35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

410
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
was no place for a junkie to live. There was something about
vigorous exercise and the climate that didn’t mix. Walking
horizontally was difficult enough in July. Even sitting down was
strenuous.
‘How old is your father, Amar?’
‘He is . . . very old man.’ The answer evidently satisfied him
deeply
‘You should put in a lift.’ I smiled to myself, knowing he couldn’t
tell a lift from a joke.
Amar looked at me as intently as his opiated eyes would allow,
formulating a mighty thought. ‘It is,’ he finally said, ‘custom to make
some offering for the poor peoples. You see, Dom Raja gives his
service free to the many poors. Some gift – two, three thousand rupees
– very little. It is the custom.’ He nodded humbly.
It is the con, I thought, but I said, ‘I’m here working. I can’t tell my
publishers they donated their advance money to charity can I?’
He weighed this answer carefully. What did he know about
expense accounts, author advances, or even publishers?
‘Well,’ I added, ‘let’s discuss it after my interview, hmmm?’
The Olympic brother huffed past again, spraying spicy sweat in
his wake, and we plodded up to the portentous, waiting doorway. It
crossed my mind that the bhang lassi might be stronger than a small
beer after all.
The thick, sturdy door – after Amar smacked it once with his
open palm – was opened in slow motion by an owlish fellow with
magisterial acne. He showed us in and onto a broad open veranda
with an enviable view of the Ganges’ dark curve; the city’s twinkling
crescent – in the middle of which we stood. Between the sculptured
tigers, in the centre of the veranda’s wall, stood a little temple: a
hutlike concrete shrine, covered in white ceramic tiles like a public
toilet, and lit inside by flickering oil lamps, wisps of incense lazily
emerging from its tiny open entrance to sketch fragrant messages in
the sultry air outside. Perched imposingly upon the temple roof,
illuminated by an overarching electric lamp large enough to light
up a thousand yards of motorway, rose a life-size concrete statue of
Siva as Mahayogi, the great yogi, lord of sadhus, complete with a
ten-foot-long trident.