Thursday 7 January 2010

There is more sodomy in Heaven

   There is more sodomy in Heaven.
                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                               

“There is more sodomy in Heaven over one repentant sinner than…” I suddenly noticed that Sheila, with a moment’s time-lag, was looking at me oddly, “is dreamt of in your philosophy.” I blinked beatifically, ashamed of my weak finish.
“Guruji?” Sheila’s Doctorate in Indology was from Chicago but, perhaps because she was virtually ebony complexioned, she affected a Valley Girl accent.
“Speak my child. You have a doubt. It is natural.”
“When you say sodomy do you mean… ?”
“Naturally, naturally. Sodomy in its spiritual sense. For, my child, all things that are but subsist in their spiritual sense. Not otherwise. ”
“But Guruji- sodomy?”
“Oh fuck off you Gujju cunt face. I can’t keep this up.”
“Uhm… Guruji… you’re saying that in the…?”
“Yes, yes. Spiritual sense. It is all in the spiritual sense. Meaning is but God’s Tourette’s. I went over all that in my first podcast.”
Sheila was content. She closed her eyes and settled back trying to get comfortable in the lotus posture. Watching her wearily on the webcam, a Braj Bhasha shloka spontaneously broke forth (this is what is called sphota) from my lips.

“Sayeth the Sage-
Why wagglest thou thy lard butt, chick?
Willst thy piles become a prick?”
“I love Kabir’s dohas-” Sheila piped up, again with a moment’s time-lag, but this time forgetting her American accent as nostalgia overwhelmed her, “& Pundit Jasraj singing Sur’s padavalis. Papa used to play the l.p over and over the moment he got home from College. I miss him so much. You know, they didn’t tell me when he had the stroke. I called as usual on the Saturday and they pretended they were in a hurry to get to a movie- Dilwale Dhulhaniya le jayenge or something crass like that but then Dad did get awful sentimental in his old age what with the kid studying abroad and all- but, you know, and this is what hurts, they told my younger brother Ketan- though he was sitting his finals- he flew back, he had to- you know, the son’s duty is to perform the obsequies and all that. But what was worst was the way I got to hear- my girl-friend, Salma, sees Ketan a couple of weeks after he returned at some IndSoc sock hop or ras garbha and so she calls me on her cell phone to say like why’s your bro gone all skin-head and broody? Is it like a Hare Krishna thing or has he like signed up with the Hindus for Hitler crowd? It took a couple of minutes for the penny to drop- you know, shaving the head as part of the funeral ritual- but when it did you can’t imagine how I felt. And it wasn’t as though I was doing like Hard Science or an M.B.A or something important. I mean- Indology! I could have come home and completed at Dad’s old College. I mean, I could have been there for him. And, later, for Mum and Nanee. You know, the last two years- ever since Praful and I lost the baby- I find myself thinking about it all the time. Work doesn’t help. I get so depressed reading my students’ rehash of the same old gendering soteriology, soteriologising gender crap I had to publish just to get on the treadmill. I mean, I know it all sounds like a tired cliché, but honestly, Guruji, if it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what I’d do.” 
‘Sod this for a game for soldiers!’ I thought to myself, “It’s curtains for my internet Guru shtick. Fuck will I do with all this bandwith? I can’t go back to porn. Frankly there’s a lot less demand for a Lallu Prasad look-a-like taking the brinjal of your choice up his backward caste rectum than any reasonable E-entrepreneur- that too with a diploma in Web Marketing from South Bank!-would calculate upon or expect. I blame Television. And Playstation. No, fuck it, just Television. Television is bad enough.

No comments: