Devotees accompany the swami through the streets of Vrindavan.

the inside of the airport terminal. Some- body had heard gunshots indoors several hours earlier, and men with resplendent mustaches gripped machine guns to their shoulders. A shrieking ambush of cabdrivers pleaded: “Where to, sir? Where to? I take you, yes?” My uncle was four hours south,

by taxi, in a village called Vrindavan. There, at an ashram called Vrinda Kunj, he was staying with dozens of devotees. I wondered: Was I visiting an uncle or a god? I hopped into a cab. When the driver asked why I’d come to India, I said, as if to wish it were true, that I was visiting family. After four hours, we bounced into

Vrindavan, up and down through the Old World decay: Krishna temples, beautiful and destroyed; rhesus mon- keys hanging from electric wires; piles of plastic litter; kids urinating in the streets. Alleyways led to smaller alley- ways, and finally, at the last doorway of the universe, there he was — Parama- dvaiti, thank God. He rose when he saw me. He was

fleshy as a papaya and far bigger than anybody else in my family. We shared an uncertain hug — quick, first-datish

— and he showed me to the upstairs room where I would spend the next 10 days. We sat down on opposite sides of my bed. I said nothing. He operated with great comfort in silence, and the si- lence hung there long enough for me to wonder what he was wondering. The si- lence: My uncle just inhaled it, holding it, until at last he exhaled and smiled. The smile, tugging at every crease of his face, caught me off guard. It was the kind of smile that said: I could sit here all day on this hard bed and say nothing. It was also the kind of smile that said: I am the rare man who can prove his authority with silence. When the big man finally deigned

it time to talk, my much-rehearsed plan for the First Conversation was in smithereens. I had outlined my talking points: I could tell him about the little flashes in my own life where I took risks, as he had, or felt lost. I could tell him about quitting my comfy job in 2007 and heading for seven months to Aus- tralia. I could show him my backpack, stuffed with goodies that emphasized the overlap of our separate lives. Socks that my grandmother knitted for him. Fresh family photos. Old letters he’d

sent to my grandmother. Of course, I realized then that these

were relics from a past life, and unveil- ing them might be a poor way to dem- onstrate my modest sense of enlighten- ment and material distaste. The revised plan was to, more or less, shut up and listen. Paramadvaiti needed no prodding.

With measured and formal words, he spent several minutes describing life at the ashram, where austerity applied to almost everything, including the toilets, which lacked seats. We wake up for daily 5 a.m. meditation and chant- ing, he explained. We think constantly about God. My uncle paused. His next words

sounded unsteady, or even awkward. My uncle… well, he sort of apologized. “I realize, yes, that I have not been such a present part of the family,” he said. I nodded. He patted me on my knee. “Sometimes, the Krishna communi-

ty and the birth family are diametrically opposed obligations. Maybe this, these next days, I can make up for my absence as an uncle. Yes?” I barely had the chance to respond, because the door to my room swung

may 16, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine

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