I was scared. I was scared and excited about living a lifejust as it promises in the AA literature--beyond my wildest dreams. After two solid days of plane travel, I dont know how many time zones, and a quantitative leap into tomorrow (India is a day ahead) I landed about a thousand kilometers south of Bombay, bleary eyed and jet lagged in Bangalore, the capital of Indias Silicon Valley. The purpose of my relocation was to work, amazingly enough, in my field, as a Language Specialist (LS) for Microsoft. My primary purpose, for the first day, was to find an AA meeting and connect with other sober alcoholics as soon as possible. With the ego surging, time was of the essence.
Even at two years and three months of sobriety Im not quite as spiritually fuel-efficient as I sometimes imagine myself to be. After three days with no contact with my tribe, I was running on fumes. To fill up my spiritual reserves by plugging into a power greater than myself at group level first, and then individually is what my sponsor would tell me to do if he were here. The obstacles to fulfilling my primary purpose were just a hundred forms of self-centered fear, what my colleagues might think, and the assault on the senses that comes from stepping out of our first world comfort zone into the rawness of the third. Would self-centered fear and the circumstances overpower my desire to stay sober?
After retrieving all I owned in the world and passing through customs, I stepped outside of the safe confines of the airport into a sea of curious brown faces, coconut trees and menacingly dark skies. A rusty guardrail on both sides of the airports one and only exit was lined with dark skinned, white teethed men holding signs with other mens names on them. I had to, as gang members often do, walk the gauntlet before the new life in India could begin. Between the names and faces my glance darted. Nary a name nor a soul was recognizable. At the end of the gauntlet stood, I surmised, a fellow countrymen of mine.
You must be Mark.
And you must be Baxter
Wheres Udhay? We asked each other simultaneously. With a shrug of the shoulders and a laugh, we knew somehow that we were right where we should be.
Udhay, our contact person from Trimurti Placement Services went sight unseen but we were comforted that we werent, at the very least, alone anymore. Soon Joe, another LS appeared, and we were three. Trimurti, as it turns out, is the Hindu word for trinity. It symbolizes, just as the yin & yang logo of the company does, Shivas destruction, Brahmas creation, and Vishnus maintenance of the universe. Shiva is yang, Brahma is yin, and the form that keeps them harmonized is Vishnu, the preserver and god of right action. The parallels between the Hindu concept of the universe and my own struggle to harmonize body, soul, and spirit were striking. I was but a microcosm of the universe, it seemed, and all good things come in threes.
While the two tried to out-smoke each other under tropical, overcast skies, Udhay finally showed up. All smiles and apologies, he escorted us through the chaotic labyrinth of Bangalore to our back alley three-star hotel. That life lives on life is no more painfully obvious than it is in developing countries. The very existence of all societies presupposes what the Hindus call Ahimsa. Eating, drinking, & moving about necessarily destroys some life, as minute as it may be, and no one can, for even a moment, live either consciously or unconsciously without committing some form of outward himsa. I wondered if I could, despite my entrapment in the conflagration of himsa, grow in self-restraint and empathy when compassion fatigue threatened to throw me into culture shock. Could I handle all that, work competently under a title Ive never had before and stay sober?
Shortly afterwards, at Trimurti, during our informal orientation the question of why on earth in the club & pub capital of India, all the drinking holes closed down so damned early. Frankly, we were all a bit shocked and appalled.
Its because of the police. Explained Sharad, the smartly dressed owner of the headhunting agency that had recruited us. Payle, the young, westernized, Indian woman in charge of logistical support wasnt slow to expound on the topic.
It is possible to find private clubs, after hours parties and businesses with special liquor licenses where you can party till 2 AM if you like. In fact, some LS night shifters who get off at 7:30 AM start drinking right after work. Their Friday night is Saturday morning and they party accordingly.
This seemed to comfort Mark and Joe. For me, it brought chills of emotional recall. Instantly, I was back at the bar still drunk from the night before having an early morning cana in Valladolid, Espana.
Or we could just go drinking before work Mark added in serious jest.
Trying to change the subject, Joe turned to the boss and asked, What do you see as our biggest expense?
Alcohol. He replied without hesitation.
Alcohol and cigarettes. Mark added with a nervous laugh. Cigarettes, especially the child labor rolled Beadies are like most Indian products and labor, dirt-cheap. The biggest expense we could expect was alcohol. Having paid that price before, I didnt want to pay again. If I just did what I was shown in Sacramento where I got sober, if I got a sponsor and worked with other alcoholics, Id never have to pay the price again which meant, unlike the others, Id have no expenses whatsoever. At that point, the idea that I could pay off my student loans and credit card debt seemed almost attainable. I got giddy. It would be like an impossible dream come true. That kind of right thinking on my part was a miracle in itself. Nevertheless, as Ive heard and my own experience confirms: willingness minus action equals fantasy. I had to be like Vishnu, the god of right action, and get into it. As soon as our one-year contracts were signed, and bank accounts opened, to the cyber caf down the street from our three-star hotel I went to get into right action.
Typing in Alcoholics Anonymous, Bangalore produced many hits. Clicking on the first one and then on meetings in your area popped a list of 24 different meetings onto the screen. Like the opening petals of a lotus blossom, my new universe unfolded before my eyes. File, print, and bingo! Im in action. With the printed page in hand, I ask the mustached and aged proprietor which meeting is closer.
This one4 kilometers. Close. This onenot very close. This one and through the list we went. In India, things are either (1) very close, (2) close, or (3) not very close. Was it the trimurti again? To the hotel I returned for a quick nap. After all, it had been two days without a full 8 hours of uninterrupted horizontal sleep. With the alarm set, straight into the arms of Morpheus I fell. The jetlag made it seem that I awoke before Id slept. Quickly, I dressed and into one of the first cool nights of the monsoon season, on my very first evening in India, I rushed headlong and hopeful.
The aroma of incense, the muskiness of recently upturned red earth, and the smell of burning leaves of grass wafted though my nostrils as I set out in search of my first AA meeting in Bangalore. In a sprawling metropolis of some seven million souls, there are nearly twice as many motorcycles, scooters, and rickshaws as there are people. Traffic pulses, chaotic and frantic, through clogged arteries. No traffic lanes exist and even if they did, the sheer volume of vehicular movement couldnt be contained nor the noise suppressed. India is loud! Amidst the nearly incessant honks of horns, whilst moving from one earthen sidewalk to the other, I made a mistake that almost cost me my life. Because they drive on the left instead of the right, I looked the wrong way before crossing. If not for the locust like squawk of that rickshaws horn I would have been made one with the blacktop. Involuntarily, I let out a squawk of my own.
The address was as most are in developing nations: defined not by number but by its relation to other building and landmarks. At the Resurrection Church Compound, on Old Madras Road, near Isolation Hospital one could, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings find the Lotus Group. Dodging yet more three wheeled, motorized rickshaws, Vespas, blue horned cows, and diesel belching buses, I thought to myself, This is somehow just as I expected and nothing I ever imagined. After peeking my head into the chapel at the Resurrection Church, I was drawn, as a moth is to a naked bulb, to a light coming from a small room in an adjunct building in the church compound. I popped in and these words, in Indian English, with all its beautifully lilting cadence, brought reassurance and relief into a fearful heart.
Made a decision to turn out will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him Upon hearing these words I knew I was home. On an old wooden pew in the back I sat. The secretary nodded and the other ten men turned and smiled at me. Valiantly I tried to blend in, to be one among many, but it was obvious I was a foreigner and was now, by the chairperson, directly addressed.
We have a visitor in our midst. Would you like to introduce yourself, please?
Im an alcoholic named Baxter from Sacramento, California. More smiles and clapping went all round the tiny white washed room with the high backed wooden pews. Under the fluorescent glare of two nude tubes of light a ceiling fan whirled overhead. With bare concrete floors and only twelve people inside the classroom, the meeting was physically small and Spartan. It was precisely because of these attributes and the humility it inspired in us all, that it was a place of true power convergence. Outside, great stalks of an ancient bamboo grove creaked in the breeze of the seasons first monsoon.
Inside, a moth moved towards the light as the sharing moved towards Tradition Six. Tradition six lists causes and conditions for our diversion from our primary purpose of carrying the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Harish, the old yet young looking and dignified man of 28 years of sobriety explained that without Tradition Six, the unity of the AA program would be secondary to material gain, to earthly passions. If our common welfare is not placed first then there is no place for our personal recovery he stated, If it was so, no place would there be for visitors such as our friend from Sacramento, or for our newcomers to gather if not for some small personal sacrifices for the good of all. Tradition six is, like all instruments in the quest of truth, as simple as it is difficult. After a respectful pause he announced, Id like to hear from Baxter, our visitor from California. On the hard bench I shifted and unclasped my hands.
Im an alcoholic named Baxter. Thank you Mr. Secretary for opening the doors up and for all of you being here. I was nervous. You all are a part of my recovery today. I paused. Thank you. In my seat I shifted again. Harish is right. I cleared my throat. If I dont subsume my personal instincts for money, property, and prestige to the needs of the group I am destined to drink again. If I dont try and carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers, I will not be able to keep what has so freely been given to me. The nervousness slipped away. If I imagine my good fortune to have come from within me and not from a power greater than and outside of myself, Im suffering from the same illusion of power I had before I got sober and sooner or later I will drink again.
My share was not met with heads nodding up and down as it sometimes occurs in California when fellow AA members kinesthetically come into agreement and identify with what Im sharing but with a somewhat circular side-to-side motion of the head not dissimilar to the bobbly headed dolls sometimes seen on the dashboards of American cars.
Between shares, the chairperson was expected to pick-up the threads of the last persons share to bring the meeting back to the topic written on the blackboard from AAs book of daily reflections. One member, an older gentleman with the red kunkuman anointment of the Hindu religion on his forehead, was called on. Per the topic of unity, he proffered that the dialogue between Vasishtha & Vishvamitra, and the parallels between Christianity & Islam all bore out that the seeker of truth should be humbler than the dust. Then, and only then, is one offered a glimpse of the truth. He concluded his share with this not too subtle allusion to what has been so often thought but neer so well expressed:
The instruments for the quest of truth he stated, appear quite impossible to an arrogant person and quite possible to an innocent child for they are, as Harish so eloquently put it, as simple as they are difficult.
In silent, kinesthetic agreement, I nodded my head while they moved theirs from side to side. We all smiled as our faith met in the middle of the room and synergistically expanded to fill our spiritual reservoirs. To make it through another day of sobriety, to accept life of lifes terms would be the results of what some doctors have called the X factor in AA. Others called it the synergistic effect. We call it, simply enough, Gods grace.
An older sister in sobriety, in a brightly colored saree, tied the wisdom of the wording in step three, as we understood him with the unity of Tradition Six: There are innumerable definitions of God she explained, because his manifestations are also, innumerable. On her brow, a bindi, the sign of Brahaman, the One, the ultimate reality, reminded me that goodness, in all its guises comes from a single source, call it what you may. We closed not with the Lords prayer (as I half expected) nor with the holding of hands but with the serenity prayer repeated after the secretary ensemble.
At the meeting after the meeting (theres always three in one, you know) Harish, invited me join him and the other members of the Lotus Group fellowship for dinner and coffee. I felt uncomfortable; I didnt know these people. I was tired; I hadnt slept in a couple of days but I knew I if wanted to stay sober, I shouldnt say no. My transformation from ignorance to knowledge of what AA was like in India, and the question of whether or not I could stay sober here would be, if I said no, incomplete & unanswered. I knew that if I connected with other alcoholics as Bill did with Bob when he when on that fateful business trip to Akron, Ohio seventy years ago last month, my chances of staying sober, of growing spiritually even in a country with such diversity of faith as India, would be that much greater. Its been a week since I accepted their invitation and was shown the true meaning of brotherly love and Im still sober. My faith is this program of right action has deepened and Harish, the dignified gentleman that Id like to be on the day when A.A. celebrates 100 years, is now my sponsor.