Song of the Cuckoo Bird Read online

  “I just said that it is not a small problem . . . Regardless of the size of your problems, I’m feeling stifled in this house of yours,” Vineetha told him honestly. “Everyone seems so upset about the boy running away and yet no one seems to know how it happened. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

  “Yes, I think it’s very strange that he ran away and none of us can fathom why,” Ramanandam said. He was almost yelling at Vineetha.

  Vineetha closed the suitcase she had been filling up with all her belongings. “Why did he run away, Raman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must know something,” Vineetha said. “Charvi believes that maybe you do.”

  Ramanandam shook his head violently. “If I knew, don’t you think I would’ve done something by now?”

  “Maybe the truth is bitter . . . embarrassing,” Vineetha suggested.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Ramanandam demanded. “Bitter? Embarrassing? What did you think happened? He saw me do something terrible and ran away to hide from my sins?”

  “Maybe,” Vineetha said wearily.

  “Maybe? How can you say that?” Ramanandam asked.

  “Look, I don’t know,” Vineetha said. “But when children run away it isn’t from happy homes. They run away because there is trouble at home, with their parents.”

  “Why did you come here? To sling mud at me? To insult me in my own home?” Ramanandam asked, agitated.

  “I thought I came to support you,” she said bitterly. “But I really can’t. Your son is gone and . . . Raman, this ashram of yours is depressing. Everyone here is a failure and you know what? Being with them, standing next to them, you seem like a failure as well.”

  “This ashram is a safe haven for lost souls,” Ramanandam said defensively.

  “Including yours,” Vineetha said in full agreement.

  “Charvi is a guru, but you’re probably too blinded by bitterness and rage to see the light of divinity within her,” Ramanandam said angrily. “But one can’t blame you. Women like you, women who have no God, no husband, no children, and no family, tend to be bitter and dried-up old maids.”

  Vineetha gasped. He had revealed what some had suspected were always his true feelings. The last threads of friendship holding them together unraveled.

  “I came here with the good intention to help you, God knows why, but I can’t stand to be with you and be party to your pitiful life. And yes, Raman, it is a pitiful life. Living off scraps left by visitors and anointing your own daughter a guru so that she can be the breadwinner, pretending to be open and kind but truly condemning those around you to a life of restriction and poverty—all of it is depraved,” Vineetha said, and wondered why on earth she had come here in the first place.

  “You are nothing but a whimsical rich bitch,” Ramanandam said, furious with her.

  “There is no reason for name-calling,” Vineetha said calmly. “Here is some money for this stay. Isn’t that what visitors leave behind?” She hadn’t meant to give it to him—she had intended to give it to Subhadra, who took care of such matters—but pride propelled her and she threw the heavy envelope on the bed.

  It was the last and only time Vineetha came to Tella Meda.

  1967 12 March 1967. Indira Gandhi became the prime minister of India for the second time.

  13 May 1967. Dr. Zakhir Hussain was elected the third president of India, the first Muslim to hold the post.

  The Goddess

  Eventually time healed the wound Vidura had inflicted on Tella Meda and even though the wound itched at times, it didn’t bleed anymore.

  Charvi missed Vidura but as the years passed, his memory started to fade just a little. She felt some guilt for not remembering him as she used to but that passed as well.

  Charvi’s relationship with her father improved after Vineetha Raghavan’s departure. Ramanandam never asked Charvi why she thought he knew the reason for Vidura running away and she never told him about her suspicions either. Till the day he died, Ramanandam claimed he knew nothing and Charvi never questioned him.

  It was during the monsoon season, when rain was slamming the coast and the threat of a hurricane loomed large, that the white man with his signature American backpack and Levi’s jeans arrived. Mark Talbot was a photojournalist for Life magazine and was taking a vacation in southern India. A friend of his mentioned Bheemunipatnam and Tella Meda, and Mark wrote a letter to Charvi and asked for an invitation to visit.

  He had been to other ashrams of famous Indian gurus and had seen their opulence, the numerous devotees, and the religious following. He was surprised by Tella Meda. It seemed barren, normal, like a home, just as Charvi had told him in the letter.

  “This is my home,” she had written, “and you are welcome to come and visit. I am not an Amma or a goddess, I am just Charvi. My home is open to anyone who is in need and by need I don’t mean in need of salvation, for I do not know how to provide that. My home is a refuge for those who need a home, for those who are looking for some peace in their lives. It is by the Bay of Bengal and at night when you look at the waters, the waves look like white frothy birds frolicking on the night-darkened sand.

  “My home is a place of religion but I don’t believe in imposing my beliefs on those who come here. My God is not everyone’s God and I believe that religion and prayer are private matters. You are welcome to pray with me and I will be happy to include you in my sermons about my God, but if you are not interested you will not be shown the door at my home.

  “I don’t know about the photographs you wish to take as I am a very private person and would be uncomfortable. But you are welcome to take photos of Tella Meda. The house is a beautiful piece of architecture and emanates a serenity I have not felt or seen elsewhere. It is a beautiful home with a clean soul. I hope you will see it as I do. We look forward to your visit in September, but I must warn you that the monsoon season will have taken hold of us by then and hurricanes may strike, submerging us in water.

  “But I can promise you peace and excellent but simple south Indian food. Regards, Charvi.”

  Mark had been touched that she called herself just Charvi and no title of “Amma,” “Guru,” or “Bhagwan” anointed her name. His friend had told him that she was just twenty-five years old but mature for her age. She even looked older, his friend had said, with some graying hair and wrinkles beneath her eyes, but she was a beautiful woman, with the goddess shining on her face.

  He had not believed his friend, who had recently taken a Hindu name, but with one look at Charvi Mark became a believer. This woman was Devi, Amma, Circe, Goddess, Venus all blended into one. She was light-skinned and unlike most Indian women could pass for a foreigner easily. Her eyes were not dark but light brown, filled with mystery. But it was her voice that undid him.

  When she talked about Indian mythology, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, he was enchanted and he realized that at the age of forty he was experiencing a schoolboy crush on a woman who was believed by all around her to be a goddess.

  Kokila and Chetana couldn’t keep their eyes off the white man. They both thought he was the most handsome man they had ever seen and Chetana boldly dressed up in her best half-sari to attract his attention. Not as bold as Chetana, Kokila would watch from behind doors and windows.

  Mark Talbot was quite popular with the ladies of the ashram. Subhadra thought he was a wonderful man and spoke to him in her prim, accented English. Since Kokila and Chetana spoke very little English, Chetana struggled to learn as fast as she could.

  But it was Charvi who fell in love with him. It was not the white skin, the tight pants, or anything else superficial that drew her to him, it was his photographs. He took pictures of Tella Meda and at the local photo studio used the darkroom to process the film himself. The house was magnificent. It looked better in his photos than it did standing in reality. The Bay of Bengal looked like a lethal water mass in one photo and a serene tropical paradise in another. This man was full of contra
dictions and he spoke intelligently of Indian culture and traditions. He seemed to understand religion even though he claimed he wasn’t religious.

  He never judged Charvi’s role in Tella Meda, never questioned her godliness, and never implied that he thought her to be fraudulent or that he believed she was an Amma. He treated her with respect and Charvi could see the attraction he felt for her. His cologne, his voice, the smell of his soap, everything filled her with longing. Sometimes she would pass on meditation in the afternoon and instead think about him. She would lie in bed at night and wonder how it would feel to have him touch her, there, here, everywhere.

  Another resident arrived two days after Mark Talbot did. Renuka was an acquaintance of Subhadra’s, and also a relative in a convoluted way. Her husband had just passed away and, not wanting to spend her golden years with her sons and their “bitchy and ungrateful” wives, she had decided to come to the ashram. Subhadra warned her that she would have to pay some kind of rent and help with the day-to-day operation of the ashram. The rent as such was meager and Renuka’s husband’s pension helped pay for it but when it came to doing work around the ashram she couldn’t seem to find anything that she wanted to do.

  Finally, they settled on the cleaning and maintenance of the puja room, where all the musical instruments were also assembled. Renuka could play the harmonium and for the evening bhajan she would play in tune with Charvi’s singing and playing of the veena.

  Not having known Charvi since she was a girl, Renuka didn’t have the same blind devotion for her as Subhadra did. She saw the things others didn’t want to or couldn’t see. She believed in tradition and was old-fashioned. After her husband’s death she shaved her hair off and now wore only a thin white sari to cover her body. Chetana and Kokila spent a lot of time in the beginning peeking at her limp breasts hanging under the sari, as she wore no blouse. She stayed in a small room in a corner, wanting the smallest and least desirable room, and ate simple (and special) food without spices.

  It was customary for widows to eat plain food and live simply. Even though Ramanandam told Renuka that in Charvi’s ashram she could let her hair grow and wear colored saris, Renuka wasn’t going to change the course of her life. It didn’t take her long to start disliking the easygoing way of Tella Meda. It seemed wrong and sinful that those 17–18-year-old girls, Chetana and Kokila, would just prance around and talk to men of all ages. And one of them was a prostitute’s daughter? Oh, Shiva, Shiva, what had the world come to!

  But her biggest problem was what she saw happening between the white man and the guru of the ashram. She watched them like a hawk. For morning puja she made sure she was there along with Subhadra to ensure that nothing foul went on between the two. Charvi was a good Brahmin girl and a guru. Associating with these immoral white men was wrong in so many ways. Renuka decided that once she had been there awhile she would take some control of Tella Meda and not allow men like this to come and stay. No matter how much money they left behind, it was not right to have a white-skinned man stay in the ashram where so many young girls lived.

  Charvi barely noticed the arrival of Renuka. She was so consumed by her discussions and walks with Mark Talbot that everything else whittled into nothing. After the first few days, even the guilt she felt at her attraction for him passed and now there was a glow on her face. There was a change in the pace of her heart and a freedom she felt for the first time. This must be love, she thought. This must be the love that they talk about in the books: incandescent, self-illuminating, fulfilling, and almost painful.

  “During the great battle, The Mahabharata, cousins were at war. The hundred Kaurava brothers were fighting against the five Pandava brothers. Armies had been amassed and the war was to begin. Arjuna, a Pandava, was torn. His charioteer was Lord Krishna, who saw the pain his friend and disciple was going through. They had been preparing for battle for days, weeks, years now, yet at the time of reckoning, Arjuna couldn’t imagine lifting his bow and shooting arrows at his own cousins, at his teacher, at people he grew up with, at his friends and family.

  “It was then that Lord Krishna took his godly form and rose . . . See that picture there, Mark?” Charvi pointed to a painting in the music room.

  It was a beautiful re-creation of the battle described in the great epic, The Mahabharata. Armies were scattered on either side of an empty strip of land where Arjuna kneeled in front of a large Krishna who took his original form and showed the world and Arjuna that he was indeed a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu.

  “That is Arjuna, he who is kneeling, and Lord Krishna . . . well, he doesn’t need to be described. He is God, eternal, all-encompassing,” Charvi said with a small smile. “This is where Lord Krishna imparts the Bhagavad-Gita to Arjuna. Bhagavad-Gita literally means ‘the divine song’ and it is here he tells Arjuna that you have to put your personal feelings aside and fight the good fight.”

  “So . . . it was sort of a civil war,” Mark said. “America had one as well.”

  “The Mahabharata was about a war between good and evil. What were you fighting over?” Charvi asked.

  Mark grinned. “Money.”

  “I thought the great American Civil War was to free black slaves in the South,” Charvi said with a twinkle in her eye, challenging him with what she knew of his world. She lived in India but she was well read and wanted to show off.

  Mark nodded. “That was part of it as well . . . or rather it became part of the issue. The South wanted to protect its cotton industry and wanted a decentralized government and free trade. The North was more industrial and didn’t believe in a decentralized government because that would mean loss of tax income from the wealthy South.”

  “And I thought it was about freeing the slaves,” Charvi said, feeling foolish for wanting to impress Mark.

  “It was. As the issues remained unsolved, slowly but steadily one of the biggest issues to stand out was slavery,” Mark explained. “In the North, slavery was abolished in 1804, almost fifty years before it was eliminated in the South.”

  “So in this case we can assume that the North was trying to free the black people and make your country more just,” Charvi said, and when Mark nodded she smiled. “It was the same in The Mahabharata. The Kauravas were hell-bent on destroying goodness, on submerging the Pandavas. It is a matter of principle—you fight for what you believe in and you have to fight for the good of the people, of the society, of the world.”

  Charvi spoke passionately, excited and exhilarated by their conversations. Mark was an intelligent man and he was a mine of information. She loved to translate his Western experiences into her knowledge of India and Hinduism.

  Mark was cognizant of the fact that these morning puja sessions were the most entertaining and invigorating conversations he had had in a long time. Charvi was passionate about the Bhagavad-Gita and the Upanishads. She was well read and he couldn’t make her stumble on her words, no matter how hard he tried. This was not a mere twentyfive-year-old girl, this was a learned woman. Maybe there was a goddess inside her that gave her the confidence and the knowledge that made her so sure of her convictions.

  “Are you married?” Charvi asked him when they were walking on the beach one evening.

  Renuka trailed along suspiciously. They spoke in English and she couldn’t make out what was being said. It annoyed her. What if they were saying improper things? Oh, she wished she had brought Subhadra along to translate. But Subhadra was mortified that Renuka could think that Charvi, who was chaste and unmarked, would be having an unsavory liaison with a devotee.

  “No,” Mark said. “And you, are you never supposed to marry?”

  Charvi turned to look at the rolling waves of the Bay of Bengal. “I don’t think there is a written law but what could I give a man? I’m submerged in my prayers and meditation. I’m here to serve the people. I don’t think I have anything to offer one man.”

  “You are a young, beautiful, intelligent woman. You have a lot to offer,” Mark said.

  Ch
arvi blushed. “I am just a normal woman,” she said shyly.

  “You are one of the most fascinating women I have ever met,” Mark said honestly.

  “And you are the most fascinating man I have ever met,” Charvi said honestly and just a little boldly.

  His words fueled her attraction and her words fueled his.

  Renuka kept watch but could not understand what they were talking about in English. But she could see what was going on, though. She wasn’t blind or stupid; she could see that the girl was laughing and tittering, while the man was . . . why did he keep shoving his hands inside the pockets of his jeans? What did he have to hide? And couldn’t he wear loose pants like all those boys wore these days? She could see the shape of his buttocks clearly and . . . chee-chee, Charvi never should have allowed this white man to stay in the ashram.

  In the end even Charvi felt that it would have been wiser not to have allowed Mark Talbot into Tella Meda and her life because when he left, he broke her heart. And it would have been smarter to have kept Renuka out of Tella Meda because she brought along with her the stubborn, old-fashioned ideas Charvi detested. But the mistake had been made and Charvi could hardly turn the clock back and send a destitute widow such as Renuka out of her home and onto the street.

  Ultimately, it wasn’t Renuka’s reaction to Mark that offended Charvi, it was her reaction to Chetana. Charvi had known Chetana since she was born. There was a deep affection that had pooled inside her because of proximity and the knowledge of the circumstances of Chetana’s birth and life.

  So when Charvi heard Renuka screaming so loud that Tella Meda shook with its intensity, and came into the courtyard just as Ranuka slapped Chetana, she took a step back, not having seen physical abuse before and unsure of what must be done. Usually, her father would come and clear up the mess, but since Vidura had left, he spent more and more time inside his room, rarely coming out, even eating his meals in his room.