The Island of Habarra

Chapter  5

When Bubblegum tiptoed into Brian Bridglal's private room, she was pleasantly surprised to see some of the other sexy bombs she had met once at Vandana's house: Fanny Falker, an Anglo-Lankan journalist and Sunita Mitra,  an Indian architect.  Fanny and Sunita were ardent devotees of love in Brian's higher-consciousness group. They were seated in what yogis call the "lotus position" on a large  divan  and flagellating.

Brian  had come to the Island of Habarra ten years ago. No one was quite sure about what he did for a living, but in later years he had begun to write the phototgraphy column for the Times of Habarra. Trinidadian by origin, Brian was a man in his thirties, dark-skinned and handsome.

Bubblegum made herself at home almost instantly. The room was warmly lit. The walls were adorned with black and white prints of Kama Sutra. There were diwans on the floor with bolsters flanking their sides.  The room was heavy with an aroma from the incense burning  in a corner. A gramaphone played a sombre oriental score with rhythmic consistency. A  window  across from the red bulb at the far end of the room, brought in a beam of the moonlight, which reflected on the photos of Kama Sutra.

Fanny  amorously turned to Bubblegum and motioned her to take a seat.

Brian  had walked into the ante room bare footed, wearing a kurta and a pyjama. He bowed to his disciples, made a peace gesture with his hands  and turned off the lamps. The somber music played in the background. Bubblegum noticed that Vandana seemed to be fixated with the red light. Brian seated himself beside her and raised his hands. The silence was eerie. A falling pin could have sounded off a scare. In a soft whisper, Brian made quaint and mischievous utterances.

He motioned to his disciples. In a brief discourse, he implored of them who seek the pleasure of peace to listen not to his voice, but instead,  to the sound of his silence. He sighed deeply. He lowered his hands and asked the women to rivet their attention  to the energies that would suffuse among them.  He spoke of the transfer of a universal, all-pervading life energy. He soliloquized on the intricate and intelligent interrelationship of forces and of the energy that’s contained in the life forms – the hundred billion cells each with hundreds of thousands of genes, all of which if joined in a sinuous chain, would make up the distance between the earth and the sun.

Sunita  thought  his observations were an aberration of the old practice of Reiki, the ancient healing practice rediscovered in the middle of the nineteenth century.  It is described as being that power which acts and lives in all created matter.

One is treated with Reiki by the laying of hands gently on the various parts of the body with fingers closed tight. A flowing energy soon unfolds bringing warm and cold sensations. The laying of hands links the recepient to the energy of Reiki and brings body, mind and spirit into the experience. The authors of Reiki say that the latest developments in quantum physics come very close to the idea. Supergravitation theory describes the existence of a standardized, perfectly balanced field standing in relationship only to itself – a field of pure intelligence which brings forth all matter to form the basis of all creation.

Vandana was not on the same page, so to speak, as Sunita. Her  fixation with the red light was impeccable.  She said she could see within a frame, a young girl being molested by her father, but that a powerful stroke of lightning was engulfing the man and setting the girl free.

Sunita moved over to the cushion on which Bubblegum  leaned and coaxed her to focus on the red light at the far end of the room. Fanny  stretched out across another diwan and rested her head on a bolster near Sunita, staring at her fleshy lips. She sighed,  raising her hands and waving them in perfect harmony with the sound of drums playing in the background.

Brian implored of the gods with a rising tenor in his voice. The drums beating in the background beat a sombre march with a mesmerising rhythm. He flaggelated several times as if to seek penitence and asked Vandana to do likewise. She stroked her chest once, twice, thrice to the rhythm of the drums and Sunita, Bubblegum and Fanny took their cue. Brian's body trembled  with a convulsion. He raised his arms higher and proclaimed the realisation of a new consciousness.

In earlier discourses, he had scoffed at Marx’s statement: "I will believe in God if you show Him to me in a test tube.”  He said these were prevaricators of their conscience. He had warned his disciples: 

"No. God cannot be found in a test tube."

Brian had explained this in simplistic terms.

"If you dissect the brain, you are not likely to spot thoughts there. But we think, nonetheless," he had said.