Anusual: Memoir of a Girl Who Came Back from the Dead by Anu Aggarwal

Author:Anu Aggarwal [Aggarwal, Anu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2015-06-30T18:30:00+00:00

The woman in me was waking up, I crocheted small pouches for the sanyasis, I made booties for the village children. I stitched the patron a fashionable scarf (apart from the red robe his clothes left much to be desired).

It certainly makes me feel special, but why does he keep following me, the superyogi? Privileges always brought responsibility. —Anu! where were you? I was expecting to see you on stage, Swamiglee had halted me once again, in the lawn outside the hall, where a function was taking place.

It was Christmas of 1997. The students sang hymns, performed skits. Watching them on stage I had time to reminisce. It was not so very long ago, in college, that I was doing my second play with the Ruchika theatre group in Delhi. Bhutto, the controversial play written by I.S. Johar, in which I played the young Benazir Bhutto, got banned the very first day. We were in the wings, waiting for the curtain to open, when the news came in. But today backstage is where I had chosen to be—I had helped in the decoration of the Christmas tree.

The garden is edged by tall pine trees with the Ganga flowing on the side, and Swamiglee is penetrating me with a pointy gaze, like he wants to read something there. His eagerness to watch/have me perform is evident.

Why? Will I get paid for appearing on stage? Like we did on Bollywood stage shows abroad? A ‘spiritual’ payment, perhaps? Hmmm, what would that be. That’s funny, I laugh at my own joke. I resist the temptation to say it, for I assume the patron might miss the humour. The brightest of journalists did, and the misquotations were not funny after a point. I was still reeling under the traumatic aftereffects of those insinuations.

His gestures and advances were almost like those of a little boy tugging at the skirt of his mother; he trailed me everywhere. And this just when, away from a shooting schedule, I was enjoying the solace of being away from unwanted male attention.

Is Swamiglee just pure curious? To know why I, a glam queen, left glam biz? Or is he attracted to me? He rests in a male body—nobody here born on earth, no matter how realized, is God. Besides, Swamiglee did not wear a tag on his arm saying ‘Check me out. I am a realized soul.’

‘I have been on stage too much—in front, for all to view. Now, given a chance, I want to be a watcher. Be just an observer and not a participant.’

I walk off. I am faster than the flow of the unfussy Ganges by our side.

His young yogic legs, longer than mine, are faster. When just a step ahead of me, he does a nimble about-turn and stops abruptly right in front of me, blocking my path—I am impressed by the way the body of the superyogi turns—it is the fastest, the most relaxed turn I have ever seen anyone take.

Wow, yoga. Suddenly, I am inspired.

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