Me, Myself and You - A travel mystery

The holy Ganges River was freezing against my skin, and a faint smell of urine hung in the morning air. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Uncle Rajesh shivering as he folded his chapped hands in prayer and bowed his head in reverence. He had been telling me of the river’s significance this morning – stories of how a bath in it could wash away thousands of one’s sins. But now my thoughts were only on my backpack on the riverbank. My phone, water bottle and sanitiser were in there, and losing them would feel like losing limbs, and I glanced around tactfully to make sure it was still there. Thankfully, Uncle’s sins washed off quickly, and he was ready to bring me lunch.

“Are you sure this is the best place around?” I demanded, swatting flies off my arm. “The flies are having a better meal than me.”

Uncle Rajesh chuckled as he fanned his plate of rice and dhal with his hand.

“Come on, I’ve only been living in India for two years. It’s your fault for thinking that I would be a good tour guide for you,” he replied.

“First the cold river, now this food,” I remarked. “You must be trying to give me a tour of India’s hospitals.”

He burst out laughing again. We never used to joke together like this in Singapore, but here I felt like we could talk about anything.

“You see, if you truly want to experience India’s spirituality, you must first give up your attachment to your body,” Uncle Rajesh explained. “Accept that this body of yours is just a shell that stores your true self, the soul.”

“Ok, but if anything happens to this shell, you pay the medical fees,” I grumbled.

Uncle Rajesh leaned over and patted my shoulder, smirking. In my head, I ran through an itinerary of what I wanted to do in my final three days. Though I enjoyed his company, I was looking forward to some alone time to take pictures that would make my life look interesting.

Today was the spring festival in India, Basant Panchami, and that evening I left alone to visit a temple to get some shots of the festivities. Shophouses and lamps along the road were decorated with yellow flowers, and I had borrowed a yellow kurta from Uncle Rajesh to blend in. This was only my third or fourth time wearing one, and it felt like I was wearing someone else’s skin.

Hundreds of pairs of footwear were strewn outside the temple, and I did my best to hide mine where they would not be stolen before snapping a quick picture. Jubilant roars like those I heard at sports games greeted my ears as I entered, and the clash of cymbals and drums added to the fanfare. The temple’s exterior walls and pillars, faded and peeling from age, were draped with strings of bright yellow chrysanthemums. Inside, a sea of yellow-clothed bodies blocked the temple’s architecture, but I was not paying much attention to the statues. The people were more interesting.

“Jai Krishna! Jai Radhe!” the crowd bellowed, and they pushed and shoved each other to get a glimpse of the front. Their behaviour disturbed me, and I remember being terrified of crowds in India as a child. But today I felt a tinge of jealousy as well. I could not remember the last time I felt as connected to something as they did. It must have been nice to feel so strongly about one’s culture.

Maybe they were all putting on an act, like how we used to sing the anthem every morning back home, I reasoned. It had to be.

The smell of incense overpowered the stale odour of the bodies around me. Normally, finding personal space would have been my main priority, but I decided to challenge myself today. This body was just a shell after all, I thought and willed myself to be part of the crowd. After minutes of squeezing, I made it somewhere to the front where I could see the temple’s main two stone deities, draped in yellow garments. I bowed my head, wary of offending the crowd around me, and a couple in the front caught my eye. They were young and beautiful, around my age, and were performing aarti by circling the deities with a gem studded lamp they held together. Their yellow kurta and sari were embroidered with shimmering details, and they wore gold jewellery around their wrists and neck.

My gaze was drawn to the man. He looked just like me. He had a full beard while I was clean-shaven, and his hair was soft and flowing while mine was short and straight. But everything else was so familiar, his nose, his eyes, his eyebrows, even his height. I stared shamelessly as he bowed his head towards the deities along with his wife, having completed their aarti. His expressions, the shape of his lips, the way he blinked. I felt a chill suddenly. It was me. I could not explain it, his features and his face were exactly my own. It was as though I was looking into a mirror. 

A shove from behind shook me out of this trance. I hurried out of the way of the scowling worshippers behind me and found another point where I could continue my observation. There’s no way he could look that much like me, I told myself. It must be that I was just not used to seeing so many Indians. His posture was straight and firm, and he looked much more muscular than me, too. But when I looked at him again, the similarities were unmistakable. His head shape, his chin, his ears, the combination. And the way he pushed up his hair reminded me of when I used to have long hair two years back.

The man now took a sip of water poured into his palms by a priest, and the way some of the water dripped off his chin was too familiar. The smile he gave his partner after made me feel a sharp pang in my chest. It was my smile, the way I pushed out my gums and parted my lips to the right side. I was always conscious of that smile, but on him, it looked bright and beautiful. Feeling suffocated suddenly, I squeezed through the crowd and pushed my way out.

 Outside, I caught sight of my reflection in the windows of a dusty car. It was the same face I saw in the mirror every day, but now it looked more ordinary than ever. Just a mash of features on skin. This combination was not me. And yet, this combination was the only thing that connected me to this place.

Forgetting about calling Uncle Rajesh to pick me up, I decided to wait outside to see my face again. I wanted to see how it would react when it saw me.

Priya closed her eyes and lowered her head before the murtis, and I copied her actions. The din of the crowd behind us filled me with pride, glad that I was not a part of that mess. The decorations for Basant were beautiful, and I knew my wife was going to bring that up on the way home. We had argued about coming in the first place, and I eventually conceded to avoid telling her the real reason why I was apprehensive. I tried to think of something else, and tried to feel grateful for what I had gained in my life since then. But I could not shut out the sickly hole in my chest, and I allowed the memories to come rushing back.

It was just outside this very Mandir when I was in my last year of college. I was brisk walking by the temple that evening, after having dinner with Priya’s family for the first time. I was starting work at her father’s company in a month, so it had been a doubly stressful experience. But I think I succeeded in impressing him. He laughed at some of my jokes and smiled at the rest, and even called me into the living room to see if I could help him to fix some display grain on his TV. I should have taken his offer to send me home, but I felt that I could increase my value by lying that I had someone picking me up. Winter was coming to an end, and I should have worn more than just my down jacket, but that would have made me seem weak. The stench of sewage was overpowering as I neared the Ganga river banks, and I hastened to find a way out before dark.

As I looked around for a Rahi, I caught sight of a single beggar lying near the river. This was uncommon these days, as the authorities had been clearing them off the street. His condition was so horrendous that I immediately looked away in disgust. His ribcage was protruding from his torso, and he had no limbs. There were only stumps where there should be legs, and where there should be arms there was a small clump of flesh and skin.

“Priya Ju!” I heard him shout, and I was forced to turn and look. 

There were clumps of flies crawling over his body, and he could not move enough to shake them off. He lay still and let them suck his blood like he was a corpse. He was young, and there was little life on his face. When I looked into his eyes, I got a shock.

His eyes… they looked like my own. Though his ears were puffy with blood clots and his hair was ragged and oily, his head shape and his jaw combined to make my face.

It was getting dark, so I was sure I was mistaken. But when we locked eyes, it was clear that he saw something too. He stared relentlessly, as though I owed him something, and remained silent.

Snapping out of this trance, I walked on. But his face would not leave of my mind. The way his eyes seemed to droop in sadness, his blank stare. My eyes. They reminded me of the sullen eyes I wore throughout my college years. For years I worked to push that pathetic youth deep into the depths of my mind.

I caught a glimpse of my face in the windows of an empty bus, and already the features which I had struggle to teach myself to appreciate were dulling.

Oblivious to the Rahi stopping in front of me, I briskly walked back. He was still staring in my direction, and I went closer. He continued staring, and this time the resemblance to my face was uncanny. He was tanner, and his body was wrought with bites and bruises, but his face was unmistakably my own.

His pungent odour filled my nostrils as I got close, and his peeling lips parted slowly into what seemed to be a smile. Pushing what was left of his teeth out, he showed his gums like I usually did, into what . He began muttering, still with a smile, and his eyes eventually turned away from me to the sky above. I no longer had doubts about what I had to do. Fate had brought us together.

I rolled my pants up, then picked him up by his bony shoulders like he was a sack. The night was quiet, and I did not bother to check if anyone was looking. He stayed silent as I entered the chilling water, and as I lowered his torso into the water, he started to call out to God.

“Krishna! Radhe!”

Priya nudged me and I looked up at the murtis again. She instructed me to stretch out my hands towards the priest so that he could pour some water into my palms.

“It's Ganga water,” she whispered, and I drank.

Chapter 2:

“It's just your Videshi stomach,” Uncle Rajesh soothed, rubbing my back. I made a retching sound again, and my throat burned with acidity. Nothing came out, because nothing had gone in today.

“It’s your Indian street food,” I retorted, slumping against the bathroom wall.

“The same thing used to happen to me when I first moved here,” Uncle Rajesh explained. “It takes some time, but everyone eventually adjusts.”

I pushed myself out of bed, bleary-eyed and sore-limbed, and forced myself to look at the face in the bathroom mirror. It had only been three days, but I looked bad. I had lost weight, my skin was peeling and I had not shaved. 

Still, there was something beautiful about it. I felt a chill. His face, my face.

I did not get to see him a second time. My heart was pounding in sync with the temple drums as I waited, and suddenly my stomach somersaulted. I tried to breath deeply to compose myself, but nothing was working. My weak intestines finally gave in, and I crumpled to my knees and spewed my Uncle’s recommended lunch out into a nearby drain, retching violently. A man yelled at me like I had committed a crime, which I might have back home, and everything began to blur. I wiped my chin with the back of my beautiful new kurta and used whatever strength I had to hide my face from the crowd.

“Your clothes must be dry now,” Uncle Rajesh said. “You sure you don’t want to stay another day to recover? You’re not ready to be flying.”

I ignored his plea and had some toast, which thankfully remained in my stomach, and once again dreamt of a warm shower and my bed back home. They would make me feel like myself again.

I felt some strength returning to my body as I walked through Delhi airport. I stood up straight and flashed my documents at every checkpoint off like they were jewellery. There were shops all over, people in uniforms, air-conditioning and eight-dollar sandwiches. I had separate compartments and pouches for everything I needed – toiletries, sleeping masks and a neck pillow, devices, a book for reading. Everything was in order, as it should be.

I sat waiting for my flight with one leg crossed over the other, studying the faces before me. A couple was debating what drink to buy from the vending machine, and the woman was wearing a bright red Punjabi suit. A portly man behind me coughed loudly, and I suppressed my desire to move to avoid looking like a weak foreigner who was terrified of bacteria.

Another couple began to speak about decorating their room with distinct American accents. I turned and looked, and they felt that they would have passed off as locals. Was that what I looked like to others? Was that how I wanted to look?

I cracked open my laptop and scrolled through my email, Instagram, and Reddit feed. The device was with me because of my big plans of getting inspired in a foreign land and churning out what could have been my big break on an exotic mountain. But I never used it for more than scrolling. The familiar faces and headlines that popped up on my screen always filled me with relief and made me feel at home. There were several pictures that I had taken to post on my personal page, but I could not stomach looking through them now. What if I would find myself missing this place? I seemed to miss so many places that I had been to, even if I had a bad time.

Teleportation did not work on the plane for me. It never did nowadays, since I could never shut my mind off. A brand new productive schedule to get into upon reaching home kept running through my head. I was going to exercise daily, meditate, start a personal side project to land a coding job, have time for rest and friends and would be preparing most of my meals at home. The compliments my co-workers and friends would have when they saw this new me kept playing over in my head. They would be so impressed, and they would call my friends would call me things like ‘legend’ or ‘beast’. I had not seen them in a long time, some of them years, but we would find time soon, surely.

 Teleportation was what I called falling asleep in a plane and waking up a few hours later on another side of the world. Growing up, it would happen with my head on my mother’s lap. Now I tried to shut my eyes and focus on the sensation of my head sinking against the cushion of my economy seat. But my thoughts kept racing ahead. I ran through the steps that I would take when I got off the plane – I would first have to change my sim card, get my bag, go through the gate, get my luggage, get to the taxi area, get home, get in the shower. I opened my eyes, only to be mocked by the clock, leering that only eighteen minutes had passed since this teleportation attempt. I still had five hours and twelve minutes before the flight landed, if the plane was exactly on time, and from there another one hour to leave the airport, and half an hour before I reached home. So that was at least seven hours before I would get to shower.

I used to think teleporting was the magic of air travel, but now it seemed that it was simply the magic of being a child.

Mom patted me on the shoulder when I finally saw her at the gate, and all along the way home she shared stories about her work. 

“You know those two at my desk, they are just talking non-stop all day,” she rattled. “It must be these young people, no awareness about anyone around them.”

I nodded along, the familiar grey roads and neat rows of trees welcoming me home. I was a little taken aback and confused that she was not asking me about my trip, but it was so refreshing to not have to hear horns every few seconds that I did not think much of it.

“How was your trip?” she asked finally.

“It was good,” I replied.

I waited for her to probe further, but she just smiled and said “I knew you would have a good time! I’m so proud of you, you’ve grown up so much.”

Maybe she had been communicating with Uncle Rajesh, I reasoned. That’s why she was not digging into every little detail of my life, as she always did.

“You know you never used to like any of these things when you were a child,” she followed up finally.

“What things?”

“You know, spirituality, culture, India. Those kinds of things,” she explained.

“Yeah, I never used to be interested,” I replied, not sure if I was interested now. I had to be, since I had expended so much effort to go there. But there was still some confusion in me. Had I only gone because there was nothing else that I knew? Or did I just want to take some pictures to make my life seem interesting?

 I finally had my shower and felt good for a bit. Mom’s dhal and rice tasted great too, better than anything that I had in India. Finally crumpling on my bed, sinking in as I had every day of my life, I felt safe again.

Mom came in before I could pass out to look through some of the souvenirs I bought her. There was a baby Krishna doll, a jewelled peacock feather – Krishna’s signature headdress – and a miniature figure of a Krishna temple. She loved Krishna, and the gifts had made her excited enough to start relaying the stories of her own trips to India. I had heard them many times but I did not let that bother me. I liked to listen more than talk, I told myself.

She told me the story of how she had jumped into the Ganges River because something was lost in translation and the story of the times she had to sleep on the floor. And she was most excited sharing the stories of how she struggled to drag me around. How much of a problem I had been, how I used to whine and complain about everything, how I was never interested in the things she wanted me to be interested in. I smiled, not offended. It was a part of her life, she was allowed to be passionate about it and to have seen me as a hassle.

Something she mentioned caught me by surprise, and I made her stop.

“You don’t remember about the train ride?” Mom asked, grinning. “All the rats running over…”

“No, I remember,” I said. “But what did you say about this other boy,” I asked.

“Oh, that,” she laughed. “I almost misplaced you! I was such a mess at that time, so excited about everything. When I was rushing onto the train, I wasn’t paying attention at all. I grabbed the hand of this other boy – he looked just like you! He started shouting at me in Hindi, and that’s when I realised.”

I frowned. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”

My mother was quiet, her smile slowly fading away. “I think it always made me ashamed as a mother. To think that for even a minute, I didn’t recognise you.”

Chapter 3:

No one really asked me about my trip back at work. Richard remarked, “You went to India? Visiting family?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

He nodded in approval, then went back to the office gossip topic of the day. I was a little taken aback, though I knew that I reacted the same way to my other colleague’s travel stories. I guess no one really wanted to hear each other’s experiences. It was tiring to keep feigning excitement for others.

I stayed at my desk throughout the morning, flipping between work emails and internet feeds and then wolfing down my lunch in front of a football news segment. Occasionally I looked around, took out my earplugs and tried to go into the pantry whenever I heard someone else in there, hoping they would take the chance to disrupt my quiet routine. But they never did.

Jean, the elderly human resource head, finally asked if I had any pictures from the trip, and I lied saying no. On Instagram, I posted a few vague shots of things like the sky in an aeroplane or a cow grazing. I occasionally threw in a random song lyric or novel quote in the captions. Something that made sense to me, but meant nothing to everyone else. I liked leaving things vague online, that was an easy way to seem interesting. I had seen many artists and celebrities doing that.

I scrolled around aimlessly, waiting for some likes to notifications to pop up, indicating that someone had liked my pictures. When I was in school, I used to obsess over whatever a girl I liked posted. I would check her page at least once a day for three years, even after we stopped talking at all. Even after months without contact, I somehow managed to convince myself that almost anything she posted was a hint directed towards me. For every picture or vague song lyric, I would assure myself that it was meant to get a reaction out of me specifically. Thankfully I was too cowardly to do anything about it. But I still felt a sinking feeling in my chest when I thought about the sheer amount of time I spent obsessing over the ramblings of a young girl like they were scriptures. Everything had to be a sign to me, I lamented. I could not wrap my head around the idea that all my feelings, all my thoughts, simply meant nothing.

I looked through my own pictures now, making sure there was no one behind me to avoid embarrassment.

Who was this guy?

I had nine photos, of which two were of myself standing alone. In the rest, I was surrounded by different groups of people, from schools, stages in the army and offices. Most of them I barely knew or kept in contact with, but their huddling bodies around me functioned like important pieces of evidence for a case that I was building to prove to myself that I was normal.

Feeling a deep sense of revulsion boiling inside of my stomach towards the day’s end, I searched frantically for a delete account button on my Instagram settings page. There was none, and I turned to google for help. Even after following the steps they laid out, I was only able to temporarily disable my account.

I was annoyed, glaring at my fake smiles on the screen. This imposter. Why did he refuse to disappear?

On the train ride home, my face still behind my phone screen, and I chanced upon something motivational on Twitter that raised my spirits. It was about how we should not focus on our past and regret, and should instead focus on how different our lives could be in five years if we started working towards bettering ourselves every day. There were many steps that I could take to improve myself every day, I thought. There was plenty of time to work on myself these days, with no overwhelming responsibilities.

I managed to get a seat on the bus, and I tried a meditation technique I learnt from Uncle Rajesh.

It was a five-minute meditation, where I had to shut my eyes and focus on a bright light in my mind’s eye. Uncle claimed to have been practising this daily for half an hour, and he introduced me to the yellow-clad preacher on Youtube who had shown him the way. The preacher said that this could be practised anywhere, and that it would give me great peace and control over any turbulence in my life.

I closed my eyes and began.

Darkness.

Nothingness.

Quiet.

No light yet, just darkness.

An image of a friend from my army days popped up in my head. I had seen his face earlier when I had been checking my Instagram page. We had not been that close, he was more like a friend of a friend, but when we spoke he was always very nice. We never found much ground to connect on, and it was that way with many people whose path I crossed. I had the desire to connect, but lacked the capacity and ability to do so. This friend, now I remember, always smelt bad. Most guys did in the army, having no motivation to wear deodorant or even shower some days. I personally used to use deodorant even during my service, since I hated my own body odour. But most guys did not care. It had only been in the army, after all, that I began to really understand just how much men worked to impress women. Without any girls around, they were content to live in filth. I myself developed an alarming lack of drive after enlisting which I eventually attributed to a lack of female scrutiny. Without girls around, I could not find the motivation to excel or even just be an average human being.

Wherever I went in my life, I focused my efforts on impressing one or two women in close proximity, always convincing myself that I was beginning to grow in stature in her eyes. As I grew older, it got much harder to find someone that I wanted to impress. In fact, this was the first time in ages that I had no girls that I liked. I tried to force myself to like someone at the office, even someone eleven years my senior, but it was just not happening. I could no longer get myself interested and hopefu–

Blackness.

Darkness.

I checked my phone’s stopwatch app. Fifty-four seconds had passed since the start of my meditation attempt. I tried again, not wanting to give up immediately, and fell asleep shortly after, missing my stop.

Chapter 4:

“Two Naan sets, one Kurma, one Shahi Paneer, one Mango Lassi, one Vegetable Briyani, and one Tikka set for starters,” the waiter read.

“Shall we order dessert now?” I asked.

“No, we will wait and see if we can finish all of this,” Priya laughed.

I patted her hand when our drinks arrived. “Happy anniversary.”

Priya smiled. “Thank you for agreeing to the temple.”

“I like going to the temple because you always dress up so nice,” I shrugged.

She giggled, but I was not joking. She looked so pretty in her studded bright yellow Sari, and she had on golden earrings and bangles. It was a traditional thing to dress up grandly for events, and it was the tradition that I was most enthusiastic about preserving. It felt like we were royalty for a couple of hours, wrapped in our elegant fabrics and shimmering jewellery. There were many men, such as my father, who found keeping up public appearances tiresome. It was one of the things we argued about. There was nothing wrong with putting in effort to look good and caring about how others perceived us, I claimed. Looking good made others feel good. And it made me feel good, which motivated me to be a better person. It also would inspire others to want to be like us, and since we were good and nice people, there was nothing wrong with that.

Looking good also meant that we could hold an influence in the world, which would allow us to get meaningful things done. It also gave us a good standing in social settings, and our future kids would be idolise us. I had watched so many children of boring parents, who dressed in dull old-fashioned shirts and saris and smelt of dry powder, stray away from the home to find social proof. Priya’s cousin’s neighbour was one such example, as his attempt to create a modern and stylish persona for himself outside of his family led him into the hands of delinquents, ruining his education and future.

“Was that all you liked?” Priya asked. I joked again, and she giggled. I was doubtful about how serious Priya was about this temple stuff. She had developed an interest in spirituality over the past year, often listening to some yellow-clothed Babajis on Youtube. She even put set a picture of deities as her phone wallpaper recently. I assumed all this was just a little phase that she would be getting over, but the phone wallpaper part had me worried. Religious practice was essential in keeping up appearances, I consoled myself as we put up a picture of the Divine couple Radha Krishna in our home. But there had to be a limit, which I was warned that many ladies could cross if their minds were left idle.

Priya deftly organised the cutlery for the waiter to lay out our dishes, and the rich aroma of my Paneer dish soothed my mind. I dunked my warm and fluffy naan into it, soaking up the flavour, and let the tender cottage cheese melt in my mouth. Relishing each bite, I had to remind myself to breathe.

“Slow down! It’s not going to run anywhere!” Priya smirked.

I just laughed and kept going, as she proceeded to neatly cut and eat her portion. She told me once that she found it cute that I ate like a little kid, and since then I had never been conscious of how I looked around food. I told her the cautious way she ate was cute, too, though I would have found her cute if she gobbled like me too.

Food, clothes, and functions were what I loved the most about my culture. Coincidentally they were what the rest of the world loved about us too. Of course, meditation and spirituality were still big, but every Videshi I spoke to always mentioned food first.

“That’s the number one thing that people loved about every culture,” Priya said when I told her. “Everywhere my sister goes, she’ll say ‘you have to try the food there’. Greece, Romania, Thailand. Everywhere it’s the same.”

“That’s really all we care about, we animals,” I laughed. “Did she recommend somewhere for us for December?”

“She was saying we should try Greece,” said Priya. “But I think that’s too common now. Everyone has pictures of their time in Greece.”

“You know, my cousin was telling me that we should go to Singapore,” I suggested. “They have great Indian food, apparently.”

Priya shook her head and laughed. “We aren’t going overseas to eat Indian food.”

“That’s not the only thing,” I chuckled. “You must have seen the photos from his trip?”

“Yes I did. It’s too modern and materialistic,” said Priya. “Nothing romantic.”

“We’ll make it romantic,” I argued.

 “I know, but it will be even more romantic somewhere else,” she pleaded. “Canada is another option. I have family there and they have beautiful mountains and waterfalls.”

“Canada? That’s too far,” I groaned. “I think it takes at least two days to get there.”

“Just go to sleep on the flight, you’ll barely feel it,” said Priya.

“I never can fall asleep while travelling, you know that,” I complained.

“Yes, of course. We need to get you some sleeping pills so that you won’t disturb me,” Priya smiled.

Chapter 5:

Over the next two years, I managed to successfully meditate for a grand total of around eight minutes. I tried daily for the first few days, then gave up, tried again every few weeks, and then every few months. Every time I tried to calm myself with the practice, the opposite happened. Failing at something so simple would cause hatred at myself to boil in my chest, and then I would get even more frustrated at myself for getting frustrated. Every attempt I made to blank out my mind would invite all the faces from my past and present life to claw their way into my head, which would lead to anguish thinking about how I was not in contact with any of them and wondered why they wanted nothing to do with me. It was brutally annoying to keep thinking about them when they were surely not thinking about me.

And I could not find any motivation to think of this bright light. It meant nothing to me, personally or culturally, so I could not convince myself to focus.

On and off I got angry at India and its culture when I tried meditation, as I always had growing up. My mom used to force me to do yoga and Pranayam when I was in school, and I would aggressively oppose even though it always made me feel good. Back then those things felt weird and uncool because no one else at school was doing it. Now there was no one to feel embarrassed in front of, and no one to impress either.

After giving up on meditation, I tried going to the gym, but it cost too much time and money for my progress to be visible. I switched to yoga, which, while I could do it at home, had gains that were barely visible, and holding position for even thirty seconds required too much patience. So I gave up on that too.

My personal projects were left untouched, as they were when I was in India two years back. I found myself exceedingly busy at my job, and it continued to sap my energy as time went on. Management was harsh and the onslaught of projects saw no bonuses. I had two weeks of paid time off available each year, which I took aimlessly when I felt burnout and in need of an extra day to sleep in. There was never anything special for me to plan my off days – no family events, no girlfriend, no trips. I took a day off on my birthday once but that was even more depressing because the day ended up being spent wondering why no one was messaging me. Two people left my job over the year, and I was swamped with their workload. I was handling manual labour too, like going out to frame pictures, print posters, and decorate for the office Christmas tree. One of my friends from our football group told me that I should feel lucky to do that kind of work because it was therapeutic, but the defeated feeling in my chest every evening prevented me from ever feeling gratitude. I was ashamed. It was not just the work, it was who I was and how I was conducting my life as a twenty-nine-year-old. But I was ashamed.

My boss kept staring at his computer as I entered his office, and I stood awkwardly by the door until he finally asked me to sit. He had silver hair, a bright but stained smile, and one of his usual cheap and baggy shirts. I quietly whispered hello, hoping my timidness would serve as a sign of respect.

Four weeks of rehearsals, four days of waiting for the right moment. This was it, finally.

“Everything ok?” he asked, as though he knew that everything was not. “You’ve never come in here to chat before.”

My hand started to tremble slightly under the table, but I had prepared myself for this. I pushed through, blurting and avoiding eye contact for more than a second.

“I want to go and pursue my Masters,” I lied. “So, I am thinking of leaving the company in a month.”

His face showed no reaction and he simply nodded. “Masters? You don’t have to leave right? You can study and continue working at the same time.”

“But I… but I feel like I will be burnt out. I don’t think I could cope,” I squeaked, and managed to add. “I’ve wanted to take this for a long time, but I did not because I was busy with work.”

“And I’m very thankful for that,” said the boss, still unfazed. “If circumstances were different, this would not be a problem for us. But we are severely short-staffed, as you know. We have not had any new arrivals to take over you.”

I nodded, knowing he was right. But there was nothing to feel guilty about, I reminded myself. It was my personal life and personal choice. It was nothing to do with morality. I was not a bad person. This was only hurting myself.

“Look, I understand your concern, and I appreciate you for coming in and being honest about this,” the Boss continued. “I assure you, after we bring in the new staff, you can hand your position over to them.”

I nodded as slowly and unconvincingly as I could, hoping he would get the message that I was not ok with that. New staff? They were not bringing in any new staff. 

“I tell you what, to support you, we will work out some flexibility in your schedule. And we will hire an intern to help,” the Boss smiled, leaning forward.

Anxiety made my chest feel bloated. I had anticipated this turn in the conversation. I tried to breathe slowly to calm myself, but I could not control it. What if he made my last month hell? Would this ruin my prospects? Would I ever get a better opportunity?

I had no control over my mind with meditation either. Going to be thirty, with no control over my life. Helplessness, on the inside and out.

There was one thought, one meditation technique of my own that occasionally gave me peace. It was a memory, of Basant Panchami. The memory of the couple, of the man who looked like me. When I thought of them, I would gather a warm sense of courage in my stomach, as though I was laughing with family. This image, this meditation, gave me the hope that I was something more. I could not grasp how deeply they stirred me. It made me forget who I was. Or maybe, it made me remember.

“I can’t wait any longer, boss,” I said, handing him my printed resignation. “I will be leaving. There’s nothing much else I can discuss.”

He leaned back, not taking the paper, and not reacting.

“Thank you for your offer,” I said, nodded, and then got up and left.

Of course, I was not leaving to take a Masters. I was leaving to take a break. I was running away again. To India.

Chapter 6:

I decided to go back to that temple one day, and chose a day without any festivals to avoid the crowd. There were grand Hindu temples in Singapore, all of which I avoided. Though many had similar structures to the ones in India, they did not hold the same mystique for me.

The sweet smell of incense and incessant melody of chanting joined with the colourful deities crammed around the exterior to greet me, and the shimmering centrepiece of  Radha Krishna Murtis had their hands raised to offer me blessings. Still, without a crowd, the temple looked quite plain. The various faces of Gods glared blankly at me, and I found it hard to make eye contact, suddenly conscious of all the hateful thoughts I had about them throughout my life.

In the middle of the temple, a small group of six teens passionately singing and playing instruments drew my attention away from God. They were lively and enjoying themselves, and I felt a tinge of jealousy and regret. It would have been nice to have been a part of something like that. Growing up I never had the confidence to join one, and since then I always made the excuse that I was too old to pick up anything like an instrument.

I watched with that aching feeling in my chest. A deep longing to be someone or to have something, and with no idea how to achieve those things. I kept my head down, feeling ashamed to make eye contact with the people who understood what they were doing and who they were. They had a look of simplicity in their faces, there was no confusion that I was sure was always etched in my features.

Trying to distract myself, I pondered about what I would have for dinner. But the aching did not go away, I felt deeply lost and alone. Just imagining how I would look from the outside, standing alone in a temple that I could not understand, thousands of miles from my home, then sitting alone in a restaurant engaging my tastebuds like an animal. My throat burned, and I almost felt like crying then.

For a second, I looked up as someone brushed past me, and I saw him again.

Our eyes locked, for a moment, and I instinctively looked away as I always did. But then I looked back and kept staring. He looked away and pretended not to notice too, just like me.

Chapter 7:

My son was named Raghu, after Lord Ram. It was a common name in India, but it felt different for me. My wife specifically chose it because she wanted him to have a name of God.

We had little arguments about it for a month before he was born. I threw out little disagreements, about how it was old-fashioned and too similar to some of our friends. Eventually it blew up into a big fight which as usual ended with me backing down. She yelled at me saying that I was just disagreeing for the sake of it, and she was right. 

“What name would you suggest, then?” she demanded, her eyes glaring at me. I felt myself shrivelling under her gaze, but I shouted back that I had a bunch of names.

“You don’t ever care about my opinion on these things anyway,” I scowled, and she retorted by listing all the times that she had let me decide for the family, especially with our business.

The most frustrating part was that I truly had no opinion of my own on what I wanted to name my son. She was so passionate and sure about something, and I was not. What did I care about? A name of a film star or a movie character? An ancestor? A sports star? Maybe I would have done what the Westerners did and just named him after myself.

Over the past two years, Priya’s interest in spirituality had only increased, to my dismay. She now went out almost twice a month to worship sessions, built a prayer altar in our home, and played Bhajans softly in the room of our son as he slept, believing the aunty’s insistence that it would imbue him with spiritual powers. Once, she got annoyed when I put on the movie Super Deluxe, saying that it was giving off bad vibrations. Some days I would look at her, putting flowers in front of her Murti of Krishna, and I would feel dismayed. What was going on in her head? Was she serious? Or was she trying to prove something to me? 

It was not the worst thing to be into, I consoled myself. Many of my friend’s wives were always demanding expensive bags and jewellery. And Lord Ram was a truly admirable character anyway. We all grew up with TV series and cartoons about him in the background of our childhood, and his story and values were interesting and foundational to our cultural beliefs. Consoling myself this way, I managed to put my feelings aside and made up with Priya, even thanking her for picking out a great name. I said our son was going to turn out like Lord Ram as he had such a great mom.

Shortly after Raghu was born Priya, expanded the size of the prayer altar, making it have three ascending levels with different God’s Murtis encircling. Some of the older relatives in my home commended us for it, but my friends gave me looks of disappointment for always giving in to my wife.

I found myself questioning what I cared for more often, just reflecting on my life and thinking of things that represented me. I looked around on my own Facebook and Instagram to understand myself and what I had been into. I was running my restaurant, which I was proud of, and I of course loved food. I liked cricket and football too, I liked movies, I liked nice clothes, nice bags, nice shoes and nice wallets. I was not sure what those things made me, and the more I thought about myself the less I began to understand who I was. Frustration bubbled up again, then fear. Was I going to be a bad role model to my son? How was I supposed to guide him and make him better if I did not even know who I was. I guess that was why people turned to Gods, like Lord Ram.

My mother-in-law arranged for priest came over for a ceremony for baby Raghu. They shaved his hair, said some mantras around a fire for hours and smashed coconuts on our front porch. There was a big feast for everyone after, with fragrant Kheer for dessert.

Work annoyed me more than usual because I was getting so much joy from home. I finally felt that my family elders looked at me as a full-grown man. They gave me advice, praised me and offered to do chores around my home. I had always been an early bloomer, being in a high position at a young age, so I was used to the adults in the office always having a hint of bitterness whenever they had to take instructions from me. But all that had vanished with Raghu, now they had no issues speaking to me as though we were equals.

For a while at least, these blessings of Raghu remained. After fourteen months of his reign, Priya and I surrendered, admitting that we needed a break. We drove off for a week and left him with her parents. There was nowhere in particular we had in mind, but I ended up driving to one of our old favourite spots we used to hang out in our youth, past Mother Ganga.

“I feel younger already,” Priya sighed as we turned into that old street.

“We are young,” I insisted, really meaning it. To me she looked better than before, but if I said that she would think I was lying. I bought her things and I complimented her and told her how thankful I was to be with her. I found her really beautiful when she was busy and focused on things. Sometimes I wished she could read my mind and see how much she meant to me. Most times, I was glad she could not.

“Don’t lie,” she grumbled, and I stayed silent.

“You still look good,” she added, and put her hand my shoulder.

We spent the next day and a half lazing around in our hotel, which was the most expensive one we could find in the area. When we were young, we used to marvel at it, and wonder who got to stay inside. We revisited all the spots that we used to go to when we were young, indulging in street food under the sweltering village heat. The chaat tasted as good as it always, and the overly sweet lassi reminded me of those carefree days.

“Let’s go to the temple tomorrow,” Priya suggested, in between licks of her kulfi. “We have so many nice memories there.”

“Yes we do,” I lied, and her face glowed with such pride that my fears of the past washed away. I was the man in her big, beautiful eyes, not the helpless wretch moaning for death.

Priya wore a simple green and white Punjabi suit that day instead of a sari, and I wore a plain t-shirt and jeans to match her. We did the aarti, then went to walk three rounds around the sanctum. A group of youths were sitting in the middle of the temple chanting bhajans, passionately clapping and rapping on drums and cymbals with their eyes closed. The area was engulfed in the sounds of their young voices calling out the names of God.

Doubt crept into me momentarily as I wondered what must be going through their heads. I prided myself on understanding people, especially Indians. I could tell that everyone wanted similar things like attention, status, comfort, relationships and control. Everything everyone did, every choice they made, was centred around achieving these things. Anytime I met someone, I was never fazed or nervous, knowing that I knew what they were up to.

But these youths had momentarily shaken this confidence. They were passionate and did not look like they were being forced. What did they want? They were going to get nothing tangible out of all of this. Why were they spending their time in this environment, when there were so many other places they could be? The world was their oyster. They could be starting a business, going on dates, working, or getting a scholarship.

I looked at Priya, watching them in her simple clothes, and felt a jolt of dismay. It was as though they were experiencing something that I was completely ignorant of.

Quickly I gathered myself. These teens probably were getting attention, a sense of community, and status by engaging in this worship stuff. Some of them probably liked each other or were already dating each other. And they probably got a lot of attention from adults for appearing so holy and pure. Or, more likely, they were being paid to put on this performance.

Feeling comforted by this deduction, I looked around at the rest of the worshippers, passing judgements as I followed Priya in her walk round the temple. I watched as a slim man took out a phone and quickly snapped a picture of the singing group, as though he was afraid someone would confiscate the device from him. He had a plain white T-shirt and jeans, and a grey sling bag around his shoulder. He looked quite like me, though he stared around suspiciously as though he was on the run. His eyes darted around the architecture, his gaze low. There was a tourist look about him, definitely not a usual worshipper, and his out of place status made him stand out. Unlike the rest, who raised their hands, tossed scented flowers, and rushed on, he stood in place and kept looking, as though he was searching for something.

The man looked very similar to me. His expressions, the shape of his lips, the way he blinked. I felt a chill suddenly. It was me. There was no other way to explain it, his features and his face were exactly my own. It was as though I was looking into a mirror.

He continued to stare, surely he must have seen in me what I saw in him, and the thick scent of jasmine flowers and incense in the air made me feel dazed.

After all these years, he had returned to haunt me. I knew he would.

The singers in the middle picked up pace and clashed their instruments with more force and passion, filling me with anxiety.

I glanced back, hoping this was a hallucination, but he was still there, now looking at his feet. There was something so sad about the way he looked, so lonely and so lost. He seemed ashamed to be standing there, like he was a trespasser.

But unlike when I saw the beggar years back, I did not feel afraid or disgusted. Instead I was captivated. The look of lostness in his eyes was also one of freedom. His casual clothes, shoddy grooming and slouched posture stood out among the rest of us who tried so hard to prove we belonged. He knew he did not belong, and was not going to pretend like he did. A twisted yearning bubbled inside me. What if I could have that? To give up this façade, how freeing it would be.

He made a small glance towards me and I turned away, conscious. What did he see when he looked at me? Would he see through my hypocrisy?

The singers in the middle slowed down and concluded their chant, and I glanced over at him again. He wore a blank expression on his face, and he followed the rest of the worshippers in raising both his hands up to the heavens.

“Jai Radhe! Jai Krishna!”

As Priya lowered her hands, I held her shoulder and guided her out of the temple, hoping to never see me again.