Chapter 9: Time

The three of us were seated on the vintage wrought-iron chairs on the terrace outside my office, overlooking the lake. Peter was sipping from the iced tea we had poured him from a cooled carafe.

For a while, we just enjoyed the evening silence and the tranquil view of two white swans gracefully floating by.

Dusk was slowly settling over the mountains, until we no longer could make out the quayside on the other side of the lake where Sisi - short for Empress Elisabeth of Austria - was stabbed to death in the fall of 1898.

Peter broke the silence by suggesting we could discuss his Bangkok story maybe. 

Katrina for one, remained quiet, no doubt cautious after her frustrating attempt in the last session to engage with him in a dialogue on his Singapore piece.  

So I took the cue and said: “Perplexing what you wrote, Peter. I was shocked to learn about the accident and the little girl. Did all of this happen for real?”

“Yes Doc, everything occurred like I described it, now almost four years ago, back when I was still drinking. But at the time, it all happened in a daze, like I was in a trance. As you pointed out before, it was a time when I was full of ego and struggling for emotional survival. Completely out of touch with myself.“

“Yet with this story, you’ve found the courage �" post factum - to breathe meaning into that whole incident by facing the pain again and writing it up like a confession. No small feat, Peter.”

“Well, I guess it finally led me to redemption which was long overdue. Just the fact of replaying the frantic scenes in Bangkok from an alternate vantage point felt like a purge.”

“Alternate in what sense Peter?”

“By putting it in the context of my not living up to my true potential, Doc. In our last session, we agreed that what I had felt all this time was guilt for not being the person I could have been. It felt good to finally confess to that and get it off my chest.”

I nodded that I understood. 

“The way that the story builds up to its deep conclusions fascinates me, Peter.”

“In what sense, Doc?”

“At the risk of going off on a tangent, I’d like to discuss how you often come to insights relying on hunch and gut-feel, rather than conscious deliberation? This seems to contradict with your penchant for thinking.’

I took a moment to arrange my thoughts and decide on a strategy to proceed.

“Earlier, we established that when you write, you tap into spontaneous ingenuity, rather than logical thinking. Was this again the case here?” 

“Funny you should ask, Christine. Yes, again I had the very real sensation that it was not me writing, but rather a quiet force holding the pen. You will recall that I had that same feeling when I wrote about first love?”

I was acutely aware of the fact that he had called me by my given name Christine for the first time ever. I wondered what to make of that. Much to my embarrassment, I blushed at this unexpected move on his part. I hoped he and Katrina would not notice.

Best to focus and continue.

“That confirms exactly what I thought, Peter. You pour your very soul into these stories. Their authenticity reflects who you really are and so you should trust your conclusions and act upon them.”

He just nodded and kept quiet. 

“The reason I keep coming back to the writing is that I am trying to make you see that your stories can help you express and master your deep-rooted emotions, which you say are ordinarily off limits to the rational you.”

He looked out over the water for a long pensive moment, before returning his attention back to me. But he did not speak.

I continued.

“In our very first session, you wanted me to cure you from your incessant thinking, right? You pleaded for me to help you find a safe place within yourself where you would be free from your own mind.”

“Sure I recall that, Doc.” 

He almost whispered.

We were back to Doc. Somehow that felt like a mild bee sting. Him calling me Christine must have been a lapsus. But at some level, I’d liked it and now it made me wonder why he always called Kristina by her given name. Could it be that part of me was jealous? 

I quickly brushed these ridiculous thoughts away. Transference was at play here.

I tried to regain my professional composure, slightly annoyed with myself.

“Well Peter, our time spent together has made me see that on the one hand you indeed overthink matters, but on the other hand you have a remarkably strong sixth sense. What you need to do now is to learn to leverage both.”

Peter was all ears.

“The ideal situation for you is to form a working hypothesis with your intuition and then to use your natural-born ability for logic and reason to do a reality check.”

“It’s tough for me to even imagine using intuition as I see myself as a rational person. And I thought intuition was a female thing?”

“That is very funny, Peter. You demonstrate great powers of intuition but you are obviously unaware of them. I think in your case, intuition is a hidden gem which you have failed to dig up for the longest time. Intuition as you command it is a powerful bridge between emotion and thought.” 

“Let me guess Doc, my writing is the fast route to that intuitive faculty, right?”

“Spot on, Peter, but I will do you one better. I believe it is the only way for you to bypass your brain and your five senses and perceive a deeper reality. Like I said, it is literally a sixth sense.”

It was almost completely dark now, with the top of Mt. Blanc bathing in the soft glow of the crescent moon. 

As it was getting chilly, I was about to suggest we’d move inside.

But then Peter said: “There were two different actors in the Bangkok story, right? Before the accident, my ego ruled supreme, but then after the crash, a more genuine side of me emerged. At least in the story, that is.”

“What do you mean with at least in the story, Peter?”

“Well, in reality that humble version of me did not really show after the crash. Back then, I did not come to the same insights as I did now, when writing it up. Back then, I remained very much the smug, self-important business type and I remember going back to drinking, soon after I got home."

I settled back into my chair as Katrina stood up to get us some sweaters inside my office.

"Go on, Peter."

"I almost died in that cab back there, and yet, as frightening as the whole incident was, it did not open my eyes. How can it be that only now, being sober and reliving it four years later, I am able to see how that crash really affected me and how I was responsible for it, really.”

He paused for just a moment. 

“It is amazing how time works, isn’t it? It seems the past is not entirely done with, until you look at it with your full consciousness.”

“Sobriety is a gift that keeps on giving, Peter.”

He looked at me questioningly.

“By banning alcohol from your life, your attitude has shifted from utmost hubris and overall superiority, all the way down to humility and a complete absence of hypocrisy. And indeed, a new alertness has come over you. You’ve come to see things clearly, even things that are far in the past.”

He was glowing when he heard this. He wanted so much to believe that he had changed for the better, that he was becoming a new person.

"Peter, I think you now want to feel fully accountable, because you know that, in the end, only rigorous honesty can make you whole again. Addiction, after all, is nothing if not an attempt to live life outside of accountability.”

“Well, it sure is an eye opener how abstinence can bring truth to the surface. I’m finally able to distil a drop of meaning from an otherwise lifeless episode."

He looked at me intensely.

“What I mean, Doc is that I’d never have thought that anything good would come from that absolute low point in my life. Trying to make sense of it, felt like extracting water from a rock. And yet now I cannot deny I feel a sense of satisfaction that I went through that horrible period of uncontrollable drinking. I’ve come out a better man.”

“A few minutes back, you called your drinking years a lifeless time. Lifeless is indeed a good word to describe the deadening quality of the addictive experience, Peter.” 

It was important that he did not step into the trap of romanticizing the whole drinking episode, but rather saw it for what it really was. 

“Peter, you were on a truly hopeless carousel ride, but you got yourself off just in time.”

“Yes I did, Doc.”

“Your storytelling about the events leading up to the taxi accident indeed captured the absolute insanity of the ego state that drove you to be a high-functioning alcoholic with a crazy compulsion to excel in business and stand out from the crowd. Just so you could stay in denial of your fear of dying and of your guilt for wasting the best years of your life.” 

“You use the word compulsion, Doc. That makes it sound like I was a helpless victim. Let’s be honest here, it would have been only fair if I would have died in that cab, instead of the poor taxi driver.”

“No point in going down that route, Peter. In fact, you’ve allowed that series of unfortunate events to transform you, that in the end is what counts.”

He looked at me with a quizzical look. I had to spell it out using pure logic, the language he understood best.

“Peter, three things happened there in Bangkok.”

His eyes were full of anticipation. “Yes?”

“First, the crash itself made you realize that you’d been on the wrong track, thinking only about yourself and that what happened was exactly what you deserved, as you put it.”

“Then the dream you had in the hospital about the unsinkable ship that in the end proved to be vulnerable after all, that was a significant turning point because it put a big fat hole in your denial mechanism. It made you realize that you were not invincible. That you weren’t special or immortal.”

“And finally, the fact that the little girl turned out to be unharmed against all odds, had enormous symbolic value. A second chance like that, you only get once in life.”

I paused for a moment.

“Do not disrespect a gift like that by concluding that it should have been you dying. That would mean you missed the point completely.”

“Yeah, ok. I now see what you mean, Doc. I need to take this opportunity with both hands and make something of the rest of my life. I am just not clear what that is, exactly?”

“Peter, throughout our therapy sessions, you’ve been integrating all these discoveries about yourself into a new and improved version of yourself. Do not underestimate what has been happening here. Remember the concept of alchemy, turning base metals into gold? You’ve been turning your misery into incredible insights.”

He quietly acknowledged my words as he looked over the water into the darkness. 

I also looked at the amazing view before us. The snow-covered mountain tops were mirrored by the pale moonlight into the blackness of Lake Geneva. 

Glancing at Katrina, I noticed only now that she was wearing a lovely dress with a subtle polka dot background that was exactly right for this therapeutic setting,

She listened while smiling  demurely and I could not help but wonder how there was a lot more to her than what meets the eye.  

I had grown very fond of Katrina Vikander, both on a professional and a person level, and I was seriously considering hiring her on a permanent basis, once her internship would be completed. She was a diamond in the rough as far as I was concerned.

A couple of minutes passed by without any of us speaking.

Then Peter said: “Ladies, do you recall the story about my swimming further and further away from shore in the Caribbean, wondering what the point was of it all?”

“Yes, Peter, it was one of the first vignettes you wrote, right after we started therapy. I remember also that your conclusion was to aim high, aim for the meaning of your life. Correct?”

“Well yes, but I am still looking for that same sense of purpose. Even as I have come to learn a great deal about myself since then, I still feel that I’ve come full circle back to the same question: why?”

“This might indeed feel like Deja Vue, Peter but I want to point out that there is a difference now compared to then.”

“What’s that, Doc?”

“This time around, you’re taking yourself much less seriously. There is less drama, less self-pity.”

“I guess I have come to see that my circumstances are not as unique as I thought.

We’re all in this boat together. I am just a man, like any other.”

“Yes, and you have started using irony as a weapon against the absurdity, Peter.

The way you talk and write clearly reflects you take yourself with a large pinch of salt now.”

“If with irony, you mean the realization that we are all playing a game of make believe by creating our own truth of what life is all about, than I agree with Doc. It’s clearly up to us to make it count because for sure the universe will not do that for us. We are condemned here on earth to make the best of it.”

“That is exactly what I mean, Peter. And in your stories, you detach yourself from your own importance and observe what happens within you with a sense of humor.” 

I looked at my notes. 

“As a lucid witness, you called it previously.”

“Humor? I use humor?”

His reaction in itself was very funny and I allowed myself to smile. He was and would always be the archetypal intellectual.

“You have learned to master irony in the sense that you have come to see your own predicament as amusing rather than terrifying, Peter. You now understand that your disconcertedness with existence cannot be cured and yet it is not insanity. It is what we shrinks call normal neurotic existence. For us humans, it is simply impossible not to be in despair but the key is to be aware of it and use it to enrich our lives. The fact that life is transient makes it so much more precious.”

“Is that not turning things upside down, Doc? Life is better because it is ending?”

“No, that is correct, Peter. To quote Kierkegaard: Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”

“If it is true that I have come to understand the function of my anxiety, then why am I still so preoccupied with death?”

“Sure you talk about your fear of death, but you’ve come to accept that this is, in fact, the very backbone of a well-lived life. Anxiety has stirred up your spiritual life because you have started to take your struggle with the human condition seriously, rather than drinking it away.”

Peter seemed intrigued and prodded me to go on.

“Without that anxiety, you would not have regained your sensitivity to life. Your profound sense of unease keeps you on your toes and makes you work up the courage every single day to reach a more positive state of mind.”

I paused for effect, and then added: “Anxiety is the basic experience of the paradox of life.”

“Paradox?”

“How to purposefully deal with your sense of disorientation in a universe believed to be absurd.”

“I feel I am stuck on repeat on that very point. Why do you feel I have made progress on this? “

Before I had a chance to speak, Katrina said: “Peter, in your Curacao story, you pictured yourself as a red dot in a blue body of water, just like Google Maps shows it online, looking down on earth from outer space, right?”

Peter was somewhat taken aback by her intervention: “Yes, Katrina?”

“That is what is known as the galactic perspective. Looking down at ourselves from that height, it makes us feel like we are but microscopic specs in the vast expanse of the cosmos.”

She continued confidently.

“That’s when the absurdity paradox is at its extreme. From a cosmic perspective, it’s very hard to fathom that we as mortal human beings amongst countless other life forms can amount to anything in the greater scheme of things. All our efforts seem foolish and trivial and whether we exist or not doesn't seem to make a great difference.” 

“Galactic. I see.” Peter said in a slightly mocking tone.

Katrina was on a roll and did not seem to notice his sneer.

“I would advise that you distance yourself from that universal perspective because it only drains vitality and richness from real life through endless abstraction. In the end, it appears that nothing matters and all good things are just vanities in the big picture. In short, life is a b***h and then you die.”

She was speaking with authority and not holding back. I wondered where this was coming from. After all, she was all of twenty-seven years of age. But it was exactly her young perspective that made her examples and analogies so refreshing. 

The jury was still out as far as I was concerned on the point whether her words sounded more captivating because of her ravishing looks. Peter surely looked completely mesmerized with her and yet, I wondered whether he took her seriously.

Katrina plowed through, determined to make her point.

“Peter, you are a business man so you must do a lot of work on your laptop, right?”

Peter could only confirm at this point.

“Well, then you’re familiar with both Word and PdF file formatting, right?.”

Peter nodded but it was clear he did not know where this was going. I was wondering about that myself. Katrina was undisturbed.

“To me, life in the here and now is like Word. You can see the spelling errors and wrong paragraph indenting but you know you can still change things. What the galactic perspective does is to wrap up the nitty gritty details of life in an unforgiving and detached PdF format that can no longer be adapted to changing realities and perma-freezes everything for eternity and infinity.”

Brilliant. She was unstoppable.

“Come back down to earth and zoom in on the here and now, Peter. You are with us this evening, in this lovely place. Take in the fresh alpine air, look at the majestic Mt. Blanc and the icy blue glacier water of Lake Geneva. The moon is shining down on us. Well, be here!”

I could see that Peter fully understood what she was saying but rather than acknowledging her, he said with a half-smile: “You mean I’m not here, then?

I made a mental note to investigate what it was that made Peter time and again want to frustrate Katrina in her attempts to help him.  

Katrina, however, was unfazed and continued in a composed manner: “I am just trying to get my point across, Peter. You are physically here, but mostly, you are stuck in your head.”

She clearly was not intimidated by him. At all.

“There is something very noxious in stepping too far back from life and only contemplating its meaning all the time. What you need to do is to de-reflect, you have done enough thinking for one lifetime. You should now grab life with both hands and re-engage with it.”

It seemed Katrina had saved up all her thoughts just for today. She had lit up the night air with a fireworks display of relevance.

Funnily enough, Peter now seemed to have come to the urgent realization he needed to be far more accommodating towards her. 

“Katrina, you have made some very good points here and I want to thank you for that.”

Peter tried hard to get the words out.

“I think what you are saying is that things matter to us all the time, even if they do not mean anything. If things do not fit together into some unified grand scheme, that’s ok, as long as they matter to us. Like my music and my books, they matter to me, even if they cannot explicitly give me the meaning of life.”

Katrina nodded and smiled a beautiful smile.

She surely had surprised us both this evening and she was about to finish with a bang. 

She looked up at the clock and said: “According to Buddha, one must immerse oneself in the river of life and let all questions drift away. I happen to agree with Buddha, I think life just happens to be and requires no reason.”

She had managed this session like a boss.

The hour was up.

A Thousand Weddings by Peter Baer

Although it’s Saturday, I wake up at 6 am from an uneasy sleep and look at my mobile phone. I see I have five missed calls and one voice mail. The country code of the incessant night caller is +91, which is India.

I wonder what this might be about and dial my voice mail.

I listen to the elaborate message which is delivered in Indian English with heavily trilled r’s. When the content of the voice message hits home, my mind races back to my last trip to India, now six months ago. The memory is so vivid that it seems I am instantly back over there.

Early May is a great time to come to Bangalore. A balmy breeze welcomes me as I close my eyes and take a deep breath as I step outside of Karnataka International Airport.

The glorious fragrance of Black Cardamom and Holy Basil in the warm and humid Indian air is as unique as it gets. Just like a master sommelier can tell his Grand Crus wines in a blind tasting, as a traveling man I know my cities just by breathing in the air. Moscow is gasoline, Beijing is smog, but Bangalore is heaven.

I am dead tired. After an eleven-hour flight from Europe, our Airbus-320 was kept from docking at the airport terminal because a stray dog was seen moving freely about on the tarmac. It took two hours before the control tower finally gave us permission to taxi to the gate.

The Hindustan Times of tomorrow will cover the delay stating matter-of-factly that the airport’s GHOST Team - as in Ground Handling Operations Safety " had been unable to locate the proper procedure in their operations manual on how to capture the frightened animal.

It’s become exceedingly clear to me from curious incidents like this one with the stray dog that India is destined for spiritual rather than practical greatness. Fast and efficient seems to go against the grain in this country. Struggling along is the natural flow of things.

Indian natives are known to happily meander and stray off course in their very own dimension of time. To the world, IST means Indian Standard Time, but when you get to see the way things are done here on the ground, you’ll see that it is actually India Stretched Time. The attitude here towards time is fluid and relaxed, to say the least, because of their cyclical view. When you expect to live multiple times through reincarnation, there is no real need to stick to the clock. If things do not work out this time around, you can always try again in a next life. Time does not hold the importance it does in the West because here in India there is always a fresh start.

As a foreigner, it takes some getting used to the fact that deadlines here are not absolute. But I love this country because its circumstances simply force you to take a philosophical stance in life. Although we tend to look down upon their funny, half-baked approach to things, Indians seem to capture the essence of human existence better than we do.

The Buddha taught that all things and beings are impermanent, and, therefore, any attachment to them is a source of unhappiness. Indians eat and breathe this ‘life is life’ attitude and attach less importance to the illusion of control than we do, taking joy in letting things unfold.

Thinking about this, I’m reminded of Fiona Apple’s song Container in which she captures the crux of life’s contingent nature: “I have only one thing to do and that's to be the wave that I am and then sink back into the ocean.”

I step into a taxi and smile when I see a huge billboard with Incredible India, the aptly chosen tagline of the Ministry of Tourism’s advertising campaign, designed to welcome the inbound traveler.

Incredible, indeed.

This time around, I am in Bangalore to hire a new India country manager. The previous one was detained a week ago by the Fraud Investigation Office on charges of collusion with local officials. Turns out he paid speed money to get faster clearance through Indian bureaucracy, an unfortunate misinterpretation of the sense of urgency I had imposed upon him.

We operate a zero tolerance policy when it comes to corruption so I had no choice but to take a firm stance. This type of firing is not uncommon among multinationals in India but a first for me. Anyway, I want to move on and reboot the organization. I have my work cut out for me these coming days.

But this trip is special also for a more pleasant reason.

I have been kindly invited to attend the marriage of Aneeta, the sophisticated and elegant young woman who is my local Operations Manager.

Her name means Grace and fits her like a glove. She has a regal air about her, with her long black hair always done up and her dark brown, almond-shaped eyes. Her soft voice demands respect while her coy smile makes me forget sometimes that we’re in a place of business.

She’s been the first in her family to earn a Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Science, an absolute top university, and she’s proven herself to be invaluable to the team in the two years she’s been with us. She’s an ambitious and proud young woman, which makes her choice of a husband all the more intriguing.

The marriage, an inter-caste affair, is somewhat of a controversy in the office.

Aneeta originates from Brahmin lineage, the upper crust social class in India. For some time now, she has had her mind set on marrying Anirudh, a young man from the backward Dalit caste. Dalit, meaning Oppressed, is the caste of Untouchables, the fifth group beyond the four-fold classification of the Indian population.

He’s an equally striking young man who goes through life undaunted by his low-born heritage. He’s strong-willed and Aneeta is what he wants.

They met a little over a year ago when she visited the hospital where he works as a security guard. Struck by love, Anirudh did not hesitate one minute to ask Aneeta out on a date. His sheer determination won her over and they fell in love. Variations of this Bollywood-type story have circulated in the office ever since and everyone was delighted when they decided to tie the knot.

I have seen the couple together a couple of times at company functions and to me, they seem a match made in heaven. They have eyes only for each other and do not care what social compatibility code they are supposed to adhere to.

I am happy for them and my gut says: “Go for it!”

But things are all but straightforward here. Caste fanatics raise hell whenever an upper caste woman marries a Dalit man because she will bear - unavoidably - a lower caste heir, thereby contaminating her social class.

This sort of mismatch often leads to violence. That’s why many marriages are still pre-arranged by the parents based on caste and often even horoscope sign, exactly to avoid this kind of unfortunate outcome of real love. The cynic in me understands, but the romantic says: “Screw it.”

It all seems hypocritical. Caste politics here at play are about masculine ego more than anything else. If a man of a higher station marries a Dalit woman, he is praised for his benevolence, he is said to have uplifted her. If an upper caste woman marries a Dalit man, all hell breaks loose.

So, the bottom line is I’m still troubled. The last thing I need is for this quagmire to seep through into the office space and pollute the already delicate working environment. My attending the wedding means taking a clear position and I need to be absolutely sure this will not open a can of worms.

But when I arrive at the office, Aneeta is all smiles and she goes to great lengths to assure me I should not worry. Their two families have had intense discussions and agreed, in the end, to dismiss all outside criticism and fully support the union in the name of true love.

And to be fully validated under India’s Special Marriage Act, the couple has put up a Notice of Intent at the Registrar’s Office to publicly declare their engagement to be married as an inter-caste couple. Much like we in Europe would put up a sign on a piece of land declaring our intention to build a house. Love overcomes all obstacles, it seems, with a little help from the government in this particular case.

I decide for myself I am fine with this state of affairs. I feel relieved and buoyed.

Aneeta & Anirudh will not be the only couple in Bangalore to be joined in matrimony this week.

This coming Friday, the city has a thousand weddings scheduled on the occasion of Akshaya Tritiya, a most auspicious day in the Hindu lunar calendar. According to mythology, the sacred river Ganges descended to the earth from heaven on this holy day.

All of Bangalore’s wedding halls, all of its ceremonial music bands and all of its priests have been booked a year in advance.

A thousand proud fathers are looking forward to giving their daughters away in marriage on this enchanted day because that is believed to bring great prosperity not only to the couples but also to the entire families.

The city vibrates with the preparations of a thousand nuptials. It is hard to imagine ten weddings or a hundred. But a thousand couples getting married on the same day is beyond comprehension. The anticipation is palpable in the streets and the parks of the city.

Rich and poor are getting ready to celebrate the good fortune of their sons and daughters, assured of divine protection by a multitude of Hindu deities on this saintly date.

Usually, I am all business, but this gets to me. I am absolutely thrilled to be part of this because it feels like an antidote to the cynicism that is so pervasive in Western society today. People here are getting ready to celebrate life without reservations and are prepared to go all in like there’s no tomorrow.

The big day presents itself under a scorching sun, set high in an ultramarine sky. While being driven in a taxi to the wedding venue, I see a city full of exuberance. Music and flowers are everywhere and literally, everyone is dressed for the occasion. Even the beggars seem to own an Auspicious Day suit for a rare lunar juncture like this. Just for one day, everyone manages to forget the harsh realities of life in Bengaluru. There are higher things at stake now.

I feel on top of the world when I arrive at Aneeta’s posh wedding venue, the Leela Palace Kempinski, which is by far the grandest hotel in the whole of Karnataka state. To make guests feel welcome at the entrance, young girls are scattering flower petals and boys are carrying metal torches emanating clouds of incense.

Two colossal elephant-shaped flower sculptures, made from thousands of white Jasmine flowers guard the hotel entrance. Jasmine is claimed to be the favorite flower of Lord Vishnu and its sweet smell is believed to calm the nerves of the bride.

Before entering, I look in wonder at the Leela’s staggering architecture which is inspired by the Royal Palace of Mysore, the official residence of the Maharajas who used to rule the princely state. I am in awe of this grandeur while I cross the lobby and follow a signpost which has Aneeta & Anirudh written in golden letters on purple cloth.

The ceremonial area itself is a beautifully elevated terrace with an opulent pool sitting on nine acres of lush tropical gardens within the hotel walls.

It’s clear that all the guests have been made aware of my coming and I feel thoroughly stared at. The family of the bride considers it a big deal that I, Aneeta’s hierarchical superior at her place of work, would celebrate this life milestone in their midst.

I am invited to walk through an impressive arcaded gallery and to step onto the grand terrace amidst the clangs of ceremonial cymbals. My name is proclaimed in a deep voice by a towering man in a black ceremonial dress wearing a richly bejeweled turban.

I feel very self-conscious but decide to play along with the role of distinguished guest although I would have preferred to be observing from the gallery.

The bride looks absolutely gorgeous in a traditional red Wedding Sari, red being considered the most propitious color for a holy occasion like this one. Her hair is done in an elegant waterfall braid which makes her look both sexy and chaste. Throughout the ceremony, the handsome groom cannot stop looking at his bride. He’s clearly over his head in love and that simple fact puts a smile on everybody’s face.

It’s strange to think there was ever any doubt about these two getting married. Fate clearly has put its foot down here.

The couple exchanges marigold garlands of flowers and thread, symbolizing happiness. Just as the thread never leaves the flowers, even when they lose their luster with time, the married couple swears to never leave each other, through all the ups and downs of life.

I’m actually enjoying the Indian wedding decorum more than I thought I would. Especially the climax, the equivalent to our ‘I do’ is a pleasure to watch. It is called Saptapadi or ‘Seven Vows’, which bride and groom recite to each other while taking seven steps due South.

Everybody cheers after the vows have been taken, while the families of both bride and groom stand united with absolutely no distinction between them. Without a doubt, Aneeta’s parents are footing the bill for this extravaganza, which I think is a great gesture of open-mindedness and a tribute to modern-day India.

Finally, all the guests get seated along heavy wooden tables in the long shadows cast by two rows of Silver Poplar trees. 

Giant crystal candelabras with long white candles sit upon the stretched tables. The newlyweds take their places at the head of the main table in two statuesque antique chairs, decorated with colorful ethnic cushions and drapes. 

I relax and take a deep breath as I look around me, holding a Bohemia Crystal glass of tangerine juice and smelling the abundant lavender. This place seems unreal. We could very well be a millennium back in the past, I’d bet the place would look exactly like this. I feel like I have been transported back to a more profound era when things were more authentic somehow.

All the men, including myself, are dressed in ethnic Dhoti Sherwani, a long coat-like garment which makes me feel part of an ancient protocol, reserved for the privileged Indian aristocracy from a time long gone.

As an after-ceremony, Mehndi or henna patterns are applied by the sisters of Aneeta to her hands and feet, which give this whole scene a primeval touch. Tradition has it that the bride should not work in her marital home until her Mehndi fades.

Aneeta has been aware that I have an interest in spiritualism and has seated me next to her great-grandfather, Mr. Lakshmi Kaur, who is known throughout Karnataka as the ‘Healer of the Soul’. The old man is a living legend, renowned for his deep expertise in Vipassanā, an age-old meditation technique to see things as they really are through self-observation, resulting in a balanced mind full of peace and compassion.

Honoring me with a place at the main table next to the wise old man in this most wonderful of settings has been Aneeta’s very personal gift to me and a thank you for my moral support through the difficult time leading up to this special day. This feels truly reciprocal and I accept her gift with gratitude and enthusiasm.

During and after a splendid Chaat table with an incredible array of deliciously spiced South-Indian dishes, I have a mind-baffling conversation with Mr. Kaur.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you today at this glorious occasion of your great-grand daughter’s wedding, Sir. May I ask how old you are?”

“I could be ninety-four. No way to be certain.”

“That would make you exactly twice my age.”

“Age and time are an illusion. Now is all there ever is. ”

“Sir, with all due respect, my whole life revolves around my calendar. Without time, I’d be lost.”

“Past and future exist only as thoughts in the present. There never was, nor will there ever be any other experience than present experience.”

“But I always feel like the clock is ticking and I should hurry because time is running out on me.”

“The clock is not ticking because there is no clock. Time is a construct of the mind, not an entity that exists in nature.”

”It is true that I have trouble living in the present, I carry my past with me and I worry about the future.”

“Do not resist this moment. Accept it as if it is exactly as you have chosen it.”

“But there is so much I would like to fix about my life.”

“You want to change your life situation, not your life. Your life is your essence, which is already perfect.”

“But Sir, if my life is perfect, why do I feel I need to prove myself constantly?”

“Stop doing and focus on being. Let the present just unfold.”

“I do not get it, why is the now so important?”

“You are walking along a path at night, surrounded by a thick fog. But you have a powerful searchlight that cuts through the fog and that creates a narrow, clear space in front of you. The fog is your life situation, which includes past and future. The searchlight is your alertness, your conscious presence. The clear space is the now.”

“A powerful image, that is. So you are saying that a focus on the now brings clarity. It’s true that my mind is always straying. It is absolutely restless, that is just who I am.”

“You are not your mind. Do not identify with your thoughts, observe them and let them go. Do not follow them.”

“I am sorry but what am I then, if not my mind?”

“Picture a lake high up in the mountains. You are the deep and permanent stillness at the bottom of the lake. Your thoughts and emotions are the wrinkles and waves on the surface of the water.”

We stop talking and we just sit in absolute silence for at least twenty minutes. Mr. Kaur signals me to stay quiet, every time he sees I am about to ask another question.

To him, quiet is a natural state. I realize he does this to give me the time needed to let it all sink in. He masters silence just as he masters words.

I feel there is great value in what he said, but at the same time, I feel frustrated because it feels evanescent. It seems impossible to capture the essence within my predefined European frame of mind.

Dusk is setting in and the sky turns amethyst. 

Eventually, I feel I have to say something.

“Well, at your age, you must have attended many weddings I guess?”

“This is the wedding.”

I smile at this perfect ending to a perfect day, realizing that I have a long way to go before I can begin to understand what the old man is trying to convey to me.

My mind actually stops thinking while the night falls over the Leela Palace Gardens. I’m watching how Anirudh invites Aneeta for the closing dance and it feels like I am experiencing this in a trance. Incredible India.

I find myself returning to the present day, still sitting up straight in bed, holding my mobile phone to my ear.

Just like a photo is the capturing of past light which we can see in the present, a memory is the impression of a past experience on our present self. That trip to Bangalore has made a deep impact on me and I have only just now come to that realize that, so many months later.

What triggered this vivid flashback is, of course, the voice mail from Mr. Pannerselvam, Commissioner of Police of Bengaluru, telling me that his troopers found my name and number as an emergency contact on the phone of Mrs. Aneeta Garbinder-Pillai.

As it turns out, Aneeta came home from work yesterday evening when she found a group of male university graduates from her own upper-level Brahim caste protesting in front of her house. 

They were in the process of distributing pamphlets of their ‘Campaign Against Inter-Caste Marriage’, claiming that boys from downtrodden communities who deliberately targeted wealthy girls should be stoned to death.

God knows why they had come to her house today, so many months after the controversial marriage.

When Aneeta saw their provocative signboards, she angrily told them to go away. For a moment there, it looked like her assertiveness would actually drive them off.

But then one of the agitators noticed Aneeta’s belly, clearly showing her five-month pregnancy.

Anirudh was at work, just starting his night shift at the hospital. 

He was happy and completely unaware while Aneeta was beaten with pipe wrenches and wrecking bars by the cultured class activists until she and her unborn child died from what the forensic pathologist would later call a Blunt Force Trauma.

Author's Note

Version 5 uploaded.