American Yarnprose>Doob-Doob-A-Rama

Doob-Doob-A-Rama

Oh to think that the Indian music of old would drag wild horses away to my days of early Indian life and culture, unknown and unaware in that naïve life, when money meant an extra candy bar at the neighborhood drugstore or a movie at the local bijou.

A strange mystical Indian family sought to teach English to their young son Anil, aged 10, so they recruited me. Oh how I remember the wafting smells of body odor and soap and food all combined to make my boyish mouth water or vomit.

Around the house on wall so dully-prosaic, were beautiful painted portraits of swamis, yogi priests and great Indian chanting masters from the days of old, like Gandhi smoking his pipe gleefully, family photographs with ceremonial dress and attire, standing proudly, smiling faces with symbolic circles impressed on their foreheads. We called it war paint and labeled them as "dot heads" or whatever the going catch phrase was in those days. Most kids in my neighborhood had never seen a real Indian before, let alone one from India, other than the aforementioned Gandhi or Tonto, The Lone Ranger's "faithful Indian companion."

Oh, those images are fresh in my mind, the day my younger brother Benjy and I saw nine or 10 Indian men dressed in traditional Indian garb pile out of a late model Ford station wagon. Now mind you, my younger brother and I had an image of an Indian that went far beyond the stretch of the imagination. fueled by old stereotypical cartoons and cowboy vs. Indians movies, and thanks in part to my eldest brother Louie, an Indian was something like a genie, a magical sort of being, who sported a long flowing blue cape and silver turban with an enormous sparkling jewel, casting spells and granting wishes.

Oh, how I long for the days when Louie and I played "George Genie" beneath colorful cozies Grandma Lena had knitted. Beneath those cozies, lay our imaginations, so deep and wide and karmic. Genie conventions and often-violent episodes of spell casting ensued. I always feared the predicted lines of Louie, when he spoke in semi-fanatical character, "Poof! You are now Casper! You shall walk, talk, think and act like Casper!"

So, to Benjy and me, an Indian from India was nothing more than a genie with a beach towel wrapped around his head. Sitting on our front stoop, we made our matters worse, when we showed our naiveté as young Benjy blurted out haphazardly as those men emerged from that car, "Hey! Look! Genies!"

And with a look of rage etched in their faces, we were sure that we too, would be turned into Casper forever. We watched with silent eyes as the 10 Indian men quickly shuffled down the sidewalk and into the waiting sanctuary of the great Indian temple conveniently disguised as a townhouse.

Back inside the great Indian temple, I only imagined the faithful prayers being recited, pictures kissed and bent knees and bodies scattered on the floor. And back again inside that temple for English lessons with Anil, while watching with great astonished eyes as Anil’s "crazy uncle" as Anil put it, would sit up, legs crossed in lotus position, flap his crossed legs together like a grounded chicken and pray his heartfelt songs and meditate. How strange I thought it all was comings and goings by Indians at all hours of the day.

The one lesson I learned however, was that when you're a teenager in a semi-odd tenement that considered you a social outcast because you didn't play their plays, share eating habits or believe that newness means weirdness or half a dozen other sorry excuses for not being part of the "in crowd," then those great Indian house temples and strange and wonderfully old beat karmic energies are the best things to revel in.