Many Me Too

Story 1 Vainglorious Lout Chapter 1 The other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song. — “Easter 1916,” William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) SriSham entered the foyer. Men, women, and a few children stood reverentially on both sides of the two-story foyer of the grand, new, multimillion-dollar home in a suburb of Houston. It was wide open and decorated in creamy lacquer. It had thronged with activity until this Pecksniffian person stepped in. There were about thirty-five of them, two-thirds being women. All of them had flowers reduced to petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils in their palms. As SriSham crossed the foyer, the patrons came slightly closer to the revered man and showered his feet with the blossoms. SriSham was amused and pleased. He was in fact speechless. Slowly progressing down the hallway, he appeared at the entry of what looked like the family room. SriSham looked about fifty though he was sixty-six. He was tall and lanky and could have been handsome but for the slight stoop of his shoulders. His fine lineament made him the image of his mother. Before moving all the way into the room and taking the seat that was ready for him, he turned stealthily to look at the foyer, where the women were collecting the petals he had trampled on. They bagged them by hand in their extended saris or scarves or shirt tails. As they did so, most closed their eyes, muttered something, and pressed the petals to one and then the other closed eye. The women repeated the action a few times, and SriSham noticed that some men did the same. A meek request came from the host of the house: “All of you, please come in.” People glided into the family room, and polite and hushed conversation ensued; everyone was smiling broadly. No one sat. SriSham looked at the place that had been readied for him—a cushioned chair, a table in front on which lay a big silver punch bowl brimming with freshly cut flowers, a table lamp for him to use while referring to his speech notecards, and a small fan. Ah, just as it has always been as before, he thought. This was a relief to SriSham, and yes, the preparations were immaculate. In the next few hours, the table would bear numerous sheets of paper, pens, pencils, and Lysol disinfecting wipes all hiding the table with endless teacup marks. In the bare areas, there were plastic containers of ashes, binder clips in odd colors, sizes, and shapes to secure his shawl in place, and dollar bills to reward children who answered questions correctly. SriSham waited for others to converse with him, but they were too polite to open their mouths first. Some of them stood with stiff, folded hands clasped in front, palms hugging one another, or hands in pants pockets. They gazed at SriSham or at a picture on the wall. There were a few Caucasians, but most of them were Indian immigrants who had been living in the United States for a couple of decades or more. He called them ten-dollar millionaires; they boasted of having come to the United States with very little and had become millionaires in a few decades. Most of them were middle-aged fathers and mothers who had not acquired the habit of going out on Saturday evenings with family and friends; they had left India in the nineties and were not used to the drinking or pub-going culture. Some of them had planned to go back to India for good after five years of earning and saving money, but they had extended their stay to eight years, fifteen years, thirty years. Having one leg in India and the other in the United States had stretched them out of shape and had left them unable to assimilate well. Those who did visit India came back with stories of the crowds, the water’s scarcity and poor quality, and constant sickness due to pollution. A general awkwardness prevailed in the crowd. “Guruji, would you like a cup of coffee or tea?” asked Soori, the man of the house. He stood at a respectful distance from SriSham but close enough to be heard. He bent slightly at the waist in SriSham’s direction and waited for SriSham’s response. “Just hot water please,” SriSham said with a forced smile. He glanced at Soori’s wife, who was standing at the head of the cluster of wives who were separate from their spouses and keenly observing the conversation between her better half and the grand guest of the evening ready to peel away and run to the kitchen. Soori announced generally to the crowd of women, “Please get some hot water in a kettle and a tumbler.” His wife nodded, and two or three sari-clad aunts headed to the stove. After a few minutes, the conversation in the family room was slowly getting started. Soori’s wife came with a kettle and silver tumbler; it was customary in India to use only the best silver utensils for the higher-ups. SriSham stood, took a few sips, and set the tumbler on the table in front of his chair. “Correct temperature,” he said in the direction of the woman. “This would have been a treat a few months ago on my cold Himalayan trek. Thank you.” He smiled at Soori’s wife, which caused her to blush and return the smile. As the hot water got into his system, his thoughts turned to the trekking paths on which he had successfully lost his second wife as they were trudging around Mount Kailash from the grand and pristine Lake Manasarovar. SriSham and his group had flown from Houston Hobby toward the end of April 2017. They were to start their sojourn around Kailash the first week of May; they allowed for delays due to bad weather. There were only about ten in the group. He had given them exact instructions for their baggage—one backpack for trekking and one piece of hand luggage that contained a sleeping bag, a warm change of clothes, and an extra pair of shoes. They had landed in Kathmandu, Nepal, after one stop in Dubai. His wife, Nirmala, was sick from the journey, or so he said, from Houston to Kathmandu and weak due to the fasting she had undertaken for months before the trip. SriSham had been quite stringent with her and had asked her to practice a daily regimen of self-mortification that included fasting every night, sacrificing dinner, praying many times a day, and sleeping on the floor. That was the only way the fairer sex could go to Kailash without incurring the wrath of Shiva he had decreed. Nirmala knew no other way of getting there without his blessing. The cost was astronomical, and SriSham banned her from the company of anyone other than himself. This intelligent woman had seen no way of getting there without SriSham and so had gone along with his requests. She dared not speak to SriSham about the other women who had been to Mount Kailash without having performed any penances. She had seen many a picture of matrons in Kailash and heard their stories about their Kailash sojourns firsthand; she knew very well it involved no fasting or penance. SriSham had expected her to last until Kathmandu and had planned mentally on an open cremation at the Pashupathinath Temple as was common and customary. But he was surprised that she was only drifting in and out until they had reached Nepalgunj and later Simikot. She was very alive and strong at heart but feeling lonely and looking pained. “I want to die in Kailash because I don’t want to be born again,” she kept muttering as they boarded the helicopter from Simikot. By the time they reached Lake Manasarover, all she had left was a heart that was beating slowly. “Oh, it’s the height and the oxygen supply,” SriSham said nonchalantly. As they reached the great Lake Manasarovar, Nirmala was excited; he had her drink directly from the lake since as he told her it was the lake that the holiest of spirits drank from every day. As he expected, Nirmala developed diarrhea and incessant vomiting.