{a world apar t }

BlackBerry was tucked in a side pocket. At first, I reasoned that Parama-

dvaiti took me shopping to appease the presumed wishes of his Western guest. But our arrival at the north end of the cluttered bazaar terminal suggested otherwise; we were greeted by throng- ing stalls filled with pirated technology, faux gold Krishna deities, fried street food, rugs, T-shirts and gilded jewelry, and I posit now that no anti-materialist has ever gotten more excited to view a full display case of sparkling plastic bracelets. “How much?” Paramadvaiti asked

one vendor, holding a purplish bracelet. “Four hundred rupees.” He kept walking. Within minutes,

though, we had collected an allotment of high-value supplies, including natu- ral cold medication (with cardamom), decorative felt banners declaring the Krishna mantra, and a handwoven rug for my mother, available from a haber- dasher named Dinish, who gave us a good discount on account of my uncle. “This is just beautiful craftsman-

ship,” my uncle said, petting the fabric. The shopping ended. Our bonding

did not. We were having a good old time, and for the first time Paramadvaiti was introducing me as his nephew. After stop-offs at a few temples, we wound down a quiet alley, cast in the last or- ange flickers of daylight. Paramadvaiti

stopped at a green metal door, one in a long line of narrow, dilapidated houses. He knocked. Two women answered. They saw Paramadvaiti and gasped. We walked into their home, and the women — one slender, one round — just about clung to the walls, as if in need of bal- ance. Each woman covered her mouth. Paramadvaiti showed his widest smile, hands back in prayer position. “Haribol! Haribol!” he said. Greet-

ings, greetings. The women said nothing. The en-

trance room of their house was all cold concrete, a hard bed in one corner, a bucket in another. A narrow staircase led upward, and Paramadvaiti followed the women until we arrived at a make- shift Krishna shrine. A blue deity stood, sentry-like, in the middle of what looked like a bathtub covered by drapes. Deter- gent and an empty bottle of Minute- Maid aligned at the side of the tub. The women glanced at the porcelain scene, then glanced at Paramadvaiti. He gazed at the bathtub deity for

90 seconds, and it was a gaze I recog- nized — unconditional. He told the women they had done something beau- tiful. “Krishna Krishna Krishna,” he muttered, and he lowered himself to the ground, bowing toward the bathtub. Then, Paramadvaiti excused himself, ducking down the hall into a bath- room.

While my uncle was gone, the slen-

der woman whispered a few words to me in her broken English: “Lucky,” she said. “You are lucky. Follow your uncle. He knows where to go. Always, he can go — how you say? His soul. Shastra, you know. Follow his soul, and you will be happy.” The rounder woman hurried back

down the stairs, and when, after about five minutes, Paramadvaiti reemerged from the bathroom, we returned to the concrete entrance room and took spots on the hard bed. The round woman handed us a platter of flaky sesame seed sticks — a concentration of sugar, like the innards of a Butterfinger. The women giggled as we ate. Paramadvaiti commented that the food was good but that we should be hurrying along. We left about 10 minutes after arriving, having done no more than eat their food and use their toilet. My uncle slung his arm around me. As we walked down the narrow pathway, I asked him why he’d knocked on their door. “Spiritual life, it’s amazing,” he said.

“Did you see those women? They were vibrating with joy.” But I wondered about the biggest

contradiction of all in the worldly life of Swami Bhakti Aloka Paramadvaiti. By supposedly disassociating himself from his ego, he just so happened to discover a life that indulged it. By relinquishing everything, he gained everything. My family members, especially my father and my aunt, wondered, too, how my uncle drew the line between purity and hypocrisy. Devotees sometimes spent 30 minutes on the floor of Parama- dvaiti’s office, rubbing their guru’s feet. Nobody second-guessed his teachings. In every room, he was accepted as the greatest and smartest, a convenient platform for a man whose humility pre- vents him from saying as much. How backward that a man, miser-

swami Paramadvaiti checks his BlackBerry on the banks the Yamuna.

16 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | may 16, 2010

able among his happy family, could find happiness in the places where many would find only misery. Others recog- nized this, too. When my grandmother visited Paramadvaiti in Germany in 1983 and spent time with him for the first time in five years, the combative- ness that drove her crazy when Ulrich was a teen seemed to have disappeared.

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