of him.
“I’ve been watching Swami-ji on Channel OM and I’m hoping he’ll help me with my tension and high blood pressure,” he told Puri. “Nothing else has worked till date.”
The detective had watched Channel OM a few times; Rumpi sometimes had it on in the sitting room. Maharaj Swami’s broadcasts offered a bit of everything: Vedic wisdom, Ayurvedic health advice, yoga, meditation and Deepak Chopra-style self-help guidance on how to deal with issues associated with the challenges of modern-day life – in other words, stress, wayward children and extramarital affairs. A new brand of Hinduism was sweeping India. It was highly ritualistic and steeped in the kind of pseudoscience that helped the new middle classes reconcile their use of modern science and technology with their belief, as one social commentator had put it recently, “in supernatural powers supposedly embodied in idols, divine men and women, stars and planets, rivers, trees and sacred animals.” Most significantly, it also condoned materialism. “The Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras have been turned into self-help manuals for making money and achieving success,” the same commentator had written.
It was not Puri’s cup of chai, nor that of most of his generation. Theirs was a more contemplative, philosophical Hinduism that frowned on ostentation. Besides, he hated all the appeals for donations and the slick marketing. Borrowing from the techniques used by American TV evangelists, Swami-ji sold his books, CDs and DVDs in the same cloying manner as soap powder.
“It’s like ‘new, improved Hinduism for the reaching of spots others can’t’,” the detective had commented to his wife recently.
Lakshmi Garodia, though, was an ardent fan of the Godman.
“One can feel his presence and power through the TV, actually,” he said. “I understand he’s healed so many of people.”
“So many!” agreed the advertising executive breathlessly. “You know, my cousin lives in Hong Kong and was dying of cancer. He was on the verge of death. Then Maharaj Swami came to him. He walked right through the wall of his hospital room and laid his hands on my cousin’s head. He said he could
A chorus of trumpets announced the arrival of Maharaj Swami. He entered through the garlanded archway at the back of the hall and then proceeded along a path that led through rows of fawning, adoring disciples, many of whom reached out to touch his feet. The guru stopped now and again to lay his hands on bowed heads. And with a seraphic smile, he sprinkled vibhuti over the congregation, the holy ash materializing in his hands.
Puri and the other visitors remained seated on the floor as the Godman approached. With hands pressed together, they grinned at him like eager children pleading for his blessings. A chosen few received reassuring, almost pitying, pats on the head.
“Swami-ji! Swami-ji!” called out the advertising executive with tears running down his cheeks. “Bless me, Swami-ji!”
The devotional singing, chanting, bell ringing and cymbal clashing reached fever pitch as Maharaj Swami walked up onto the stage, where temple priests greeted him with flaming brass diyas.
With his black beard and moustache parting to reveal a row of perfect white teeth (according to the literature Puri had read in the entrance hall, they were kept in perfect condition by Abode of Eternal Love-branded neem dental sticks), he sat down on a large silver throne. Suspended by wires behind him was a circle of blinking fairy lights that formed a halo. He held up his left hand to silence the congregation. A hush fell over the hall, and his deep, orotund voice sounded over the speakers.
“My children,” he said in Hindi, “today we will consider the word ‘I’, which refers to the ego born out of an attachment to the body…”
For thirty minutes, Puri listened attentively to Maharaj Swami’s discourse, impressed by his oratory skills. Mrs. Duggal, too, appeared captivated. Facecream looked a little off color, but the detective thought nothing of it.
When he was finished giving his sermon, the Godman stood again and walked to the front of the stage.
“None of you here are yet capable of comprehending my reality,” he explained. “Although I appear as flesh and blood, I exist in multiple dimensions. Time has no meaning for me. Past, present, future are but one.”
Two of the senior disciples carried a brazier filled with wood onto the stage and placed it to the left of the guru’s throne. This caused a ripple of anticipation to course through the congregation.
“But throughout human history, saints and avatars have been sent to guide humanity, to reveal the infiniteness of the universe. This is done through the use of miracles. Here today I propose to reveal to you one such miracle. I propose to communicate across time and space with one of the seven rishis – Bharadwaja. It was he who came to me and revealed the ultimate Truth – who showed me the true power of God’s love.”
“We are truly blessed,” the excited ad man whispered to Puri. “Swami-ji summons Bharadwaja rarely, usually only for special guests. They say the last time was for the prime minister. After, a date for the election was set!”
The lights in the hall were dimmed and Maharaj Swami commanded absolute silence. The hall went deathly still.
Pressing his fingertips to his forehead and temples, he closed his eyes and began to utter incomprehensible incantations. He reached out with his right hand and pointed to the brazier. With a click of his fingers, the wood burst into flames. Everyone, including Puri, gasped.
Maharaj Swami approached the burning brazier. He pushed his hands together and held them tight, muttering something under his breath. When he unclasped them again, they were full of red powder. This he threw onto the flames, causing them to leap higher.
A dense smoke began to curl upward and then, as if it had a mind of its own, made an abrupt left turn and proceeded horizontally into the middle of the stage. There it started to circle, creating a vortex. And at its center a bright white light appeared.
Maharaj Swami closed his eyes again and moved his hands back and forth over the brazier.
The white light slowly formed into a man’s ghostly head.
Puri could make out his facial features – the creases on the forehead, the crumpled nose, the sagging jowls, the ancient eyelids.
He felt a tingle run up his spine as some of his fellow visitors cried out: “He’s here!” “Bharadwaja has come!”
The rishi opened his eyes and yawned, as if he had been woken from a long, peaceful sleep.
“Who dares disturb me?” spoke a deep, gravelly voice that boomed down from above.
“It is I,” answered Maharaj Swami, who by now had retaken his throne.
A smile crept across the lined face. “And what is it you seek?”
“All-knowing one, I seek nothing for myself. I ask that you give guidance to my children as they strive toward the divine!”
“Not all can be helped,” spoke the rishi. “Those who resist, who refuse to abandon preconceived notions, they will remain trapped forever in an endless cycle of birth and rebirth.”
A timid devotee was invited up onstage and prostrated himself before the apparition. In a halting voice, he asked the rishi a question about an event in one of his past lives. He, like the six others who followed him, received answers that seemed to shock and surprise them.
All the while Puri sat, as he had done on the roof while Ak-bar the Great had levitated, trying to figure out the method behind the illusion.
There was no projector being used; the face was three-dimensional. It was not a hologram, either. Of that he was certain.
Was it possible there was a man onstage wearing a black outfit to camouflage his body? As if in reply to his question, the door at the side of the hall opened, casting a beam of light across the stage, revealing nothing beneath the rishi’s floating head.
The detective and Mrs. Duggal exchanged a furtive, perplexed look.
It was then that Puri noticed Facecream staring blankly at the stage. She looked transfixed, as if she had been hypnotized, and there were tears running down her face.
He reached out and touched her hand. At first she didn’t respond. He tried again. Facecream turned and stared at him and then, looking back at the stage, started to laugh.
