Ram had just finished a busy week-long international business conference at a large Spanish city. Now, with a couple of days to relax, he was on the train to a picturesque small hilly coastal town. Upon arrival, he walked through the narrow winding medieval streets before arriving at a charming quaint unassuming small hotel.
Ram knew very little about this town. He was too busy earlier, but he finally tried to do some online research about this place on the train, but he found surprisingly little information. He was here in this town solely on the recommendation of his friend, Vivek.
He met Vivek back in college and they quickly became good friends. They shared similar childhood experiences. Both were born in India, but having moved to the United States as very young children, they considered themselves Americans.
After college, Ram went on to obtain his MBA and worked in the financial sector. Vivek obtained his doctorate and was now a distinguished professor of European History of Languages and Linguistics at a prestigious university. Thus, of all his friends, Ram felt Vivek was the most qualified to offer suggestions about visiting Europe.
Although Vivek was a respected professor now, back in his college days, he was well known for his sense of humor. He went to great efforts to pull off elaborate pranks, much to the amusement of his classmates.
As he stood in front of the hotel, Ram felt vaguely uneasy. At the time, he did not make anything of it, but now it struck him as odd that Vivek did not offer any details about this town, but was almost adamant Ram should visit. Furthermore, Vivek was not only insistent on this particular town, he was insistent on this particular hotel. With alarm, Ram, concluded the most obvious explanation was that Vivek was pulling a prank on him.
Ram was suspicious, but having come this far, he felt his only option was to see this through to the punchline. He opened the door cautiously as if bracing for a bunch of people to jump out and yell surprise with noisemakers.
He entered the small cramped lobby and quietly closed the door behind him. Looking around, he found the lobby to be charming with old wooden beams and exposed stone walls. There was a table with some tourist brochures and maps and a small reception counter.
A pretty receptionist was seated behind the counter, looking at a computer screen. He guessed she was in her early 20s and like many young women these days, she had on more makeup than he thought necessary. She had perfect pale white skin, dark eyes, and her long blonde hair was in a high messy ponytail with a few locks of loose curls framing her face. She had large silver hoop earrings and a delicate small silver nose ring in one nostril.
His eyes strayed down to her chest. The thin blue horizontal stripes on her tight long sleeve white top seemed endless as they stretched across her bosom. She was not wearing a bra, as evidenced by the contours of her nipples being clearly visible.
Ram greeted her in his rudimentary Spanish. "Hola."
Upon hearing his voice, she looked up. Her eyes widened to saucers and her jaw dropped. Then she broke into a large smile and said "Hola! Que tal?" She spoke with a slight singsong flair.
Ram was 55 years old. He had dark brown skin, dark eyes, a full head of salt and pepper hair, and deliberately maintained stubble. He was 5'5", and he had the wiry, toned body that comes naturally to an avid cyclist. Even as he aged, he remained quite handsome.
Ever since he was a teenager, he had the habit, upon meeting any new woman, regardless of age or degree of attractiveness, of scrutinizing every aspect of the encounter searching for signs of flirtation. When in doubt, he always erred on the side of interpreting the words or action in question as flirtation.
In his youth, he was more often right than wrong. But, alas, now he had to frequently remind himself that this was perhaps not the case any longer, especially with younger women. Although he felt no different on the inside, he knew the outside world saw him as a middle-aged man.
Upon seeing her reaction, he seriously considered the possibility she was flirting with him, but he quickly resigned himself to accept the more probable explanation that she was just being polite to an elder. "Tengo una reserva. Mi nombre es Gurukrishnan." He continued in his limited Spanish.
"Ah, vale!" she spoke enthusiastically and rapidly. "Quieres un cuarto con una terraza a la calle, o un cuarto mas tranquillo?" She smiled as he stared back blankly. "Ahh, Eenglaish ees behter fur you?"
"Um, yes... you speak English, wonderful. I apologize, my Spanish is not very good." He could not recognize her accent as she spoke English. It did not seem Spanish to him. Judging by her appearance, he guessed she was either Dutch, or possibly Scandinavian.
"No problehm. I theenk thee room weeth terraza ees behter fur you. May I av yoor paaspurt, please?" Ram found her sexy as she continued to smile unabashedly at him with her lipstick covered lips. For a fleeting moment, he reconsidered the possibility she was indeed flirting with him as he fantasized about a passionate one-night fling with her. He smiled back as he handed over his passport.
She started typing the information from it into the computer. Without looking up, she said "Vhere are you frum?" Again she spoke with a singsong element to the words.
Ram had always struggled with this question. When asked this question back in his youth, growing up in America, he used to say he was Indian. After a couple of times, when the response was asking to which tribe he belonged, he started saying he was from India. When traveling abroad, he was still confused. When asked from where he was from, was he being asked where he lived or about his ethnicity?
In this instance, the fact that the she was looking at his United States passport gave him valuable insight as to the true meaning of her question. "I'm from India, but I've lived in the US for many years."
"I know eet! You av Guru een yoor name!" She said with genuine glee.
"Ah yes, Guru is pretty common. There are many names with Guru in it in India." Always willing to converse with a pretty woman, but not wanting to sound too self-immersed, he asked her about herself. "So, are you from here? I mean, Spain?" He was also curious about her accent.
"No. I am frum Rumaanya. I joost leeve eer tree years."
"Really, Romania?" He was slightly surprised. He just assumed Romanians were brunettes; of course, she may have dyed her hair, he acknowledged. "Well, how do you like living here?"
"Well at furst, I av sadness eer. I mees my fameely. But now I av appyness! You know, I av appyness only beecoose of Sidguru!" She said eagerly. "You know Sidguru? He muust be faamus!"
Ram had no idea what she was saying. He smiled and nodded, hoping to figure it out on the fly, or at the very least, just to prolong the conversation. "Oh... yes, I see."
She continued energetically. "Yes. He ees guru, like you, no? He ees very guud guru. I see heem on YouTube." She pulled out her phone and starting tapping on the screen. "I show you. He ees vonderfuul." She held up her phone.
On the screen was a YouTube page with a picture of a very old Indian man with a long white beard sitting in the lotus position. He was dressed in all white with a tunic and a turban. The caption read "Sidguru - How to Eliminate Negative Thoughts."
Ram was skeptical of such things. To him, the whole guru phenomenon was a bit of snake-oil salesmanship. He knew the world was filled with people offering a path to happiness to the gullible, for a price of course.
Ram lost all hope about his already improbable sexual fantasy being fulfilled as he realized now that it was not him per-se that interested her, but it was his culture, or at least her assumption about his culture. He had encountered plenty of people throughout his life who were fascinated by Indian philosophy and spirituality; in his experience, they were usually white women and fit into two general types.
The first type was the wealthy woman who wore expensive yoga clothes, had personal acupuncturists, and attended wellness retreats in exotic beach locations. Instagram was often their communication platform of choice. The second type was more into crystals, astrology, mind-altering drugs, and occasionally group sex.
Ram was not really bothered that they were appropriating another culture and shamelessly moulding it to suit their own convenience, all the while brazenly claiming authenticity. No, his issue was more personal. What he resented was their assumption that he must also share their beliefs. Or worse, that he had innate knowledge or secrets because he was Indian.
In his 20s, he was emotionally scarred by a yoga class. The entire class, including the middle-aged male instructor with a gray pony-tail, kept looking to him for validation despite the fact it was his first yoga class, ever. Of course, he returned to the class a couple of more times, but only because of a pretty girl who looked stunning in her yoga pants. He stopped going after the girl showed up one day with presumably her boyfriend. He never went to another yoga class in his life.
"You are guru, too, right? I am weeshing someday to meet guru. I vant very much to do thee theengs weeth guru." She said hopefully.
Ram was now faced with a choice. He could be truthful and disappoint the sexy young woman or he could lie and pretend to be the exact thing he loathed. The decision was, as one says, a no-brainer, as the pretty face and large breasts tilted the scales with an almost audible thud.
"Yes. Yes, I am a guru. I was trying to be, you know, discrete." He held up his hands with palms together in the praying position. "I know that many people are skeptical, er, ignorant of gurus. But not you. I can see that you are very smart and spiritual. Have you been to India?"
"No, never. I find Sidguru on thee internet."
"Right. Um, how'd you find him?"
"My friend tell me. She find heem furst beecoose he as Rumaanyan interpreeter. He av very gentuul voice, very nice, very kind. You can leesten." She played the clip. The guru was visibly talking, but it was dubbed over with a voice speaking another language, presumably Romanian. Ram did not understand the words, but the voice sounded familiar.
He broke out in a smile as he recognized Vivek's voice. "Ah, yes, I see what you mean. It is a very nice voice. He probably does a good job explaining what the guru is saying." Ram said this while wondering what Vivek was actually saying. Vivek was most certainly not interpreting the guru, but pulling some prank.
She nodded. "He very nice. He eeven geeve hees Vhatsup noombur fur kweshoons." She said excitedly.
"Ah, I see, so you can chat with him; tell him all about yourself, and your life... and things."
