a serialized online story
by Tommy Schmitz
Chapter 11 - The flow of a brother's fate.
Kenji went to his knees
and held his arms around his sister
and sobbed with her
and felt her arms embracing his shoulders and back
and younger brother and older sister
became quiet of words within
and they held this silence in silence
hearing only their breathing combined.
She spoke first, "There must be a reason
why you are here now.
No one returns home
after fifty years
without something overwhelming guiding their return.
"Yes," he nodded.
"You know, then, Kenji-san, what is happening
in our lives right now?"
"Yes," he nodded.
"How do you know?" Oba-chan said.
"Let's move over here to my camp and talk." Kenji said, "the agents
don't come around until a bit a later..."
Oba-chan interrupted, "they know I'm at work and the girls at gym."
"but they'll return, and they mustn't see me." Kenji said.
They walked to his geodesic bamboo hut and sat down inside
"I entered the country illegally.
There was no time to get a passport," Kenji said, "they are not
looking for me - yet - but soon will be, and I cannot yet be found."
"How did you enter Japan?"
"Contacts of mine in India and in Kashmir
made arrangements for my... um, delivery.
"Kashmir?!" Oba-chan said.
"Yes, Kashmir." Kenji said. "I have been living there for forty years.
In areas controlled by both Hindus and Muslims."
"This is where Mieko and Henry have gone missing!" Oba-chan said.
"Yes," Kenji said.
"This is where Mieko and Henry have already visited and returned from several times!"
"Yes," Kenji said.
"And you were aware of their visits?"
"Yes," Kenji said.
"But you were never introduced." Oba-chan surmised.
Oba-chan didn't have to ask Kenji why he, himself,
didn't make the introduction to Mieko and Henry in Kashmir.
He was old enough when he left Japan
to know how these things work.
His history, his story, his existence
dropped out of sight and sound
among family members and friends
after the first year or two
of his disappearance.
They learned he was last seen
boarding a freighter in Tokyo Bay
headed for some place on the west coast of India.
It seemed to be what Kenji wanted.
He left willingly. In safety.
All were happy to know this,
but after he departed,
they could not bear the pain
of wondering about him out load to each other.
His story was simply never passed on.
Mieko and Henry were unaware of his existence.
"Please tell me, Kenji-san, how all of this came about," Oba-chan said.
Kenji, his back straight and head and shoulders looking relaxed,
shifted his weight a bit, sitting on haunches.
He began talking, measuring carefully his words
in Japanese, his long sleeping native tongue.
"I first settled in India, in the state of Gujarat, in a city called Ahmedabad.
There was a wonderful man I met on the boat that took me out of Japan.
He was from Gujarat.
His name was Tapan Majmudar.
A trader of spices and cotton fabric.
And a student of someone
whose name I had never heard before.
Mohandas Gandhi.
"Gandhi." Oba-chan repeated.
"Yes." Kenji continued.
With kindness and patience,
Tapan Majmudar got me to tell him my story.
He he listened to me word for word,
and would often stop me to clarify one point
or another as my story unfolded,
or to ask me a question
to further his own understanding,
I was speaking to him in a language
he had only recently begun learning
in order to do business in Japan.
He trusted me, and I him,
I had never heard a foreigner speak Japanese.
He took me home with him to his family in Ahmedabad.
I began learning Gujarati, the regional language,
and Hindi, a more nationalized language of India.
Soon after I was introduced to people
at the Gandhi ashram
near Ahmedabad on the Sabarmati River.
Gandhi had been assassinated
eight years before my arrival,
but his students and his teachings lived on.
I soon began living as a community member
at the ashram.
It was a good place for me, One'-san." Kenji continued,
"I learned about Satyagraha, living a simple life
that accepted every human being,
regardless of who they were
or what they believed.
The ashram was a spiritual place,
not because of rituals or practices --
actually, there were none at all --
Gandhi's principles were not so much ideas as actions:
of courage, of nonviolence, of truth.
Gandhi called this Satyagraha,
the manners in which we act
are of greater value
than the results of our acts." Kenji said.
Oba-chan engaged Kenji with an insight,
"The ends don't justify the means."
"Correct, One'-san," Kenji said,
"universal words of common sense,
and universally ignored in our common actions," and he continued,
"I felt accepted there, and unconfined,
and free from the expectations of others,
from the pressures of society and culture,
I began to feel relaxed about the drama of my childhood."
"You seem quite relaxed, Kenji-san,
and you stutter no more." Oba-chan said.
"I do sometimes," Kenji said, "but the entire issue
gradually lost its significance
as I began using other areas of my brain
to learn new cultures
and new ways of interacting with people,
and new languages." Kenji paused now and
looked with a smile at his sister.
"You must be thirsty, One'-san,
would you like a glass of water?" Kenji said.
"I'm sorry, Kenji-san, I should be the one asking you." replied Oba-chan,
"it's still early, let's sneak into the house through the girls' room
and make some tea."
Inside, Kenji felt at home but Oba-chan, although elated to see her brother,
felt anxious to hear more. He sat at the dining room table while
his sister began to boil a pot of water.
"So how did you get to Kashmir?" she asked.
"I'm sorry for the long story, One'-san,
I will try to make it short."
He paused a few moments while his sister
brought a fresh pot of green tea and two cups to the table.
"My first green tea in fifty years," he smiled.
And Oba-chan was feeling too filled with emotion to reply.
Gandhi wanted an India that was free and undivided.
An India where Moslems and Hindus
lived and worked together peacefully,
as one national family. As you know,
this did not happen. In 1947, India was granted
her independence, but cut in two by politics and religion.
There was India, free at last, and there was Pakistan too, and free as well,
but now these sibling states turned immediately
to war with each other.
This situation saddened me so completely, One'-san.
My friends were of all faiths,
Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist...
I also began speaking Urdu,
the language of the Moslems in the area.
Perhaps because of my childhood,
but more so, I believe, because of the influence of Gandhi,
I felt a responsibility to make a difference
that might result in more peaceful feelings
between these people.
In 1961, a friend of mine took me
to Mumbai, or Bombay as you might still call it,
to meet and to study with an obscure spiritual teacher
named Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
"I have not heard that name." Oba-chan said.
"He was a humble man," continued Kenji, "a cigarette maker,
with a profound spiritual knowledge,
not political like Gandhi's,
but deeper and more personal on the level of one's heart.
Nisargadatta lived and spoke a complete knowledge
that was utterly simple, yet powerful,
and easy to apply. This knowledge did not conflict
with what I had learned at the ashram in Ahmedabad.
On the contrary, for me, it made Gandhi's principles of Satyagraha
so much easier to live." Kenji continued.
"I lived and worked in Mumbai for the next several years
to be closer to my new teacher.
And then as I felt progress within me,
I changed my name --
this was not required,
merely something I wanted to do.
My name is now Satchitananda.
I followed in my teacher's footsteps,
and did as he did early in his spiritual growth,
and I went north to live in the Himalayas.
Nisargadatta gave me his blessing to do so,
and warned me it would not be a permanent relocation.
And he was right.
After a few years of living a very simple life in the Himalayas
devoted constantly to the peace and joy and love
that surprisingly continued to grow more and more
inside of me, I left the mountains,
and traveled to Kashmir,
a beautiful and enchanting land,
and a boiling pot of ignorance and hatred
between two cultures, two peoples
I had come to know and love: Hindus and Moslems.
I have worked alone between these people
for the last 40 years
in a personal effort to unite them
or at least to make things a little better.
And I am afraid that I have failed.
And now, my niece Mieko and her husband Henry,
have fallen victim to the hatred between these people.
"So, you know who has them, and where they are?"
"I do not know, One'-san," Kenji said.
A group who wants attention has taken them
only because of their nationalities. A Japanese
and an American. A married couple. And they intend to use them
to put forth a message."
"So Mieko and Henry are in great danger." Oba-chan stated.
"Yes, Mieko and Henry are in great danger." replied Satchitananda.
(End of Chapter 11.)
