Dev Dreams, Volume One by Ruth Madison Page A

lower his chair down them.
    “Isn't it kind of dangerous for you to be
alone in there? What if there was a fire?”
    Adi stopped wheeling a moment to shrug. “I
have faith.”
    “You do?” This time Sumitra stopped walking
and looked down at his deep, warm eyes.
    “Sure. I'm at an ashram, aren't I?”
    He was her age, he was an American, how could
he be religious? Her stomach tightened. Religious people were
judgmental. How could he be one of them?
    “So am I, but I don't really know what I
believe. I thought you were here because your parents wanted
it.”
    “No, I asked to take a pilgrimage.”
    “Oh.” Sumitra couldn't hide her
disappointment. She crossed her arms in front of her and felt a
strange chill in the humid Indian air. “But I take it from what you
said yesterday that you're not asking the guru for a cure?”
    “I don't really think that's how life works.
I think being in the presence of the guru gives you something that
you won't necessarily see in the physical world. I don't come here
to be healed, I come here to remind myself to be at peace...What's
wrong?”
    “I'm sorry, I just thought you were like me.
I feel like I'm the only one in this entire town who isn't sure of
the guru.” She sat down on the ground next to a cow pie and circled
her legs with her arms, squinting up at Adi. “It must be nice to
have faith,” she said.
    “Yeah, it is. You should try it.” He gave her
a half smile and she couldn't help smiling back a little.
“Seriously, though, what do you think is in the way of believing in
the guru?”
    Sumitra shrugged. Really she knew what it
was, but she wasn't ready to tell Adi about her own pain. In dark
moments she was resentful of God, angry that he had made her the
way that she was. “What makes you believe in him?” she
countered.
    “Makes life easier, I guess. It shares the
burden a little. Advaita posits that we are all God, so all of us
together share the responsibility of life. It's nice not to be
fighting through it alone.”
    “I do feel alone,” Sumitra acknowledged.
“Sometimes I think I will let my parents arrange a marriage for me
just to fill my emptiness.”
    “I think if you're going to do that, the guru
would make a better choice. He'll take more care of you than a
stranger-husband.”
    “I wish I felt what you felt.”
    Adi smiled. “Not many would say that.”
    “They would if they knew you. Does it bother
you that people think it's your karma and your fault that you're
paralyzed?”
    “No. They can think whatever they want to
think. The chair is my fate, but what I do with it, that creates my
future fate. I'm sure there's a reason I'm disabled. I don't know
what it is, but life goes on. Lucky for me, I'm not under any
pressure to get married,” he added with a teasing smile.
    ***
    They spent most of the day together every day
after that as the time in their pilgrimages ticked down. Sometimes
she sat on the steps of the dorm and ate bhel puri while he sat in
front of her and they talked. Sometimes Adi did impersonations of
his overbearing mother and made Sumitra laugh and kick her feet
against the dirt in glee. Sumitra had so much fun with him that she
was starting to feel sad while they were laughing together, just
knowing that at some point she would have to tell Adi the truth,
that she was a freak, and this carefree time together would
end.
    There would be the usual questions: do you
know why? When did it start? Do you like me or only my disability?
Do you have a need to be in control over someone else? The
questions that paralyzed men always asked her when they found
out.
    One day left. The knowledge pounded against
Sumitra's ribcage all through darshan in the morning. She left
before the parents again and hurried back to Adi's room, as they
had been doing all week. Out on the street she fingered the goods
displayed on the stands and avoided looking at him. He was so darn
cute.
    “What's up?” Adi said.
    “Last day,” Sumitra said and