The Yoga of Max's Discontent by Karan Bajaj Page B

Fresh from the disastrous hike, his knees and ankles felt stiff and heavy, like large blocks of stones. He crossed and uncrossed his legs.
    Anand closed his eyes and nodded to the music.
    Max tried to do the same but couldn’t. It didn’t take a musical genius to know that the singers couldn’t strike a single melodious note and their instruments were badly tuned. They wailed and shrieked, their voices gruff and hoarse, sometimes so carried away by the melody only they could hear that they forgot to play their instruments, which was perhaps better.
    Max waited a few songs for Anand to get up. He didn’t open his eyes.
    The singers screeched on. Max fidgeted.
    The singers moved from the duet to solo performances. The sitar player in his tight sequined kurta shut his eyes and screamed, triple chin rolling, loose folds on his neck and waist flying in every direction. The spindly woman in her white sari looked on encouragingly, then sang herself in a low, whiny voice. Max’s skin crawled. A grating sensation went up his spine. He was in a medieval torture chamber.
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    FINALLY, A BREAK. Everybody got up to leave—except Anand. And Max. Max stared at Anand’s closed eyes and peaceful face in disbelief. This sounded nothing like the deep, sonorous, oddly stirring music he had heard at Anand’s home. What was he hearing in it?
    A fresh batch of unsuspecting listeners sat down on the floor. They too left after the next break.
    Max excused himself two hours later when he thought he would burst out in tears and start throwing things around if another sound came from the fat man’s lips. Out in the busy street, he paced around. Four-thirty PM . He could still make it to the New Delhi airport just in time for the midnight flight if he left immediately. But something felt incomplete. Anand’s calm, silent face must have something to say. He had to give it another try.
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    MAX WALKED BACK into the temple. Anand hadn’t budged from his position. Max sat next to him. The fat sitar player was sweating profusely. Perhaps now he would stop from exhaustion. The woman wiped the man’s forehead with her handkerchief. It gave him a shot of new energy. He shouted even louder than before. Max listened to the lyrics. He could make out a few familiar words in the din. Ram, Krishna, Om. But they were being uttered so tonelessly that even the fierce-faced goddess riding a lion would likely recoil and cover her ears with all her ten hands. Perhaps that was the point. Scare God into submission. Force Him to grant all your wishes; otherwise you’d never stop shrieking.
    After two more hours of song, Max was in agony. He had missed his flight. The singing-shouting continued unabated. Groups of people came and left, but Anand didn’t move. This was so much worse than being lost in the mountains. At least he could do something there. Here he was helpless. He breathed slowly and stared at the statues, wishing he were sitting in front of his computer in New York instead. His fingers itched to write a killer Array formula that cracked open rows of Excel data, to set up a VLOOKUP that found missing variables in a large database—something, anything that spit out an answer when asked a question. Why was the path to truth so obscure, so clouded?
    Anand nudged him. “Are you ready to go?”
    Max hid his relief. “Whenever you are. I’m fine,” he said.
    The dimples again. “You are enjoying it?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOkay then, just one last song,” said Anand.
    They listened to three more songs before heading outside.
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    ANAND SMILED WIDELY on their walk back. His shoulders swung. He put his baseball cap back on.
    â€œThe male singer is a trustee of the temple, so they have to let him and his wife sing whenever they want,” said Anand. “He is