Yogi Witch, page 11
A server enters carrying another hookah for Nafeesa behen. He hands her the fur-lined pipe after adjusting the coal. After he leaves, she continues, ‘The great Sulayman ibn Dawud—whom you would know as King Solomon—used a magical golden ring to control the djinn and protect him from them. The ring was set with numerous gems and in the centre was a large diamond that he would use to brand the djinn as his slaves. Some say Sulayman also forced the djinn to build the Temple of Jerusalem and even the city itself. The Quran tells us how the king had them make carpets, ponds, statues and gardens. And whenever Sulayman wanted to travel to faraway places, the djinn would carry him on their backs. Some say they would enchant carpets to fly him there.’
Nafeesa behen blows a majestic cloud of fragrant smoke as she continues, ‘Like humans, the djinn have free will and are able to differentiate between good and evil. The Quran states that they were created for the same purpose as humans were: to worship Allah. They are responsible for their actions and will be judged at the end of their lives. Hell is filled with both djinn and humans.’
At this point, Nafeesa behen’s tone changes. ‘Why do you seek the djinn?’
‘I don’t seek the djinn,’ I answer.
‘What do you mean?’ She appears to be caught off guard by my reply.
I take out a burgundy velvet drawstring bag from my pocket, from which I pull out a large gold ring that bore a large lapis lazuli.
‘One of my clients was gifted this by someone who purchased it from one of your wholesalers. I’m not saying you are responsible for the trouble your ring has caused, but someone is clearly selling djinn-infested jewels to innocent people, for reasons only they know best.’
Nafeesa behen examines the ring carefully. Her face loses its rosy hue as she exclaims, ‘Hai Allah!’ She presses her earlobes with her fingertips and bites her tongue. ‘You’re right, this is definitely from one of my shops! But I assure you that I am not involved with this.’
‘I know,’ I say, taking another puff on the hookah. ‘And I know you will take care of whoever is doing this.’ I take out stacks of two-thousand-rupee notes and place them on the table. ‘However, I need something from you.’
Nafeesa behen quickly puts the money in the pocket of her kaftan. ‘What do you need from me?’
‘You’ll know when the time is right.’ I blow out a cloud of smoke. ‘I trust I have your word.’
‘In’shallah!’ Nafeesa behen says and kisses her fingers. She waves her hand in the air as if sending the kiss to the heavens.
‘Excellent!’ I smile. ‘Now would you be kind enough to dispel the djinn from the ring? In spite of the terror it has caused, the ring holds deep sentimental value for my client.’
Nafeesa behen closes her eyes and begins to recite an Arabic chant with a hypnotically soothing melody before taking a lingering drag from her hookah. Placing the ring in her left palm, she blows out a cloud of smoke that covers the ring, which starts to vibrate wildly. The white vapours of smoke turn a deep shade of grey and begin swirling like a mini tornado. From the centre of the whirlwind appears a large being with a human torso and long limbs—but it has the head of a jackal and the tail of a scorpion.
The creature opens its mouth to reveal a forked tongue like a serpent. Nafeesa behen begins chanting in Arabic again, causing the djinn to howl wildly with the braying sound of a donkey. She removes one of her crystal necklaces, and I understand then that those are rosaries. Waving it in the air in three circles counter-clockwise, she throws it around the djinn’s neck. It brays even more wildly before disintegrating into smoke that seeps into the crystals. Their colour changes from a pale pink to a dark onyx.
Nafeesa behen opens her eyes and regains her calm composure almost instantly. ‘Another glass of sherbet?’ she asks, smiling.
‘Please!’ I answer, blowing out another cloud of fragrant smoke.
Chapter Fourteen
It was a rare sight: Gran and my aunts dressed to the nines. Usually, they were either in their yoga clothes or ritual robes with minimal make-up. But tonight we were dining with the Rajani family, so they had put in an effort to dress up.
Gran looked quite regal in a black dress that flowed down to her Christian Louboutin suede pumps. Her hair was tied up in an elegant bun with a fuchsia lace wrap around her shoulders. Aunt Meg’s Jimmy Choo ankle boots were well-matched to her tight black jeans and off-shoulder paisley peasant top. Aunt Claudine’s virginal white knee-length number was decorated with art-nouveau red roses, and suited her daring personality. It made her long mermaid-like curls seem redder than usual.
‘We’re going to dinner, not walking the streets!’ Aunt Meg remarked when Aunt Claudine met us downstairs.
‘Honey, these heels were definitely not made for walking!’ Aunt Claudine kicked her leg up playfully like a Rockette to show off her white Manolo Blahnik Paloma velvet sandals.
I had on a pair of indigo jeans with a white Henley-neck T-shirt. Gran refused to let me buy ripped jeans no matter how much I tried to convince her that they looked cool. She claimed that respectable people didn’t wear clothes with holes in them. Oh well. Even though I looked pretty plain compared to them, mine was a classic look that could never go wrong. However, I did throw on a pair of ruby-red Converses to add an extra splash of colour.
We were escorted by a uniformed attendant to their grand living room, where Damyanti rose to greet us. She was dressed in an elegant turquoise Anita Dongre saree with white gold embroidery that perfectly complimented her platinum diamond necklace. We immediately felt severely underdressed.
‘Forgive my husband’s absence,’ she said. ‘Since last year’s elections, he’s been so caught up with work.’
I could tell Gran and my aunts weren’t impressed by the gilded surroundings that resembled the lobby of an extravagant Dubai hotel, complete with a grand Swarovski chandelier.
‘I didn’t realize Mr Rajani was involved in the elections,’ said Gran politely. A uniformed server arrived with glasses of champagne.
‘Oh, you know how it is,’ said Damyanti, smiling as she indicated for us to be seated at a big ivory and gold upholstered couch. ‘Business and politics go hand in hand.’
Instead of sitting down, I walked over to the large wall-length oil canvas of a woman driving a green Bugatti. ‘Is that an original Tamara de Lempicka?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it is!’ Damyanti sounded impressed. ‘We got it at Sotheby’s last year, but had no space at our home in Jodhpur.’ She turned towards Gran. ‘So, when we moved here, I had our interior decorator find curtains to match the colours of that painting.’
‘Indeed.’ Gran smiled.
‘I hope you don’t mind my asking,’ Damyanti began as an attendant arrived with a tray of assorted hors d’oeuvres, making sure to offer it to all of us before coming over to Damyanti, who shook her head gently to refuse. ‘I was wondering where you are all from …’
‘I’m sorry?’ Aunt Meg raised a quizzical brow.
‘Oh, it’s just that, it’s so rare to, you know, see a family of foreig—’
‘Expats?’ Aunt Claudine cut in, taking a swig of her champagne.
‘Yes!’ Damyanti giggled nervously as she toyed with her diamond bracelet. ‘I mean, your accents sound pretty neutral, with barely any trace of …’
Before she could dig herself deeper into a politically incorrect hole, Gran quickly said, ‘Well, I was born in India, as were my daughters.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, my mother was Irish and my father was English. They came to India before Independence. Daddy was a research scholar who studied Sanskrit literature …’
‘Sanskrit literature? That’s fascinating!’ Damyanti’s eyes sparkled.
Another attendant came in and refilled everyone’s glass, including mine. Aunt Claudine winked at me as my glass was refreshed, followed by Aunt Meg shooting me a look to not go overboard. Gran continued, ‘Yes. So, Daddy was gifted our home by the Nehru government for his work, and while Mummy studied yoga with Babaji—’
‘Oh, was this Shri Dhirendra Bhramachari Ji?’ Damyanti interrupted.
‘Oh no, our Babaji kept a low profile. He stayed away from all things political. Mummy said that he had renounced his own name by the time he was twenty, and thus, we just called him Babaji. He was the one who taught me yoga as well.’
‘Oh?’ Damyanti smiled. ‘Is he still around?’
‘Well, we don’t know. When I was a teenager, he mysteriously vanished.’
‘Vanished?’
‘Well, we don’t know exactly what happened to him …’
‘Some say he took up hermitage somewhere in the Himalayas and lives a hermetic life,’ Aunt Claudine recrossed her legs.
‘Others say he has already attained Maha Samadhi and left this earthly realm,’ Aunt Meg said as she dipped a small piece of bread into some herb mushroom pâté.
‘And it’s not like we could find him on Facebook,’ Gran grinned as Damyanti giggled softly.
‘Well, that is fascinating,’ Damyanti said, smiling. ‘Do you all speak Sanskrit too?’
‘Of course!’ said Gran.
‘Hindi as well …’ Aunt Claudine was bored but was delighted when more champagne was poured in her glass.
‘It freaks out the auto drivers when we bargain with them.’ Aunt Meg’s blunt tone caused Damyanti to giggle again. It was clear that riding in an auto-rickshaw was an alien concept to her.
‘So have you spent all your life in Delhi?’ she asked my aunts.
‘Well, we were born here, but I went to Woodstock for boarding school,’ replied Aunt Meg.
‘And I went to Welham’s,’ Aunt Claudine feigned a smile.
‘Oh? Why not go to the same school?’ Damyanti asked.
‘Oh God, no!’ Aunt Meg rolled her eyes.
‘We’d have killed each other if we had!’ Aunt Claudine definitely enjoyed her champagne.
‘You know how teenage girls can be,’ Gran said.
‘Then how come you didn’t send Jai to boarding school as well?’ asked Damyanti, glancing at me as I was still admiring the Lempicka.
‘Well, considering Jai’s parents passed when he was just a baby, we felt it was best he stayed with us. He goes to St. Sebastian’s—’
‘Oh, St. Sebastian’s is lovely, I believe!’ Damyanti cut in, turning towards me now. ‘Do you enjoy school?’
‘Quit boring them with this ridiculous small talk!’
I turned in the direction of the voice to see Vir enter the living room. He was dressed in black from head to toe, with his fitted shirt unbuttoned generously to reveal his musclular chest in a way that didn’t seem tacky. He looked even hotter all scrubbed up.
‘Vir beta!’ Damyanti got up to greet him, but he walked past her and headed straight to the ornate mahogany bar across the room. He pushed past the attendant standing there and poured himself a neat Glenfiddich before sprawling on a large chair across from Damyanti.
‘I doubt anyone wants to talk about school at this time!’ Vir said, taking a large swig. Clearly, his tolerance for alcohol had been developed from a young age.
Damyanti smiled nervously. ‘Vir went to Mayo and—’
‘Hated every single minute of it!’ Vir rolled his eyes. ‘Though it did give you enough time to get Tauji to leave his wife for you. Such a cliché: the secretary sucks cock to move up in society.’
Damyanti mustered all her composure. ‘I was a senior executive at Rajani Enterprises—’
‘Executive cocksucker!’
‘Vir!’ Damyanti was trying to hold back her tears.
An awkward silence followed.
‘So, how come you stopped attending class?’ Gran asked in an effort to ease the tension.
Damyanti snapped out of her moment of suppressed rage and returned to her smiling self. ‘Oh, you see, it was a bit too much for us. I mean, you all seemed so advanced. We are used to doing the traditional hatha style of yoga. You know, simple classic poses that follow twelve rounds of Surya Namaskar …’
‘Oh, so you guys had a Sivananda teacher?’ Aunt Meg asked.
‘Oh yes!’ Damyanti replied. ‘He was from the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh. Even though he had his own studio, he would come over to our haveli every morning to give us private classes. Vir was interested in learning how to do a headstand, but otherwise preferred going to the gym instead.’
‘That explains the headstands,’ Aunt Claudine whispered to Aunt Meg.
‘Yeah,’ Vir said, overhearing her. ‘It was cool to learn it, but nothing beats pumping iron.’
‘Is that all you pump?’ Aunt Claudine cheekily retorted, causing me to turn red. Thank God that Gran kept the conversation on track.
‘Well, now I understand why you didn’t continue with us,’ she said. ‘We teach Vinyasa-style yoga. It can be a bit intimidating for those who’re used to a more structured class.’
Before Damyanti could say anything further, her husband walked in. We all stood up—well, except Vir.
‘Pardon my tardiness!’ said Rajani Sahab. He was dressed in a navy-coloured business suit.
‘Long day at the office?’ Damyanti asked as she walked over and gave him a gentle peck on his cheek. He seemed unmoved by her display of affection.
‘If you give me a few minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll freshen up and join you all for dinner.’
He turned and headed upstairs, followed by Mr Rathi, who was carrying his boss’s patent leather briefcase in one hand and a tan laptop bag in the other.
‘I guess now we know why he has a male personal assistant,’ Aunt Claudine whispered in my ear with a playful chuckle. Thank God no one heard her.
Dinner was set in a large dining room with a long rosewood table that could seat ten. Rajani Sahab sat at the head of the table. Behind him, a pair of grand antlers hung from the wall, almost framing his skull. He was in an elegant khadi kurta that seemed so simple compared to Damyanti’s saree. Though if one looked closely, one could see the twenty-four carat gold threads that were seamlessly interwoven into the fabric.
Damyanti sat across the table with Gran by her side. She said, ‘I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of making our dinner vegan. Though our family is vegetarian, I assumed that you all must be vegan. After all, you are yogis—’
‘Oh, that’s thoughtful of you, my dear!’ Gran cut in as the server served the first course of mulligatawny soup. ‘However, we aren’t vegan.’
‘Oh, really?’ Damyanti sounded curious. ‘So then, you’re vegetarian?’
‘No, we eat everything.’
‘Aren’t yogis supposed to be vegetarian?’ Rajani Sahab curled his moustache, which was thicker than the hair on his scalp.
‘Some are,’ Gran replied. ‘However, nowhere is it written in the yoga sutras that one needs to be a vegetarian in order to be a yogi.’
‘Nonsense!’ Rajani’s tone caught us by surprise. ‘The Bhagwad Gita clearly states that eating meat is sinful.’
Damyanti chuckled nervously. Gran finished her first spoonful of soup before she replied. ‘I suppose you’re referring to chapter three, verse thirteen, which states yajna-shistanshinah santo muchyante sarva-kilbishaih; bunjate the tvagham papa ye pachantyatma-karanat.’
The Rajanis were clearly caught off guard by Gran’s perfect Sanskrit. She continued, ‘That basically translates to, “The spiritually minded, who eat food that is first offered in sacrifice, are released from all kinds of sin. Others, who cook food for their own enjoyment, verily eat only sin.” That’s not exactly advocating vegetarianism.’
‘Yes, but isn’t meat tamasic in nature?’ asked Rajani sahab as he took a swig of his Scotch on the rocks.
‘So is alcohol,’ Aunt Claudine chimed in cheekily, causing him to sputter. ‘But we all seem to enjoy it.’
‘Alcohol doesn’t involve killing life,’ he retorted after regaining his composure.
‘Tell that to the bacteria needed for fermentation,’ said Aunt Meg, sipping her white wine. It went quite well with the mulligatawny.
Before Rajani Sahab could reply, Gran continued, ‘Yes, meat is tamasic and so is alcohol. However, Lord Shiva is considered to represent the Guna of Tamas, while Vishnu represents Sattva and Brahma represents Rajas. And it is Shiva who is the Adi Yogi—the one who taught yoga to the world.’
‘I believe he taught it first to Parvati?’ Damyanti said, smiling as she sipped her wine.
‘Indeed, he did,’ Gran affirmed before having another spoonful of soup.
‘And he teased her mercilessly when she couldn’t sit in padmasana,’ Aunt Meg continued the narrative to allow Gran to enjoy her soup. ‘When the teasing crossed a line, Goddess Parvati pushed him into the river. There, they came across a fish who was spying on their lesson. That fish could recite all the shlokas he had heard, impressing Lord Shiva. He blessed the fish with a human form and thus was born Sage Mastyendra, who spread yoga to the world.’
‘Oh, that’s fascinating!’ said Damyanti, her eyes sparkling.
‘Whoop-di-freaking-doo!’ Vir muttered under his breath. It was hard for me to even enjoy my soup considering its flavour was overwhelmed by Vir’s musky cologne. But I was pleased to be seated next to him. Aunt Claudine and Aunt Meg sometimes shot me teasing looks from across the table but I did my best to ignore them.
‘Yes, but imagine if Shiva ate the fish!’ Rajani sahab snapped while signalling the server to clear his soup bowl.
‘Well, there’s this beautiful story in the Shiva Purana,’ said Gran. ‘One day, a farmer on his way to sell his produce in a nearby town came across a lone tribesman worshipping a Shiva Linga in the middle of the forest. The farmer was appalled that the tribesman was offering beef to the Shiva Linga as a form of worship. In a fit of anger, the farmer kicked him and shooed him away. He removed the offending meat from the Linga, replacing it with his fresh fruits and vegetables. The next day, he found the man by the Shiva Lingam again, offering his beef. The farmer lost his cool and began assaulting him mercilessly—’
