The PuppetMaster by Andrew L. MacNair

disc jockey’s stage formed the center. Spinning out from the hub were four smaller spaces designed for privacy and intimate conversation, though most evenings patrons had to yell like soccer fans to be heard. The largest was the last space. The dance floor.
    Nearly every table was filled with young, college-aged Indians. A few ferenghis were scattered about. Two travel-weary young women with massive backpacks propped against their chairs looked my way, but no one hailed me. That was good. As inviting as it was for the hipsters of Varanasi, it made me panicky--too many people and too many decibels. I was there on the pretext of a quasi-date with a beautiful woman. The whole thing petrified me. Like the two women with the blond hair staring at me, I was carrying some hefty baggage. Mine just didn’t show so much.
    Haroon was offering his opinion on the most recent bombing and 'this Sutradharak fellow' when he looked over my shoulder to the door. His voice boomed, “Jatana!” I turned. And there was Sukshmi, or rather an exceedingly modified version. Dressed in a mid-length lavender crinoline skirt, purple silk blouse and ridiculously high-heeled shoes, her hair was draped in a part-up, part-down style. Heading the entire outfit was a pair of large, round, tinted sunglasses. I nearly dropped my mango shake onto Haroon's polished floor.
    I hoped the light was dim enough to hide the disappointment. It often came to me when a beautiful Hindu woman embraced Western appearances. The mystique of India, delicate and old, dissipated with the shift. Too much was revealed, and like an exposed movie plot, I experienced a sense of disillusionment. Sukshmi, in modern attire, looked stunning, but . . . she was no longer the Sukshmi I peeked at shyly as she drifted furtively through the quarters of her father’s house. Evidently she had learned more at University than anyone realized. I just hoped no one had taught her to smoke.
    “Bhim, I am so pleased you have come, and so punctual.” Damn if she didn’t look at a little pink watch on her wrist. Behind the glasses, her eyes sparkled with amusement at my expression. “You were perhaps expecting someone different?”
    I hesitated, trying to regain a semblance of composure, and with a tiny stutter replied, “Wwell, I guess I was wondering what Jatana has done with Sukshmi.” I shuddered. That was the best I could come up with?
    “Ah . . . Yes. Jatana. She is . . . how shall I say? The bearer of my Nom d’ Soir. I prefer her to Sukshmi when I venture out for the evening, not unlike the way you use the name Bhim, no?”
    I shook my head in mild offense. “No, not at all like Bhim. That’s my Benarsi name, my Hindu name. It’s not a mask I take off at the end of an evening at Haroon’s.”
    She smiled, clearly enjoying the opportunity to display a bit of repartee. “And with this name you have become a full Hindu?”
    I hesitated. “No . . . not exactly. Besides, any conversion I might take isn’t dependent upon my name. I enjoy being sort of Hindu. At times.”
    “But it is temporary, something you will conveniently jettison when you leave here? Will you not hang up your Hinduness and toss aside your name and customs like old shoes?”
    Her questions had caught me off guard. One minute into my first date in four years and I was on the defensive. On my arrival in Varanasi, I had slipped easily, almost naturally, into Hindu customs, but they were peripheral, done in my Western manner and at my own pace. I was not a believer in any deity. That was certain. I was merely a student who dressed in Brahmin clothes and walked in temple gardens to write poetry. Undoubtedly I wasn’t religious, asking everyday how so much pain could be inflicted on someone whose only fault had been falling in love. I sure as hell didn’t believe in a Supreme Being or a minor deity that dealt those cards.
    Jatana-Sukshmi’s eyes were daring me to enter into a discussion on faith. I dodged with,