Meet The Mukundans

(Mukundan Women from left to right: Namitha, Mrs. M and Natasha.)


“Are you sure there is enough room for us?,” I asked Namitha, the Mukundan’s youngest daughter.

“Yes, we invited Fathima, Kirthi, Pradeep, Fazil (Fathima’s son), Sita and others too. They are coming and there is plenty of room,” she replied confidently.

I found this hard to believe as having room in a home for eight additional people no doubt meant that the house must be a mansion and the Mukundans were well off by Indian standards. Marc and I began walking up the path back to our room at the ashram. Along the way we ran into Mr. Mukundan where I again inquired as to whether he had enough room in his home.

“Plenty of room, we have a separate house for guests, many beds,” he assured me, “we will go to my club for dinner, they have a pool where you can swim tomorrow.

We did not want to miss the opportunity to stay in an Indian home with new friends we had made in the Art of Living course. It was a generous invitation, one we did not know if we would get again. So we packed our bags and met the Mukundans at their car, a four door compact, where five of us would have to squeeze in with luggage on our laps. And while driving in India is difficult, Mr. Mukundan was not one of the better drivers as his age, poor vision and timid nature, left him bouncing on the brake most of the journey as other cars passed him or honked in frustration. It was only made more entertaining by the eldest daughter, twenty-nine year old Natasha, who enroute explained rather simply that she sometimes slept in her parents room as she had visions of ghosts.

I thought to myself, “Can I get out now? Now you tell us? Why didn’t this come out in the 3 days of group discussions?” I already missed the ashram.

An hour and a half later, we arrived at the Mukundan home. Set in a suburban area of Bangalore, it was a nice home of three bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom on the second floor. The area surrounding it was quiet as vacant lots waited for development. We left our bags upstairs and headed for the club to which the Mukundans belonged. It was getting late, it had been a long day, and we were all hungry.

The club was similar to those in the US where a family buys a membership which includes access to the facilities, a pool, bar, restaurant and spa. We sat for dinner just after 9:00 p.m., not an uncommon dining time for most Indians I have met. Appetizers, main courses, naan and rice filled the table as we sat in the outdoor restaurant overlooking parts of Bangalore. The evenings were pleasant bringing relief from the hot humid days.

Dinner was over at 11:00 p.m. and the whole crew returned to the Mukundan home. Mr. Mukundan grabbed Marc, Fazil, Pradeep and I to head downstairs. What was he going to show us? Did he have a stash of liquor or a pool table downstairs? No such luck and I would have settled for a mosquito net at that point. He opened a door to a downstairs room with two bunk beds and offered it as a place for the four of us to sleep. He mentioned that it was warm down there and the mosquitos are many, but it was an option, or we could sleep on the living room floor upstairs.

“Huh? What happened to the “extra house” with many rooms for guests I heard mentioned earlier?,” I thought to myself. Sleeping in tight quarters with three other guys and 500 mosquitoes was not the vision I had when this trek started, I’d rather sleep with the ghosts, where do they sleep? We politely thanked him for his offer and said the accomodations would be just fine. I could tell by the look in Pradeep’s eyes that he was not going to spend the night, but he did not let on to Mukundan.

Returning upstairs where the women gathered in the living room, our alternative sleeping quarters served as the center stage, literally. There were ten of us total and Mr. Mukundan asked that the singing begin. I thought this might be a joke as it was after 11:30 and all of us had been up since 6:00 and attending class all day. But it was not a joke, this was an impromptu version of Indian Idol. For the next two hours, Sita, Pradeep and Kirthi, with background vocals from Mrs. Mukundan and Natasha, belted out Indian songs as I struggled to keep my eyes open. How Mr. and Mrs. Mukundan were hanging in there I have no idea, but it was not long before Mr. Mukundan himself performed a solo. Pradeep and Sita carried the night though as they actually had amazing voices singing popular songs from Hindi films. Not played on any station I know of in the U.S., I had not heard any of the songs before, but they were very pleasing to the ear.


(Living Room Floor/Stage for Indian Idol with performers.)

Thinking that either they would run out of songs to sing or retire for the evening, I closed my eyes as if to get lost in the music to avoid appearing rude, but my body was craving to get lost in dreamland. Sometime close to 2 a.m., I glanced over at Marc only to see his chin sunk heavy into a chair with blinks that consisted of more shut eye than open. I pulled the plug on our generous hosts as songs continued like someone had put fifty dollars in the twenty-five cent jukebox. The crew was surprised as Marc said he too was going to hit the sack, but that did not stop the competition. It was only the next day that we learned the song fest did not disburse until 4:30 a.m..

I’m not sure I got anymore sleep by leaving the gang and making my nest in a lower bunk downstairs. The room had not been opened in weeks, if not months and the heat required open windows for relief. But open windows meant unwelcome friends, the mosquito brigade from the local watering holes on the adjacent undeveloped lots. It was a no win situation, but it was our only choice for the night.

Marc and I laughed a solid twenty minutes before attempting to sleep as we finally had the opportunity to share thoughts on the evening festivities. The laughing made the upcoming sleepness night somehow more palatable. Acknowledging that it was probably not going to be my most restful night made the many waking hours swatting mosquitoes from my ears and face more tolerable. As thoughts of packing up and hitting the road in the middle of the night teased my mind, sunrise could not come soon enough.

Despite going to bed after 4:30 a.m. and it being Monday, a work day, the Mukundans were up and about before us and we learned that the other Idol participants had gone home as I had suspected they would. I don’t know where they found the energy, but Marc and I surmised they were excited to have guests, instead of the usual ghosts. They were certainly welcoming and generous. Before leaving our dungeon, Marc and I discussed our exit plan. The night before the Mukundans had insisted we stay until our flights departed which was in two days time. One sleepless night later and I was reaching for the ripcord, E-brake, emergency door, call it what you will.

Mulling over excuses so as not to insult the Mukundans was again good fodder for laughter. Finally, the old adage, “honesty is the best policy” reigned supreme, and we explained to the family that we wanted to do some shopping in town and find a room closer to the airport as Marc’s plane was leaving early the next morning. That did not go over well as Mr. Mukundan then offered to have his daughter, Natasha, take us shopping in town, then we could take an early taxi the following morning to the airport. In a tag team effort, Marc and I expounded upon our reasoning as Mr. Mukundan wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. It was only when Natasha explained to her Dad that we were following our plan that he slightly eased up on his insistence that we stay.

Mr. Mukundan, the owner of three businesses, one of which is a computer college for Microsoft certification, went off to work on less than three hours sleep. Dressed neatly in a yellow button down shirt and brown slacks, he was energetic as he headed for work around 10 a.m.. Relentless in character, as he left the house he renewed his bid for us to stay one more night.

Now it was just us and the girls, Mrs. Mukundan, Natasha and Namitha. I tried to catch Marc’s attention to make a new bid to leave. As the morning rolled on and photo albums were pulled from the shelves, it seemed as if we would never break free. Everytime we mentioned leaving, it was ignored as if it had not been said. Fifth wedding album pulled from the shelf and wedding dress pulled from the closet, I was going to walk out the door or a window whether a rikshaw was waiting for me or not. I only hoped Marc was ready to depart as I watched him snap his camera over the photo albums capturing Mrs. Mukundans 30 year old wedding photos on his digital screen. Either he was crazy (quite possible) or he was one heck of a good actor.


(Wedding dress photo taken by Marc caught up in the frenzy of nuptial talk.)

And none of this is a reflection of the Mukundans, a poster family for Indian hospitality, but more a reflection of wanting to move on as it was Marc’s last day before returning to the U.S. Having left the ashram in a hurry, time to process the lessons and experience was needed, but blaring rock ‘n roll on the jerking car ride from the ashram and the Indian Idol experience had not permitted any down time. Marc and I agreed that we needed to get lost before we could get found.

While at 11:00 a.m., I said we would leave at 1:00 p.m., a rikshaw was not scheduled for our pick-up until 2:00 p.m., but it would not arrive until 3:00p.m. Blurry eyed from Natasha’s honeymoon pictures, lack of sleep and the heat, I found irony in the patience now required to maintain composure in this waiting period that had far exceeded my limits. Finally 3:00 p.m. rolled around and the rikshaw carried us away for our thirty-minute drive back to central Bangalore where we would search for a room for one night.

Settled into our room, we headed to a nearby coffee shop for several hours to write, process and catch up with the whole experience. Few words were exchanged between us as silence was golden. Early the next morning, Marc would return to Delhi where he would catch his flight back to the US.