Page 44 of The Love Thief

CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO Burger Bingeing

Several places fell into the “fast food” category: decent burgers with zero ambiance or excitement.

There were also classic American franchises like Hard Rock Cafe and Johnny Rockets, places I once loved as a teen.

We were committed to creating a unique foodie experience that was delicious, sexy, and fun, a place the local cool millennials would flock to, along with the international hotel guests.

While Maya was very passionate about life, she was also a freespirited soul with a short attention span, having been born with both a silver spoon in her mouth and a magic wand in her hand.

She never felt the need to create hard deadlines.

I was her total opposite. I lived for to-do lists to check off every day.

I loved schedules and deadlines, and ways to measure success on a daily basis.

Fortunately, Maya was happy to let me take over as project manager and create the timeline.

We jointly conjured up everything from the staff uniforms and communal sinks in between the unisex bathrooms, to planning the red-carpet grand opening.

My days were full yet peaceful and fun. Weekends were reserved for sightseeing, from manic pedicab rides through Old Delhi and visits to ancient forts and temples to shopping excursions in Hauz Khas Village or the super-high-end DLF Emporio, a luxury mall.

It was at the mall where I had an unexpected mystical moment.

DLF Emporio housed some of the most expensive and elegant stores on the planet.

Home to the usual prestigious names like Gucci, Prada, Vuitton, Chanel, and so on, the stars of this modern gilded spending palace were several designer bridal boutiques.

Brides with deep pockets shop for handcrafted saris made with real gold thread, Swarovski crystals, seed pearls, and every other imaginable gem and silk combination.

Even though I couldn’t do the math in my head, converting rupees to dollars, I could tell the outfits cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Maya explained to me that Indian brides often bought seven outfits for seven days of wedding celebrations.

As she was explaining how each of the various celebrations differed, I began thinking out my own destroyed wedding plans and the missed Princess Day at Kleinfeld I didn’t get to experience.

I could see Maya’s mouth moving but I could no longer hear anything she was saying.

I felt myself hovering over my body and watching it all as if in a dream.

I had become a witness to the scene and heard my inner-self whisper: “Okay, kid, admit it. Aren’t you happy now that you didn’t end up marrying that creep, Barry?

Don’t you feel like you dodged a bullet? ”

Huh? What’s happening to me? Did Maya hear that, too?

I was feeling a bit giddy, and I was also searching for my pain. Where were those waves of loss and despair?

I looked for that yearning feeling of “I just want to go back to the way things were. Where’s that guy who doted on me and promised me the sun, the stars, and the moon?”

I heard my inner voice say, Oh geez, Holly. You gave it all to Ma Ganga, remember? That pity party has sailed. You no longer need to drown in a sea of sadness.

And then I snapped back to reality. At least, I thought it was reality.

It was becoming hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory, I saw Mom and Auntie Geeta debating something from A Course in Miracles that said everything we saw was an illusion.

Auntie was smiling and totally agreeing, but in my mind’s eye, Mom wasn’t going for it.

Realist that I was, I decided that as long as I could see and feel my feet, that would be the reality I would live in.

“Holly, you have a little lost-in-space look on your face. What are you thinking about?” Maya inquired.

“Oh, sorry. I was having an existential moment with myself, trying to figure out if life is an illusion.”

Maya smiled, and I felt a shower of gratitude roll over me. This was one of the things I liked best about Maya. I could say shit like this, and she didn’t think I was the least bit strange.

“Well, I’m the perfect person to ask,” Maya teased.

“Did you know that my name Maya literally means ‘illusion’? My parents named me Maya because it also means ‘magic,’ and they wanted me to have a magical, whimsical, and mystical life. They wanted me to be able to comfortably walk between all the worlds,” she said with the confidence of a queen.

“Enough deep talk for today! Let’s go find some burgers,” she said as we headed for the elevator.

Christmas came and went. My one sole Christmassy event was a celebratory Zoom visit with Mom and Auntie Geeta while I was eating a room service dinner of spicy chicken tikka masala, and they were having their annual donut binge.

The sight of the chocolate-covered, cream-filled donuts made me a tiny bit homesick.

My sweet tooth was hard to satisfy in India.

The desserts offered were not my idea of a good time.

I answered their endless questions about my new life, new job, and new everything in New Delhi, including my newfound interest in yoga.

My bias toward yoga as a trendy New Age way to exercise your way to God was replaced when Maya introduced me to a soothing, healing form of yoga that didn’t require turning myself into a human pretzel.

My weekly routine had expanded to include restorative yoga classes with Ritaji, who was my favorite instructor.

An elegant, older British woman with long white hair and a curvy, flexible body, Ritaji taught yoga as a way to rest, heal, and restore balance to the body, and my body absolutely loved it.

As the obvious newbie in the class, I would watch her float over to my mat and often readjust my position with her soft, graceful hands.

Raised in both Delhi and London, Ritaji had a delightful accent and an endearing manner of speaking.

Clearly wise and experienced, she was also intuitive and compassionate.

She looked and sounded European, yet when speaking, she nodded her head left and right like Indians were known to do.

After all this time, I still couldn’t figure out if it meant they were agreeing or disagreeing, but it did seem they were making an effort to be friendly.

The best part of every class was the end, in which Ritaji would recite a word of the day while we positioned in my favorite pose, Shavasana.

Lying on my back, eyes closed, listening to the lovely, lilting voice of Ritaji was my idea of heaven.

My body was motionless, gently relaxing into the mat as the sounds of birds chirping and singing filled the space.

The air temperature felt like a warm, comforting blanket, calming my monkey mind to a pleasant stillness.

I felt my heart beating slowly as I filled with gratitude.

The experience of the river, of santosha, was palpable.

Yesterday’s class had been especially enlightening.

She began in her warm silky voice. “Allow yourself to sink into your mat, relaxing your body as you also open your mind and listen with both your ears and your heart. Sukha,” Ritaji said as if chanting.

“Su Kha,” she slowly repeated with crisp enunciation.

“Sukha,” she continued, “is a brilliant state of great happiness.”

Lying in corpse pose, my chest slowly rising and falling, I noticed my ears were buzzing, beckoning Ritaji’s wisdom, anticipating hearing how to have my own piece of sukha.

“The first Noble Truth of Buddhism is Dukkha, which means suffering, and many believe that Buddha said that Life Is Suffering, period, but this is a Western misinterpretation. The Buddha said life contains suffering, not that all of life is suffering. The study of Buddhism offers a path to be free of suffering,” Ritaji continued as she slowly walked around the room.

Yes , I thought, my understanding was that the major tenet of Buddhism was based on life equaling suffering. I mean, who would be willing to hang out in that belief system?

“I’m sure all of you have a lot of experience with suffering.

Today, I invite you to embrace the opposite of dukkha, which is sukha.

Sukha means ‘freedom, liberation, joy, ease, and pleasure.’ Sukha is a deep and lasting state of happiness.

There is a path to sukha with a yoga practice that focuses on the joy of life, living in harmony and balance with the cycles of nature and your body, by taking nourishment that soothes body, mind, and soul.

“You also know that even when you are not in the experience of suffering, you aren’t automatically in the state of sukha.

As you move through this life, notice what and when you may be experiencing sukha, when you might be in the sweet state of freedom or joy.

Begin to consciously choose to have more of those experiences,” Ritaji ended.

Her eyes were closed as she kneeled on her mat, hands in a namaste over her heart, and a small smile on her lips.

On most days, I was the first one off my mat at the end of class, anxious to get on to whatever was next on my to-do list. Intrigued by the word of the day, I remained flat on my back, closed-eyed in Shavasana, wondering how sukha was different from santosha , and if santosha was a higher or a lower level of being.

Sukha sounded a lot more enticing than santosha, even though, so far, santosha certainly had eliminated my suffering or what I now know is also called dukkha.

I felt someone hovering over me and was happy to see it was Ritaji. “Holly, everything okay?” she asked.

“Oh yes, thanks. I loved today’s class. I guess I am so relaxed and restored I forgot to get up,” I said, trying to make light of my dawdling.

“Good, don’t get up. Stay where you are.” And in a flash, she was seated on the floor beside me.