When I moved to New England, friends warned me about her winters, but I shrugged off their words. After all, I was raised in England, far from warm sands and coconut trees. I’ll be fine, I said.
For the most part, I was. There were a few December mornings where I was the last person on the street to shovel snow, much to the judgement of my right neighbor. My left neighbor was a pillar of support, onboarding me to the worlds of pavement ice, road salts, snow shovels and Home Depot. Thank you Keld.
There were no wobbles otherwise. Though the low temperatures did make their way deep into the bones—lingering still, at the end of May. Nature is a humbler.
Shakti, my Interceptor 650, was 60 miles away in a winter storage facility, connected to a battery tender. Instagram was awash with memes of riders longing to get back on their bikes. I resonated. But I was also happy to live some life off the saddle. Abstinence makes the tea sweeter and all that.
I got around Boston by train and bus, taking the occasional Uber. I also walked and collected lots of books from Little Free Libraries—community book exchanges dotted around the city.
Though the season wasn’t exactly motorcycle-free. I made two trips to India, where I clocked good miles on Sati, my Thunderbird 350X. She stays in an Ashram in Haridwar, close to the River Ganges. Donia and I visit often. Visit is not quite the right verb. How do you visit a place that feels like home? That is home.
On the penultimate morning of our stay, we stepped out. Not as bipeds, but riders.
“Take me to the River,” Donia commanded. In that special way a woman talks only to the man she loves.
A week before Haridwar, I had chanced upon a book called The River. On a poetry shelf at the back of the Bryn Mawr Bookstore. A secondhand bookstore in Cambridge which toed that musky line between being stuck in time and stepping out of time completely.
The book’s spine made first acquaintance. Thin, a sobering black. Blackness has its shades, and this one sounded quiet confidence. Secure in its ability to find the right reader at the right time, happy to lie in wait for years. The title font felt classical. Golden hued, serif. My head tilted, eyes aligning to the words. The River. Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati. Intrigued, I pulled it from the shelf. Open sesame.
Guru. Sati. Hardiwar. Ganges. Ma.
Baba is playing with me, I thought, ever more excited for India.
“Take me to the River.”
I knew just the spot. We rode for a good half hour, parking on a bank opposite the cremation ground. We took in the scene, powerful in its inevitability. I had once tweeted: We are all heading to the cremation ground. But some of us are getting there by motorcycle.
I pointed to an empty corner near the funeral pyres.
“That’s where Baba stayed for years.”
She nodded. Words weren’t needed.
I prepared myself to swim. The current was strong, the water, freezing cold. I loved it. I loved her. At one point, I stepped on a loose rock, picking it up out of the water. Elliptical, it loosely resembled a Shiva Lingam—a stone used in spiritual practice. I drew the parallel aloud. Donia smiled. I placed it on the bank and she started telling me a story. Listening, I took some more steps forward, relishing the breeze and morning sun. My foot touched something again. I reached into the water.
Donia’s facial expression… broke. She opened her mouth as if to make a remark, but continued on her previous train of thought. But trains couldn’t enter the river. We laughed like giddy schoolchildren. This was a Zuuuuuuuuup moment.
All couples share mimetic sounds. Zuuuuuuuuup was one of ours. We once watched an America’s Got Talent clip of a levitating monk. The unexpectedness of his gravital defiance delighted us. So now whenever we experience anything that is sudden and surprising, we recall the sound effect of that monk rising up into the air: Zuuuuuuuuup.
Ma Ganga had surfaced a real Shiva Lingam, or more colloquially, Shivling. I’m not the right person to issue a definition. Sure, it’s easy enough to Google ask ChatGPT but that would be insincere. Because I don’t desire an answer. All I know is that this black stone represents something beyond form. Something timeless, all-permeating. Poets call it essence. Seekers call it God. What is the difference?
The Shivling was chipped—hence the abandonment. Apparently faith was conditional on perfect geometry. Though I didn’t dwell on this, for I was overjoyed, proudly declaring how we could take it back to the Ashram. To Baba. Donia beamed, with her eyes.
As I dried off in the sun, flowers floated past, adorning the river’s wet dreadlocks.
Ma was perfect. How could we ever leave?
We left. After an hour or so. Though it felt longer. Much longer. Years. Maybe even lives. Water bodies sublimate time. Human bodies slice it.
It was time for chai.
We mounted Sati, riding along the river, in search of a chaiwala—‘chai seller’, in the King’s English. Though much nuance is lost in translation. Wala means ‘of’, indicating belonging or association. Chaiwala is a man of chai, a person of chai, one that can never be separate from chai. And because of this—
—Dhrupad, stop digressing. Get on with the story. This is why your novel is also taking so long.
Donia’s words boom from within. I heed to them.
We turned a corner, nearing chai, or so we thought. There was a scene to our left. Large statues, scattered across the bank.
Like the towel-wrapped Shivling in my bag, these idols appeared to have been discarded due to physical imperfection. Some may take issue with the word discarded here. “It’s visarjan,” they might say—the tradition of returning broken idols to the river, to Ma. I see the poetry of this. But a higher poetry exists. One that sees no brokenness.
It is our faith that is fractured. The cracked idol only reflects this. If a child breaks their arm, are they dropped in the river?
Moved to act, we approached a figure of Brahma, the Lord of Creation, lying flat on his back, half-submerged. We tried to lift him upright, but he was too heavy and the mossy river bank made it difficult to stand. Neither Donia nor I score points in the department of physical strength. The task was beyond us. She mused that perhaps Brahma ji didn’t want to sit upright and look at the state of his creation, preferring to gaze at blue skies instead. We took comfort in the thought, given there was little else we could do.
The other idols were smaller and lighter. We were able to help them out of the mud, arranging a small congregation at the bank. I splashed fresh river water all around, for no reason but joy. The moment was special.
We started Sati and rode on towards chai—the heart always knows the way. The tea was fresh, piping hot and lovingly served with sweet biscuits. Delicious. Our next stop was a temple shop. My brother had requested us to bring a small idol for his new home altar in North Carolina, and Donia also wanted to gift a tinku trishul (a small trident, in her parlance), to a friend who meant a great deal to both of us. We managed to find both items and then headed back to the Ashram.
I parked Sati in the customary spot—along a quiet path at the back of the Ashram, sheltered by a tin roof, vine leaves and colorful plants. Baba was walking near the Shiva temple. Rushing up to him, I began narrating the morning events with unbridled excitement.
Drawing the Shivling from my bag, Baba looked at it with a tenderness no writer could fully depict. He suggested I place it under the Banyan tree, alongside the idols of Buddha and Shiva’s trident—it was exactly this spot that inspired Donia’s gift for our friend, but that’s another story.
I was surprised. I had assumed the Shivling would be placed in front of the Shiva statue at the center of the Ashram. But as always, the surprise gave way to quiet reckoning, as new images dawned. The unspeakable beauty of Baba’s perception.
Of course, the Banyan tree was the perfect location. Of course, Buddha ji was there. Of course, a trident of Shiva.
Where others saw different ideas, Baba saw only one.
Thank you for being here at 1057.1 miles, my odometer’s latest reading. It means a lot.
Dhru
राम 🔱 🪷 🙇♂️
Ohoho 🕉️🪷🌺🔱