RETURN TO INNOCENCE

Paradise On The Ground -- Epilogue

2 days later, our guide from the village came to 'rescue' us. Apparently, he had received word from the Nagas who in turn were ordered by the Aghori to arrange for our release and return. He informed us that our penance was complete as per the great Aghori and we could begin our return journey that day itself.

I asked him if he knew where the Aghori was. He said he had no idea. But he had heard rumours the day before that the Aghori had renounced his sainthood and was gone forever. Ordering our release was his last act. The Nagas were now making succession plans to anoint the next Aghori.

We left almost immediately with the guide. I had spent the last 2 days in extreme happiness and agony - happiness at being reunited with my best friend, and sadness at losing the only 'lover' I had. As we left the crematorium behind, I turned back to take a last look at the primitive hut and its straw bed, the funeral pyres yet to be lit, and the trees in the meadow. Today, there were no birds on the branches, and no breeze was blowing either. Solid emptiness was all I could see. Tears rolled down my eyes.

Pallavi refused to submit her article upon our return. She informed her editor that there were no naked saints in India anymore, so there was nothing to write about. The editor terminated her contract with immediate effect on grounds of unprofessionalism. Pallavi yelled and cursed at him and called the assignment a "lame-ass exercise in futility", and the news portal a "dungeon of douchebags".

I retreated into a shell and stopped going out. Stopped meeting people, including Pallavi. Locked myself up in my apartment and spent hours staring at the horizon from the balcony, hoping to catch a glimpse of funeral fire lit somewhere, or a freshwater spring if flowing nearby. I could find neither, not even the stars in the night sky. I could only see vast open darkness all around and inside me.

Neither me nor Pallavi was left unscathed by our experience. It left our worlds turned upside down. As Pallavi had said, my make-believe world had been shattered forever. But I do not blame anyone for that.

I do hate myself, though, for being unreasonably harsh with him that night. In hindsight, I feel I could have been gentler in my speech. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that our 'relationship' was doomed from the start. It was never meant to work out. The clash of cultures and civilizations destroyed our dream world. What was considered a sacred duty in his world is regarded as depravity in mine.

In the end, the curse of the Aghori fell on the Aghori himself. I do not doubt he felt no remorse for his actions, but he could not come to terms with the resentment and hatred he heard in my voice. I believe his dream world got shattered as loudly as mine. He found no meaning or purpose in continuing his existence anymore. He did not disappear from my life, he disappeared from his.

I can still see him sometimes when I close my eyes. Running barefoot on rugged terrain with hair swept aside, carrying me like a Barbie doll in his monstrous arms, keeping me warm on a cold frigid night. I have started using a black dildo now, a giant one, to feel the pressure of something massive on the soft skin of my pussy. I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as I can. I always insert one-tenth of its length, never more, never less. And I keep it inside me for hours.

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"Nudity is the uniform of the other side ... Nudity is a shroud."

Milan Kundera

(Concluded).