Cartwheels in a Sari by Jayanti Tamm Page B

almost always invited, which meant that already late nights became even later.
    Now, Guru appeared to have returned to his earlier weary and stern state. He sat quietly on his couch with his palm over his forehead. Finally, in a raspy whisper, he said, “You are all dear to me, very dear. The Beloved Supreme has a special task. Write, write very strong letters to Girish for speaking against me. Very, very strong, you write. Insulting him. Be merciless. Use all of your special American language to insult and scold him. You know his worst qualities, you know his weaknesses. You tell, tell all of this to him in letters that you send. Letting him know he is not a third-class disciple, not a fifth-class disciple, but the lowest of low class of disciple. You people, serve the Supreme by using all kinds of language to insult him.”
    I watched as heads nodded in agreement.
    Yes, Guru. Of course, Guru.
    He is so bad, Guru. His massive ego has poisoned him, Guru.
    He has lowered our consciousness, and he insulted us by insulting you, Guru.
    Right away, Guru, of course, Guru.
    I silently wondered, how could Girish be so bad?
    The car ride home was quiet. I immediately began composing my own letter of insults, but since I had never written that kind of letter before, I realized I would need my mother's help; I wanted to ask her if we could start this morning, skipping what few hours of sleep still existed before I had to go to school, but my mother stared out the window. Ketan was asleep, gently snoring. My father drove, with both hands tightly clutching the wheel, as if trying extra hard to steer us in the right direction, though everything seemed to be pulling the opposite way.

3
The Divine Cage
    “A LO DEVI IS A FAKE,” KETAN SAID.
    “I'm telling,” I threatened, retreating to my standard response to most everything Ketan said or did. “Go right ahead,” Ketan smirked, keenly aware that he had just bombarded me with the most shocking and sensational blow of my childhood.
    He played it off calmly, casually buttoning his prized jean jacket. Since Guru did not approve of denim, Ketan was never able to wear it to meditations, hiding it in the car when we neared Queens, but all other times, even in the summer, he wore it constantly with matching blue jeans, and a plastic comb in his back pocket to fluff up his blond pompadour.
    We sat across from each other in our hot kitchen. My father was at work, and my mother had dashed to the grocery store for vegetables to cook a curry for the evening's meditation. Ketan rocked his chair, resting his feet on one of the four mismatched seats cramped around our square table.
    Often when Ketan claimed he had hot gossip, I'd just sigh or shrug my shoulders, feigning disinterest, in an effort to lessen Ketan's gloating. I squinted at him skeptically.
    “You seem surprised.” Ketan mocked.
    With news this explosive, Ketan could not bear to hold it in for a second longer.
    “Alo's not a God-realized soul. Not at all. She's a big problem for Guru. Guru feels sorry for her, so he doesn't cut her off totally. We're all supposed to pretend that she's just like Guru. But we shouldn't meditate on her or anything like that. Just when she's around we need to fake that we like her and fake that she has powers. But that's it. You know how we have pictures of her on our shrines? Well, most disciples don't. They removed them all.”
    I had been punched in the gut.
    For all of my eleven years, I had worshipped before Guru and Alo. Alo Devi was Guru's Canadian-born companion who met Guru when he was a simple disciple at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in India, where she had arrived alone to immerse herself in the yogic philosophies of the ancient East. After Guru befriended her, she helped Guru leave India, get a green card, and settle in New York City to build his own mission. Given the role of Divine Mother, a spiritual consort, Alo added familiar Western traditions and culture to Guru's path. To me, she was part