A love story told by Sandhano
I returned to the Poona ashram, taking refuge, melting with my tribe of dancing, sexy seekers and our rebellious guru Osho, our city suburb painted with cafes, majestic trees, decaying mansions, beeping rickshaws and quirky beggars. Smells blended: spices frying in ghee, diesel, incense, excrement, earth.
Outdoor tables at the German Bakery filled and emptied, loners shrank, diners connected, ranters postured, students read. Akash watched it all. One day, and this is how we met, I accidentally left my backpack in what turned out to be his usual corner. When I returned to fetch it, a small brown man perched, nursing his juice in stillness – dark hair, jewel-blue eyes, hawk nose, wearing a perfectly-ironed dress shirt. As I leaned in for my backpack, we magnetized. He seemed to be some sort of spiritual master.
We held hands in greeting, speaking in English, then Spanish. Churning with excitement, I asked if we could meet again. He said yes, for dinner! Later, he kissed me under a banyan tree… enlightenment and sex rolled up in one.
We spent the next 13 years together: Goa, Spain, California, New Jersey, Florida, Oregon, Peru, Galapagos, St John’s, The Bahamas, Quito in Ecuador.
Quito stank. Black wires tangled over steep narrow streets choked with perilous, black-farting buses. Sleek Andeans hurried, frowning, their simple native dress and rhythm long lost.
Akash’s sister Marti organized our first humble flat. Now we were bound and grounded as flat owners. No more hippy backpacks or wandering.
I was certified in several touch therapies, but in Ecuador, “massage” meant “prostitution”. Isolated, I had no one and nothing to relate to but him. I longed to leave Quito, but Akash was rebuilding the family business, his beloved Fabrica Shirt.
A brother stole all the profits. Private trucks popped up with Chinese shirts, $2 each. The Shirt Factory cracked. I payrolled 40 employees.
“Sell your family home in Spain,” he said.
Now we had money.
“We’ll build in Ecuador,” he said.
“No, back to India,” I cried, “we are not builders.”
“To honor Mother Earth, we’ll install solar panels, reuse gray water, give jobs to my countrymen, set an example,” he said, “to repay Life for all She has given us. My friends and family will manage everything. We’ll all be rich within the year.”
My gut yelled “NO.”
His will was stronger.
2 kilometers from our homey flat, in upscale La Floresta, we bought and built: The First Ecological Apartment Building in Quito. We named it Kay Building, after my mother, who died before completion.
No-one protected the money; neither Architect nor Builder, nor highly paid Family Members. The hardest workers, los peones, who risked their lives shoving steel and concrete ten stories up, stole from us. So did the merchants with their glass, sinks and gypsum.
Buyers sued. Everyone wanted loans. Akash felt so burdened he could hardly walk. We couldn’t sleep or make love. Gone, our beloved walks. We fought.
“This is all your fault!” I screamed. “We are magical people, we have no business in the business world!”
Stress and arthritis crushed him: the mammoth building, its fiascos, the betrayals, the blame.
When he refused a knee operation, I lost faith. He was ravaged by both my losing faith, and the exacerbation of his life-long achilles heel, rheumatism. I took my money, left him stuck in bed, limping to the toilet.
Back and forth for three long years, globe-trotting, looking for a new home, always going back to Quito until it finished: Kay Building, and us.
We divorced, but remained intimate in separate beds.
These days, I sculpt with friends, stroll Aussie beaches, soothe my anger, live my dream.
Thirteen years later, he had fixed his knees, but said he was dying. No idea whence came the vertigo or fever. I flew to say goodbye. The same humble flat welcomed me home, just as I had left it, giant windows, white sofas, my art hanging.
Evenings we gazed over the city. Feet up, backs relaxed, we softened with the sky. Streetlights popped on across the river below, haloed by mist.
We wallowed in silence, rivers and fields of it. We watched the shift from day to night, from past to Now, without a sound. Hurt and bitterness dissolved.
Daytimes, health allowing, we vanquished remnants of Kay Building: boxes, binders, receipts, reminders.
“Gone!” we exclaimed together. “Out!”
“And these?” I held up our wedding pictures, ripped from walls after I had left.
“Toss,” he said.
“But they are so beautiful,” I said.
He smiled. “Okay, they can stay.”
His health is now returning. I’ll go back to visit soon.
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