was enjoying her life but in reality her misery was much greater than what I was undergoing. I had everything and the only problems that I had were self made. I felt like taking care of linny but I knew she wouldn’t have agreed to it .She was a person who believed in finding her solutions herself.
"You know Siddhartha I generally do not discuss my problems with anyone and the only reason why I did it with you was that I find realms of positive energy around you, I feel good in your company. I feel safe and you speak the truth no matter how harsh it is. I remember the first day when you had told me to start believing in myself, I knew that this person had something which will help me out in the long run and although now you know about my life, I feel safe in the fact that this information is safe." Linny concluded.
"Do you believe in God?" I asked linny.
"Yes I do, but not the idol worshipping, I know God is testing me and although I maybe a fallen angel bound to suffer I will not give up my faith, I saw this picture of some God in your room, it seemed to impart so much peace and sense of achievement. I wanted to ask you if I could have it." Linny said.
"Sure you can." I got up and went to my room to get it but linny’s room was locked when I came back. I stood there thinking if all this was real. During dinner I saw linny and I knew she was avoiding me. I had felt the same way before. When you tell about your life to some one you are taking of your inhibitions till there are none and then you are naked standing there thinking why you did it.
I walked up to linny and she looked at me trying to avoid me.
"Hello linny, how are you feeling now?" I asked her.
"Thank you Siddhartha for being such a great friend and a spiritual guru." Linny gave me a warm hug.
Now was I a spiritual guru or not this was something only linny could decide but one thing was sure I had come to a conclusion that my problems were not the least complicated in comparison to linny’s.
"Well linny actually it was me who wanted to thank you not because you told me about your self but because I realized that my problems do have a solution unlike yours and they are not the least complicated for that matter." I said as I moved to sit on the next table. Linny had looked at me and smiled.
"So what were you and Linny discussing yesterday in her room?" Randy asked me again and I was transported once again to the present.
"Nothing, spiritual stuff and the likes of that." I tried to evade the topic once again.
"Hah, Spirituality you must be out of your mind all that female needs is a good bang." Randy laughed.
I wasn’t very pleased to hear this and decided not to go further on but Randy didn’t stop there. Although he changed the topic sensing that he had blurted out something that wasn’t really cool.
"She considers me to be her guru." I told Randy who went hysterical on hearing this.
"So now you are a guru…" He started laughing like a madman.
"Sir, you, yourself are confused about life, why on earth would you leave your job and come to the mountains to seek answer to a solution which already existed in your life. You were a chef and that’s what your aim in life was. God had provided the solution and yet you left it in search of a stupid quest which generally ends here in the Himalayas.’’ Randy had spoken words of wisdom or at least he thought so.
"Well I really don’t know if what you speak is true" I said looking away trying to hide my shame. It was the truth and I had been evading it till now but even Randy was able to deduce it and this was something I could not fathom.
"You know Siddhartha; the truth is that all the solutions that you seek lie in your head and your head has gone crazy smoking this stuff." Randy pointed to the spiff in his hand.
"I think you are right but I am not sure, I know about this from long ago and I have to seek answers to some other problems in life." I said as I moved towards my room.
Randy was right. Why was I here? What was I searching for? Peace, it was still nowhere around. God, I had lost my faith years ago. Love, this was the strangest of places where I could find it. So what was I looking for? I was actually confused.
Break up with Linny
Our mind has a strange power. It can conjure up things, which in the real world would be impossible to achieve. It can make you in to a movie star, a rich business tycoon or a head of state or in my case a hopeless lover. Yes I was in love. In love with Linny. I knew she wasn’t a girl whose company any self respecting man would even tolerate but I was a man with no self respect.
I had started out on this journey when I had lost it all; now looking back I found self respect was amongst them. I would sit and dope crazy with Jindu and Randy while thinking of my past that suddenly seemed to be much better than my present condition. I was a hopeless lover with no job, no self respect and a drug addict. Of course I hadn’t admitted my love for Linny as I was afraid that she would leave me if she came to know of my feelings for her. To solve this problem, I would, each day think of new ways to propose to her. The in sanest being hiring a helicopter and taking her to the highest peak and propose my love there. This plan had to be let off when I came to know that such ambition would burn a hole in my pocket by thirty thousand. An amount I wasn’t willing to spend on something that didn’t guarantee success.
I just loved Linny, her five foot six inches height, shoulder length brunette hair, small nose, and flat chest. Hell, I even loved the four strands of hair on her chin, which were probably a result of some hormonal changes, a side effect of excessive drug abuse.
"Hi Sid." Linny my sunshine had woken up.
"Hi… How are you doing babes?’’ Our relationship had reached the Sid and babe routine. Well, she had asked me to call her babes as she found it sounding nice the way I spoke it while I in return had asked her to call me Sid not because I didn’t like my name but the way she pronounced it calling me Shit heart.
"I was thinking last night about what you said about peace and tuning of mind to listen to your inner self. Meditation really is helping me to keep on top of things.’’ Linny said.
"I told you that meditation is the best remedy for all problems, its about freeing your mind from the grasp of trivial things and to seek a higher plain in life." I replied.
"Very true." Linny said.
"What will you have for breakfast?" I asked Linny looking for the cue card that I had made in the night about spiritual stuff to tell her, to impress the wits out of her. Some how I had misplaced it and now was at a loss of words.
"You are such a jerk." She turned and went back to her room. Obviously I had uttered the wrong words. Words that made no sense at that point of time. I heard some one laughing. Surely it wasn’t the mountain Gods who were busy meditating. It was Randy who had been observing this exchange of words with deep concentration. The next best step was to seek advice from an expert.
"Hey Randy good morning you heard the whole thing where do you think I went wrong ,was it the way I spoke it or was it something I said" I asked him.
"well, well, well what can I say, you said the wrong words, she was expecting you to say something spiritual and all you could say was did you have break fast, now if I was in her place I would have definitely made out that you are some kind of an imposter trying to seduce her in to sleeping with her. " Randy said.
"You surely know that is not the case.’’ I said.
"On a serious note I feel that she is playing with both of our emotions , have you ever seen or realized the fact that she hasn’t purchased any dope till date and the last time I had asked her to get some, she had asked Jindu to put it on our tab fifty-fifty. Now what kind of a girl would do that until and unless there is something fishy going on." Randy said.
"Now who’s getting paranoid?" I said getting annoyed.
"Suit your self; ever since you and Linny have started this Sid babe routine, you have lost it completely. Believe me she is just using you, trust me on this one." Randy said.
"I love her and I want to marry her one day, it’s just that I am not sure how to propose her." I said.
"Yeah sure till that time you treat her to free dope and spiritual parties, and love, yeah sure, I am in love with Jindu’s wife, come on do a reality check buddy. She’s a foreign number, she can’t shit without gobbling those one thousand tablets or so it seems, she spits, she’s flat. Hell she’s even got a goatee, what on earth attracts you to her." Randy retorted.
""You won’t understand." I replied as I got up and walked thinking about what Randy had said. The little town was left behind, I kept on walking. The mountains looked down upon me. They seemed to be smiling, laughing at me, and talking to each other.
They seemed to discuss the end of this love story blossoming at their feet but they were the Gods and they knew the ending. It was me who had to find it.
I looked up and suddenly everything went quiet. Dark clouds appeared from nowhere hiding me from the eyes of the saints. The temperatures dropped and I felt a sudden chill. The weather was changing. It seemed that even Gods didn’t want me to be happy. After two hours of rain and snow, my sleepy little town had once again turned white. The mountain saints had seemed to grow their beards miraculously in the last two hours looking more daunting now.
I slipped and fell thrice before I could reach Shiv Shakti guest house. All this time I thought of Linny and I had decided that it was in the best interest of both of us that I should talk to her and let her know that I loved her. At least this way I would no longer suffer from guilt or fear of losing her.
Randy who was sitting in his balcony waved as he saw me approaching.
"Hey, where had you been and why are your clothes dirty. I am sure you fell quite a few times before you could reach back." He smiled.
"Yeah I did." I said ignoring that smile of his which seemed to make fun of our relationship.
"When you were gone, Linny and I saw some great things being formed in those trees due to snow; she was hoping that you would be here to explain the deeper significance of those forms. Guess my reasoning was just not good enough for her." He said."
"What did you tell her?" I asked as I felt a strange void around the place. Some thing was definitely wrong I could feel it in the air.
""Well, nothing regarding your feelings towards her for sure, she didn’t like the fact that you left her behind when you went for a walk. I had to tell her that it was something personal that you had to sort out, like buy some condoms to keep your dick warm at night." Randy Laughed.
"Yeah sure bastard." I said.
"It snowed pretty heavy out here and Jindu tells me that its going to snow for the next three days, the weather forecast has it all sorted out on the radio." Randy filled me with important information which I was least interested in knowing.
"All right, where is she?" I finally asked Randy as he was now getting on my nerves giving me information I was least interested in.
"She jumped of that cliff." Randy said pointing to a nasty cliff near the guest house so seriously that for once I thought he was telling the truth.
"Cut the bull crap, I want an answer now." I demanded.
"There." Randy pointed to house in the valley. Surely I could make out Linny standing in the Balcony with someone.
"She’s got a friend staying there, who was in goa and came back in today." Randy said.
"Who is he?" I asked Randy. I knew it was all over and what was left, was the postmortem of a dead situation.
"Her boyfriend, surely she must have told her Guru about him, oh she didn’t, so sorry Mr. Spiritual guru your student hid an important aspect of her life from you." Randy rubbed salt in to my wounds as I stood there on the verge of crying.
"I had told you before, she is using us but you wouldn’t listen. Today he came and she packed her bags and moved with him. Jindu tells me he is a British guy and stays here." Randy said.
She was gone. Just like that, no thank you, no good bye, all that was left was a void. I could see her standing down there in that balcony with a guy, maybe they were kissing. She seemed to have already forgotten me or else she would have at least told me about him. Maybe I should have told her while I was still ahead in the race. I had finally understood that we all were travelers in this journey called life. Getting attached to some one meant complicating things. To achieve Nirvana one had to let go of worldly desires.
They say throw away the thing you love the most, if it ever comes back to you, it was yours, else’s it never was.
It snowed for the next three days. The temperatures dipping as low as -5 degrees it seemed impossible to do anything except sit in front of a wooden heater and smoke dope. I was worried about Linny who had moved to her boyfriend’s house.
"Oh don’t worry her boyfriend will keep her warm, its us who have worry about wood being put in to the oven. Jindu get some more wood, this stupid fire is about to extinguish." Randy who was wrapped in a blanket said.
"This God damn Jindu tells me that he has run out of dope and can’t get it stops snowing." Randy said.
We discussed events of the past day and deducted that Linny Infact was extremely shrewd and had used us. Although I was in love with Linny to avoid any arguments, I had agreed with Randy. I was feeling strange, maybe I was sick.
"She will suffer in hell, only if we had all that dope she smoked." Randy was beginning to loose it now.
"Uh… Yeah" I whispered not sure if Randy even heard it. I was surprised what dope could do to you and was reminded of that beggar, I had met in the by lanes of Delhi, Who had thrown that fifty paisa coin on my face. Did I look like him now? The cramps were getting stronger with each passing minute. My mind stopped functioning, strange colors started to appear before my eyes.
"May be I should drink some tea." I thought." My childhood had started to appear before my eyes now.
"Hey, it’s my turn to bat." My brother shouted as I ran after getting out.
"Later, I got to study, tomorrow." I said.
"Siddhartha, you scored excellent marks." My mother had said on the phone after my high school result came out and I was to nervous to go and check it.
"Should I marry him?" My girl friends face appeared in front of my eyes now.
"Come Siddhartha, lets go. I have come to release you of this misery. You have suffered enough in this world…" An angel’s face had appeared now. I was at peace.
"But my aim still eludes me, I cannot go." I said.
"Siddhartha, Siddhartha." Randy was desperately calling out.
"Huh, what happened?" I was brought out of my dream or was it real.
"Man you stopped breathing." Randy said, sweat dripping down his face. The room seemed to be extremely cold and I knew that it was all real.
I got up and came out of the room. It was snowing outside. I looked up and saw zillions of snow flakes coming towards me, each one a fallen angel condemned to die a silent death.
"Why me God, why me?" I shouted looking towards the sky. A tear rolled out of my eye and instantly froze. I kept crying till I could cry no more. My heart felt a sudden relief, I knew somehow the dark clouds shall pass over and the silver lining was round the corner.
"You alright Siddhartha?" Randy came stumbling behind me.
"Hey, you are crying, don’t worry I have asked Jindu to get some more dope." He said.
"No, I wasn’t crying." I said as I wiped my face with snow.
"Let’s go inside and eat something." I said as I got up to go inside. It was extremely cold outside and now the chill had started to seep in to my body.
That night we ate as if there was no tomorrow. My belief in God was strengthened by this near death experience.
Next morning the sun was out in full force, Snow fighting a loosing battle melted making the grounds slippery and difficult to walk. Jindu was busy clearing the walk ways while Randy and I sat enjoying the beautiful morning sun.
"I tell you I love the food that Swarnalata cooks." Randy said.
"Yeah, tell Jindu about it." I said as I nibbled my toast tossing the sides to crows that religiously gathered everyday on our balcony for their morning meals.
"Who were you talking too yesterday?" Randy asked.
"When?" I asked knowing well what Randy was referring to.
"Yesterday when you went in to your trance mode." Randy said.
"Oh that was nothing; I don’t wish to discuss that." I said.
"But…" Randy’s sentence was cut short by some commotion in the doorway that was blocked by ice. A familiar face appeared and she came running straight to me. It was Linny, she was back. She kept her back pack down and ran towards me. Before I knew it she gave me a warm hug as tears rolled out of her eyes.
"What’s wrong?" I asked.
"Ï am sorry, I left with out telling you." She replied.
"It’s alright, go and rest." I said pushing her away from me. Something had broken inside me and it was hurting a lot. Linny sensed it.
"What’s wrong?" She asked.
"Nothing." I replied.
"He is not well." Randy butted in sensing my awkwardness.
"What’s wrong Sid?" She asked.
"The name’s Siddhartha." I said as I turned away to look at the mountains covered from top to bottom in a layer of white. They looked back at me and smiled.
The silence intrigued me. Silence yet it conveys so much. Linny was no longer close to my heart or was it my ego that had forced me to take a decision that I was going to regret. At that time it was the best I could have thought of and I did what my heart said.
"Hey Jindu, get the keys to the room next to Randy’s." Linny shouted at Jindu who was busy clearing the snow unaware of what had just happened. Linny picked up her bags and walked down the staircase grumbling in anger.
"The bitch got guts to stay here after all this has happened. She knows pretty well what’s wrong with you and yet she behaves innocent. I am not offering any dope to her from now on." Randy shuffled in his chair and went back to eating much to the displeasure of the crows who flew away to look for food elsewhere.
"I won’t be smoking any more." I said.
"Cool, so I can have all your stuff." Randy said.
"Sure, if I have any." I replied.
Randy looked at me and looked away, I think he could read my mind at that time and he knew that I was not going to smoke anymore, this however did not bother him as it was time to change loyalties which depended on whether you have it or you don’t and I was the looser here as that evening I saw randy team up with linny discussing Nirvana and its theory while I sat in a corner missing the high that had given me friends and a care free life. I looked up but the divine thing had occurred and I decided not to give in to the devil that seemed to coax me. The cramps appeared and reappeared but I stood stuck to the notion that I was no longer going to be dependant on anything, it was always better to leave before they hurt you right down there in the balls.
Jindu who also owned a restaurant was keen on getting some tips from me how to increase his revenue. It was a small place constructed above the four rooms of the Shiv Shakti guest house and had a breath taking view of the Himalayas. There was a small kitchen and eight tables with cheap plastic chairs .Every season with the advent of summers he would open it, hire some help and run it serving cheap food and hashish but one thing was there, he had build it esthetically and used lot of wood to decorate the ceiling so the place looked like a good restaurant serving cheap hash.
"Why don’t you get some proper chairs and table?" I asked Jindu one day.
"No use, my clients are the same bunch of dope heads who come year after year to smoke, they don’t care for what I give them nor they are wiling to pay more its like a no win situation." He had answered.
This was a fact as all the clients he seemed to have were Linny, her boyfriend Daniel (yes they had gotten together after the break up) and there friends who would sit in the restaurant and ask Jindu for food. Jindu maintained a book and all there food bills would go in there it was a no win situation as I had often seen Jindu fighting over five or ten rupees which generally did not matter. I suggested Jindu a lot of changes but the only thing he seemed to agree on was to increase the prices of dishes after I explained him the concepts of overheads. This was not really welcomed by his regular guests who seemed to know the prices of dishes by heart. They complained and eyed me with distrust as I was a criminal out there to rob them of there travel money.
Jindu however stuck to the new rates which were nominally increased after much due consideration .Although I taught his help some finer points of cooking Jindu wasn’t very happy with the idea of putting garnishes on the dishes as he considered it a waste of good vegetables.
How ever I no longer had to pay for my meals as I had become a kind of in house chef innovating and introducing new menus and would help Jindu run the place making accounts and keeping a tab on the expenditures. The business started to pick up and soon we were doing good business of two grand a day much to the displeasure of the regulars who no longer could smoke dope openly as lot of people would come every day to taste the food that we were so meticulously making. Jindu was excited as he never thought he could make money from this place. Our customers just loved the mushroom masala and carom board, a smaller version of pool.
However linny and gang became extremely impatient as they did not have their clubhouse any more and for this they blamed me. They started to complain of poor service and lack of hygiene but it was Jindu who put his foot down and told them if they had a problem it was them who had to leave. This shut them up for some time and things were smooth from there on.
Randy would often sit with them although he sympathized with me. I guess hashish was big drawing factors in this part of the mountains where friendships are made and broken depending on the fact whether you smoke or you don’t smoke.
"Hey sid, you sure you won’t smoke?" he would often ask me tempting me before passing of the chillum to his wild friends. Linny would eye me and was surprised how some one could be so strong to leave some thing like hashish just like that.
I had made a couple of new friends now that a lot of long staying guests else where had made it a point to eat at the Shiv Shakti guest house every day. Each day a young girl in her early twenties would visit us for breakfast. She was pretty average looking but there was some thing about her that intrigued me especially her eyes .She had the most amazing eyes that I had ever seen. I would wait for her to come every day and I knew what she liked to eat which was muesli with curd. Each day I would try some thing new with her muesli decorating it in a different way. I would make it a point to put some extra banana in her milk shake. We never talked besides saying good morning and her placing her order .After the breakfast she would disappear in the mountains behind the restaurant, come back in the evening and eat dinner.
"Hi, Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask you some thing?" I mustered the courage to ask her one day.
"Yes, of course." She replied.
"Well, I was just wondering if you could tell me where you go every day in those mountains." I said pointing to the mountain she would disappear in to every day. I had often seen her walking on to a trail until she would disappear behind the mountain.
"Oh, I discovered that route and each day I walk as far as I can, it’s a great exercise." She said
"Have you been there?" she asked me.
"No, I haven’t, never got the time to go in there." I lied.
"Would you like to come with me some time?" She asked me looking at me as if she could read my mind.
"Yeah sure." I replied.
"Now"
"Ok" I said.
"I am Rizzla, Its what you make of it." she said.
I smiled and said "I am Siddhartha like in Herman hesse also as in Guatam Buddha." I had found it easier to explain my name to strangers this way as most of the traveling kind had read the book Siddhartha by the great writer.
"Yeah no deep meaning in my name though, its what you make of it sounds like a rolling paper." She laughed and the ice between us was broken that awkwardness of talking to a stranger disappeared and we were soon sitting there discussing food and the mountains.
"Let me inform Jindu that I will be gone for the day." I said as I got up to tell Jindu.
Rizzla was from South Africa and was traveling alone. She had been to Rajasthan and goa before reaching the Himalayas. She was a traveler and I knew that craving. I had once done that and I knew it well that although she could turn back and go to what she had left I would never be able to do so. This was life and I had left what I had in life there was no turning back now. The climb was steep initially but slowly it turned in to a more even trail.
"So you are not on a mission like self realization or soul searching?" I asked her as we walked on that mountain trial. She stopping now and then to pick up crystal stones which looked like gems however were of no value in the commodity market.
"You see life has so many things to offer, you just have to reach forward and grab them as they come, like these stones, you kick them and you get nothing, you put them in a necklace and you get some thing, you feel great, when you create it brings in harmony and peace within oneself, the positive energy starts to flow." She answered.
"Humm…" I said scratching my chin wondering how she knew so much about life, while here I was much older and yet wondering about my aim in life.
"But what if you don’t know what you want from life?" I asked her wondering if she had the answer to my questions in life which every one whom I seem to know didn’t .Was my search going to end here. Was I about to find out what I wanted in life?
"Why do you ask me this? Do you feel that way? I see you every day working at Jindu’s restaurant and you are in command of what you do. I like the food you cook, the innovations, the garnishes. Let me explain it to you in your language. You create dishes wonderful dishes don’t you feel any thing?" she asked me.
"But that is some thing I don’t want to do and if that is what I wanted to do why did I leave my job in the first place? Why this trip?" I was confused now and wasn’t able to understand the point Rizzla was trying to make here.
"Think again." She said and went quiet as we kept on walking. Her words now haunted me, I was a chef and that is what I enjoyed doing most. Was it time to go back I wondered. Back to my old life back to those hell kitchen.
"I know a lot about you Sid, You are on the run, running away from routine life, looking for adventure but you didn’t even bother to look for this route even if it was there right behind you." She said. Her words now hit me hard but were true. Every single word that she spoke was true and I could no longer look her in the eyes that had intrigued me so much till now.
"Life’s little desires are not the things you get but are the things that have been always there but you are too blind to see them, cribbing to God that he hasn’t given you enough, when all you have to do is to grab them, look for opportunities and make you move after all you need is food shelter and clothing." She continued.
We had reached the end of the trail which had led us to a beautiful water fall.
"Life’s little pleasures" She said as I stood there looking at that beautiful fall, a perfect view, a place yet to be exploited by mans petty economics.
"I lied to you Siddhartha; I have been coming here every day, cleaning it up, the mess left by so called campers and trekkers. People who do not realize that there is some one who is coming behind them and some body has already been there where they are going. Over the days I have been picking up empty packets and other non bio- degradable stuff and look at it now, as good as new, how ever I know that this is not going to be for long yet I am trying." She said.
"What is your profession?" I asked now completely smitten by her. I had been looking for so long for a girl like her and now that she was with me I couldn’t match up to her. Suddenly I started to feel so low, so shallow.
"I am a healer." She replied.
"Humm… So you are also on dope." I thought.
"I know what you are thinking." She suddenly surprised me.
"What?" I asked her.
"That I smoke illicit stuff, you don’t have to smoke dope to understand life Siddhartha, it’s a common thing which most of us don’t understand or don’t want to understand." She said.
"That is not what I was thinking, well actually I was but I stopped doing it once I realized it wasn’t the answer to what I seek in life." I said trying to be philosophical.
I was by now pretty clear in my head that you didn’t need to take help of some thing to realize what you wanted to get in life. Here was a girl who wasn’t doing any thing of that sort and yet was so clear and there was Randy who did nothing but smoked and yet was so confused in life about what he wanted from it. Strange things were going on and I was getting all the more confused not that I didn’t knew about all this but I had tried not to understand it till now and yet again the same things were now being told to me which I had always thought were not true. Should I believe her and go back or should I continue on my quest. I had no answer for it. Not yet.
"Hey you got all tensed up, relax, and tell me some thing about yourself." Rizzla smiled at me.
"Well there is nothing much to tell about" I said. I wanted to be alone now but was with her and she was making me think again of all the things I had done in life so she now appeared as a potential enemy in my plan of seeking my aim in life.
"Any girl friends" she asked me.
"No, had a couple of them, both of them left me for other guys." I said as their faces appeared one of them unmistakably linny.
"Oh I am sorry about that." She said as she looked at the mountains that looked even more majestic form here.
"What about you, any boyfriends?" I asked.
"Oh I have a steady boyfriend, I have known him for the last four years, and Kevin is the most amazing guy I have met. He is a dentist. Although he doesn’t understand my need to travel but never stops me from doing so, he gives me my space. In a relationship it is extremely important for you to give your partner the much needed space or the relationship begins to go sore and then it hurts, when you fail to understand the other persons need and try to impose your feelings on them." She said.
"So you have been in India for how long now?" I asked her trying to change the topic however she had told me before that she had been here for the last six months and had been to Rajasthan and Goa before arriving in that small sleepy town of mine.
"Six months" She said looking at me wondering if she hadn’t told me before.
"You know I am headed for Kerala tomorrow. Would you like to come with me?" She said and I knew she was attracted to me. The girl I had looked for was asking me to come with her and this was the perfect opportunity to say yes. To be with her.
"No, I cant I got a commitment here." I answered and instantly I knew she was disappointed by this answer.
"I understand" she said.
The sun was disappearing behind the mountains which turned pink. They seemed to cry as they bid fare well to there beloved sun. We had reached Shiv Shakti guest house, she loaded with her rocks had refused my assistance in any manner to carry them back for her.
That night we ate dinner together. Jindu smiled at me and Randy looked at me in displeasure for not telling him where I was headed for.
"I hope we meet again some day." She said as she got up to leave.
"Yes I hope so." I said.
She walked towards the door and then suddenly turned back and came running towards me and kissed me. At first I was surprised and then I gave in to my emotions and kissed her deeply and passionately.
"You want to stay back for a while." I asked her.
"No I got to pack." She said as she went out. Jindu came to me and congratulated me on this success. Randy ran up to me only to knock Ganguly down carrying a tray full of used utensils. Unperturbed he got up and came to me.
"So dude, what’s cooking?" he asked me with that familiar smile.
"Kidney bean soup." I smiled back at him.
"Bull shit, who was she? You lucky bastard." He asked me.
"She’s just a friend leaving for Kerala tomorrow." I said as I got up to go to my room. I knew linny had been watching what was going on and had sent Randy to investigate or so I thought but I wasn’t interested in getting her to understand that I was in love again or with her for that matter so I didn’t tell Randy any thing as discussing any thing would be foolish.
A hot bath was in order and as I stood under the shower I wondered if it was right decision or should I have had gone with her. Why did I do what I did? Was there some thing in it was it an opportunity that Rizzla had talked about. I did not know the answer. That night I slept like a log to tired from the day’s hike.
Slowly I had begun to realize that it wasn’t just Rizzla or me who were confused but a lot of people were. some who weren’t my gurus .To others I was their guru. It was funny as I had never considered myself one but yet now I was being cast in to this mould where I would discuss lot of spiritual stuff with lot of strangers who would be there and listen to me talk to them. I would often go in to the trance mode and tell them stuff they wanted to hear and stuff they were unwilling to hear. One such person was Jasmine, an Australian girl who had come down to the Himalayas after she had had a divorce and her boyfriend had left her. She was confused and would often come to me for spiritual guidance some thing I didn’t know I could actually help her out with.
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