The Centre(58)

“So this is where it began,” I said.

“That’s right. The four of us launched the project from this very room, before Shiba was even born,” Arjun replied, pointing to a nearby picture frame. “That’s us at the time.”

The photo was of a very young and handsome-looking Arjun dressed in a blazer and flared jeans standing next to three equally young and dapper white men. The four of them, with their broad chests and languid demeanors, stood tall in front of a large medieval-looking building, as if they had the world at their feet.

“That was our college,” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” I replied.

We moved on to the second room, which was small and consisted only of a large, dark-green leather armchair, a desk, a microphone, and a pair of headphones. A set of simple buttons was embedded into the table itself, the kind you would find on a music player: Rewind, Fast-Forward, Stop, Play, Record. Except for the microphone, the space looked like an upscale version of the language booth at the Centre.

“This is where we do our recordings,” Shiba said.

“We?”

“Yeah, Papa and me. And the other three, when they’re here. George, Eric, David.”

“You guys are Storytellers?”

“Of course,” Arjun said. “We wouldn’t put other people through a process we didn’t believe in ourselves, would we?”

“What do you talk about in your recordings?” I asked Shiba.

“I tell my story,” she replied. “Just like the others do. It’s basically just hours and hours of me recounting my day-to-day life.”

“That sounds cool,” I said, my fingers grazing over the buttons on the desk.

“In fact, our very first Storytellers recorded from this room. Did Shiba mention that our first facility was right here in India?”

“Yeah, I think she did. Teaching Hindi?”

“That’s right,” he said.

“How did you find the Storytellers?”

“Oh, it wasn’t difficult. We reached out to indentured laborers, people who didn’t want to pass on debt to their families. We took care of their debts, and in return, they came in every day to record their stories. Sometime after that, we booked out a luxury spa hotel and marketed it—to Westerners, obviously—like a yogic, Ayurvedic, Hindi learning retreat. We told them it was based on ancient Vedic philosophy. They love that kind of thing.”

“I think the original advertising’s still somewhere around here,” Shiba said. “You should see the illustration on the poster—a skinny man in a dhoti and turban with a snake made out of letters of the Hindi alphabet coming out of his basket. Papa, that was so cringe.”

“It worked though, didn’t it? The Learners said we were magicians, even saints. I think they wanted to stay forever, to become our ‘followers’ or some such thing.”

“Foreigners are always coming here desperate for men that they can turn into gurus,” Shiba said, rolling her eyes.

“But we had no interest in playing that kind of role,” Arjun continued. “We just wanted to know whether the process worked. And once we knew that it did, we opened a Thai center, here in Delhi, and when that, too, was successful, we thought we’d try multiple languages under the same roof. That became the institution Shiba runs now. It had to be in England, you see, to attract the kind of clientele that wouldn’t have a problem with our rates.”

“Makes sense.” I nodded before asking, as soon as it felt appropriate, “So … how exactly does it work?”

Arjun flashed Shiba a look, “You have probably understood it somewhat by now, yes?”

I felt a little stupid.

“Somewhat, yes,” I said. “But how exactly?”

“It is, essentially, an energetic exchange. The methodology is complex, meticulously developed. I think best to explain when you’ve caught up further on your own, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I stammered. “Whatever you think is best.”

We entered the third room of the cottage, a small kitchen with a two-burner gas stove and a small fridge.

“We needed a place free of prying eyes, and often worked late into the night, so we set up our own little station here to make coffee and reheat food. In fact, Shiba, sweetheart, will you make us some tea now?”

“Of course.”

While Shiba set the water to boil, Arjun and I made our way back to the office. I looked at the photo of him with his colleagues again. I could see where Shiba got her sharp eyebrows and prominent nose, her glinting eyes and thick hair. Arjun stood behind me and looked at the photo over my shoulder.

“We met at the chess club, you see. Eric was a physicist and George was there studying biochemistry. David was studying anthropology, and I was reading PPE—”

“PPE?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said and let out a little chuckle, as if I was so very sweet and stupid for not knowing. “Politics, philosophy, and economics, dear. But I also considered myself something of a linguist in those days. Like you, I hear.”

“Kind of—”

“Soon,” he interrupted, “the four of us became bosom buddies. Then, one day, we were talking in one of our rooms. Well, don’t tell Shiba this part, but, in those days, you know, various substances were in vogue as well. I mean, mind-altering stuff. It was an experimental age. So yes, we had taken a little something.”