Heavenly Hirani's School of Laughing Yoga

  But Annie was serious. She wanted to take this city in all its craziness and wring every last drop out of it before they went home. And if that meant dancing with death in the heat and dust and intensity of north Mumbai’s crazy night-time traffic in nothing more than a glorified lawn mower on the way to sample Indian tequila cocktails, so be it.

  They clambered in the back, and off they sped, barely missing a three-legged dog straight off the mark as a group of teenagers crossed in front of them, another rickshaw came behind them, a bus rumbled towards them and a motorbike zipped somewhere in the middle.

  Annie closed her eyes, breathed in the salty, smoky air, the muggy warmth, the noise, the clutter, the mayhem, felt Hugh’s hand strong and safe in hers … and she laughed.

  She let go of the loneliness, the pain, the resentment, the fear, the past, the disappointments, the worry about the children, the future, the car accidents, and she just laughed.

  Because everyone needs to laugh.

  What was done was done, what was lost was lost, but there was still a lot to be found.

  ‘This is crazy,’ Hugh cried, over the honking and squeaking and shrieking. ‘Completely crazy!’

  ‘I know,’ she shouted back. ‘Crazy and amazing!’

  In the din of a sultry Mumbai night the cries of two happy foreigners were little more than a whisper, but their laughter was still ringing in Annie’s ears when the sun rose the next morning.

  She let her husband sleep and slipped out for one last trip to the sands of Chowpatty Beach.

  ‘I AM PLEASE TO SEE YOU HAPPY, MA’AM,’ Pinto said, when she slid into the back seat of his taxi. ‘I am feeling like Jack frozen in the water when you leave Mumbai before.’

  ‘Thank you, my friend,’ she said.

  ‘I am your friend,’ he agreed.

  ‘Yes, well, on that subject,’ she said, as they made their way along the esplanade by the sea face. ‘I have been talking to Mr Hugh about you, Pinto, and we would like to do something for you.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. What is this?’

  ‘We’d like to buy you a taxi, no strings attached, because you have been such a good friend, and because we can manage it. I want to make a difference to someone here in India, to say how grateful I am for everything India has given me, and I think it should be you.’

  Pinto kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, reaching out to touch the head of his Ganesh hood ornament. ‘Ma’am, this is very kind, but I cannot accept this,’ he said. ‘For sure I cannot.’

  ‘Oh! May I ask why?’

  ‘Ma’am, remember I tell you about the bad man who stole my taxi licence money and then I save for two years and get another one?’

  ‘Yes, of course I remember.’

  ‘This time, I have a good friend and his father helps me with the licence. I tell this man that he is like a father to me and I am like a son to him and this man he changes my life. This man and his son, my good friend, they own this taxi, they own two taxis, but then this man is sick and before he dies I promise this man that I will work with his son — we are in it together for always. His son is my boss, but he is a good boss and I make a good promise.’

  ‘That is a very fine story, Pinto.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re a good friend to others, too.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And you’re happy? You earn enough money?’

  ‘Ma’am, I send ten thousand rupees to my father this week because of you. If I am good to the madams and the sirs and take them good places in my taxi, then this is good for me. In my village, I have already buy land and one day, in four years or five years, I will move back there and open a shop, with things for children and rice and groceries.’

  ‘Wow, Pinto, you have a plan.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, I have a plan. Now I just have a space, but soon I will have some walls, then a roof, then my shop.’

  He certainly knew how to surprise her. ‘Well, if you’re sure you’re happy, Pinto — then I’m happy, too.’

  ‘Ma’am, if you should still like to make another persons happy, I think this hospital in Colaba where Preeti Rathi was going to be a nurse, they could like some money for another person to go there in her place. This would help you think a good thing about Mumbai.’

  ‘I think a lot of good things about Mumbai,’ Annie said. ‘And that could be second on the list, but you, Pinto, are at the top of it.’

  He did not take his eyes off the road, but she could see him smiling.

  ‘Thank you. No other madam ever tells me this.’

  ‘Jack, come back,’ she said.

  ‘Jack, come back,’ he replied.

  They fell into a companionable silence as Annie watched the sun rise behind Mumbai’s skyscrapers for the last time.

  ‘Happy yoga,’ Pinto said, reclining his seat before Annie could even get out of the car to cross the warm sand and join Heavenly Hirani.

  ‘Ha ha ha, he he he.’ The group clapped and smiled at her as she approached.

  ‘Ha ha ha, he he he.’

  She slid into her place between Shruti and Priyanka, and gave them each a nudge.

  Heavenly stepped away from the centre of the circle and glided, as was her way, towards her.

  ‘Reach to the heavens,’ Heavenly told the group, ‘Reach to the stars and bend, bend, bend. To the left. The left. The left, Pooja. The other left.’

  She came up to Annie and looked her in the eye as they bent. ‘To the right, the right, the right,’ she sang, never dropping her gaze. ‘So, Annie, you made it to the Taj Mahal and back,’ she said, as they straightened. ‘Did it change you?’

  ‘It changed everything.’

  Heavenly smiled in the saintly way she had that made it seem like every good idea in the universe had possibly been hers to begin with. ‘I told you it would.’ She turned back to the group. ‘Now everyone, come in, come in, come in. Link arms behind the person next to you. No, not like that … link arms behind Kamalijit. Are you trying to give her a sexy time? This is not that sort of yoga. Come in, come in, come in. Tight as you can. Come in. Now, everyone lean back as far as you can, further, further, further, lean back, close your eyes and keep leaning, no one will let you fall. Lean, lean, lean, there is safety in numbers, although Pooja, watch out — you know how Suraj can drop people. Now open your eyes and notice what you see. Really notice it.’

  Annie opened her eyes and saw the vague outline of puffy clouds, building up for the pending monsoon. She saw the apartments below the hanging gardens of Malabar Hill and the Mumbai crows flying this way and that on their way to steal food out of the mouths of stupid tourists. She saw the leaning tops of city skyscrapers, the jetstream of a plane flying high above. And all the while she felt the hands and arms of Heavenly Hirani’s School of Laughing Yoga linking, holding her up, helping her, and she felt beyond blessed.

  When she leaned forwards and stood straight again, as bid by Heavenly, the yoga teacher was waiting for her, smiling.

  ‘I just realised you called me Annie,’ said Annie.

  ‘This is because I finally see who you really are,’ said Heavenly. ‘And you are very well, wonderful and beautiful.’

  After the class, Annie meandered back to the banyan tree, holding Heavenly’s hand, relishing that soft warmth, sitting next to her in the shade.

  ‘Hugh tells me you have a website,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Heavenly nodded. ‘My son-in-law gave me a computer and set up my email and what-not years ago now.’

  ‘You have a daughter?’

  ‘I have a son and a daughter just like you do. He is in IT in New York and she is an art dealer in London. They have each given me two beautiful grandchildren and I now have five great-grandchildren. My family is getting very big.’

  ‘But they live so far away — don’t you miss them?’

  ‘No, not really. I visit and they visit. And I have a business exporting Indian linens to Europe, so that, and laughing yoga six mornings a week, keep
me pretty busy.’

  Annie’s face betrayed her astonishment.

  ‘You thought I was a super-dooper yoga yogi?’ Heavenly said. ‘The sort who can put her ankles behind her ears but does not believe in material possessions?’

  Annie shrugged.

  ‘I am an ordinary woman, Annie, just like you, but older. I cannot even put my ankles behind my ears. I never could. The only secrets I know are that if you keep your body moving and you know what is in your heart, your life will be better for it. It is not rocket science.’

  ‘Then why do so many of us find it so difficult?’

  ‘I think for you, Annie, you needed your mother for longer than you had her. This happens to some. I had my mother till I was seventy-two, so I had all the time I needed to learn from her. Yours was taken too early. But you are wiser now, I think.’

  ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘I am not a super-dooper yogi but it is not the first time I have played a surrogate mum. It is why I am here and it is probably why I do not miss my own children so much. It is not magic, Annie. It is just noticing.’

  But it was magic, really.

  ‘YOU SAY BIG GOODBYE TO AUNTIE,’ Pinto said when Annie finally wrenched herself away from the shade and goodwill and cheery goodbyes beneath the banyan tree.

  ‘Yes, Pinto. She really is quite an amazing woman.’

  ‘And she lives in very nice house up on Malabar Hill.’

  ‘She does? How do you know that?’

  ‘Sometimes I take her there in my taxi.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since a long time.’

  ‘You knew her already, before I came to laughing yoga?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. She is another one who is kind to me, like this gardener I tell you about. After I am in the hospital for the stitches, from the insane person who is not the Beer Man, she sees me sleeping on the street one night and she is good to me. I stay in her house for some time, then I go to the guesthouse.’

  ‘So, Valren at the Lands End hotel got you specially to take me to laughing yoga that first time?’

  ‘This is the young boy from Goa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ma’am, he tell to auntie and auntie tell to me to take you to Chowpatty. I know auntie, but I do not know about laughing yoga. I just know after not-the-Beer-Man that she is a good person. This is a problem for you?’

  ‘Oh, no, not at all, Pinto. I just thought all these wonderful things had happened by some divine sort of mystic accident, but in fact it all makes perfect sense.’

  ‘Perfect sense is better, ma’am.’

  ‘It’s a joy,’ she agreed.

  ‘And we like some joy.’

  ‘We do indeed.’

  What’s more, Annie knew in her heart that she had much, much more of it to come.

  The following day, from Pinto:

  U r always be happey. God blasé u. Have a nice joriney and u r in my eyes and my heart. I allwayes pear far u. God give u long life. U happey me. Thunk u. Pinto.

  The following week, from Pinto:

  Hi how r. U be happey always all day I m talking about u. U always in heart thunks 1000 time u take care about me. Pinto.

  The following month, from Pinto:

  Hi. How r u! Its ok I don’t want money, I rember u evry day. Pinto.

  The following Year, from Pinto:

  U r happey? U stay in my heart and mine alyws in you. Come back jack. Pinto.

  Thanks

  I often berate the good fairies for not visiting my computer while I’m asleep and writing my books for me, but in fact the little darlings more or less did work their magic on Heavenly Hirani’s School of Laughing Yoga.

  With my very own Shah Jahan at the Taj Mahal at sunrise, May 2013. We’re not on the sad Diana bench, as that’s roped off, but you still get the picture.

  Barry Robison took me in a roundabout way to India, so I obliged by taking him in a roundabout way to the Oscars in March 2014. I love roundabouts.

  Like Annie, I had no intention of ever going to India, let alone writing a book set there. Indeed, a good friend of mine, after reading my novels about Irish cheese, French wine and Italian cookies said, ‘I think it’s fair to predict you’ll never be writing a book set in the slums of India, Sarah-Kate!’ Ha!

  Little did he know that one Easter my lovely ginger husband would get a phone call from production designer Barry Robison asking whether he could come to Mumbai to work on a Disney film called Million Dollar Arm, starring John Hamm from Mad Men. The Ginger did not know who John Hamm was, but I most certainly did, and I told Barry — who several films previously I had stolen off the Ginger for best-friend purposes — that yes, of course he would come.

  And as travel editor of Woman’s Day, New Zealand’s biggest-selling weekly magazine, it seemed churlish that I would not go with him.

  This chap here not only features in Heavenly Hirani, but also in the fabulous movie The Lunchbox, which is set in Mumbai’s dabbawallah world.

  Like Annie, I had my reservations: the poverty, the smells, the beggars, the danger. But these were all blown away before I even got out of the airport, when it turned out that not getting a visa before I arrived was not my best decision ever.

  The ten or so people I dealt with in sorting out this snafu were all so charming and helpful and friendly that I just knew that, whatever India smelt like, I was going to love it.

  And love it I did.

  I started writing Heavenly Hirani’s School of Laughing Yoga the next day from my hotel room, Room 1802, at the Taj Lands End. I had read about laughing yoga in Fiona Caulfield’s wonderful guidebook, Love Mumbai, and eventually found my way to Chowpatty Beach to join Kishore Kuvavala and his smiling gang of welcoming laughers for their early morning sessions.

  ‘You think that’s funny — wait ’til I give you the bill!’ Kishore and me laughing in the sunshine on Chowpatty Beach. It’s worth the money. Or half of it. This is India, after all. Haggle!

  Kishore wasn’t quite the inspiration that Heavenly was (on my last day he told me I owed him a thousand rupees per visit, which somewhat wiped the smile off my face), but I could see how India makes you look for gurus. Of course, whether you find them or not is entirely up to you.

  I left this amazing, mad city a month later with thirty thousand words under my belt. I didn’t know whether it was going to be a novel and I didn’t care. I just wanted to write about the colour, the energy, the craziness, the possibility, the allure of Mumbai.

  And I wanted to explore the empty-nest syndrome which was afflicting a few of the people around me at the time, and delve a little into the crisis a woman faces when she hasn’t thought about life for a while because she’s been too busy living it, and then, all of a sudden, she has time. Nothing but time.

  Heavenly Hirani’s School of Laughing Yoga is the result. It is something of a bonus book, so I hope you like it — but even if you don’t, it was a joy to write, so I’m happy!

  Let this photo of the gorgeous John Hamm be a lesson to all of us who enjoy sunbathing: being prepared sometimes means more than SPF30.

  I did see John Hamm, by the way. In fact, I lay beside him at the Taj Lands End swimming pool while he talked to some film producers about the loss of Angelina’s bosoms. (He talked about them very empathetically, actually.) I was too shy to introduce myself, as I had on very old worn swimming togs and did not look my best, which is a warning to you all that you must keep your bathing attire in top-notch condition at all times in case a movie star hoves into view.

  The real Pinto and me on either side of his cool cab outside the Ghandi house. I still get texts from him. He blasés me and I blasé him right back.

  Pinto at Churchgate station, waiting to show me the dabbawallahs.

  But mostly what I did in Mumbai were the things Annie does. I went exploring with the real Pinto, a taxi driver who spotted us mooching in Colaba one day and made sure he was there when we needed a ride back to the hotel. A lot of what Pinto says an
d does in the book is made up, but the rest of him is real, and if you are ever going to Mumbai, please email me and I will give you his number, because I think he is the best taxi driver in the world.

  I still get a text from him every now and then when he hooks onto a free international system. I felt very lucky when I was in Mumbai to have found someone like Pinto, who was so happy to share his view of that world with me. Taxi drivers in other places can be more interested in the *sshole making a U-turn in front of them or the gum-mint, but there was no question I could ask that Pinto didn’t want to answer, and his enthusiasm for India was infectious.

  I had some other stellar, more official, guides during my stay as well. Suresh showed me the Mumbai transport system (which is where you have to watch out for the full-body massages) and also took me on the tour of Dharavi slum (www.realitytoursandtravel.com).

  Suresh was the guide who took me to Dharavi slum and also on a tour of Mumbai’s trains and buses. Here we are being photobombed by a dude in a Stetson.

  If you are interested in how this incredible mini-world operates, Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs fame made a two-part documentary about it. It has to be seen to be believed.

  And then there is the Taj Mahal. Despite never wanting to go to India, the Taj Mahal was on my bucket list, so I’m not sure how that was going to work. But even though Mumbai is on the west coast, and Agra — where the Taj is — isn’t, I vowed to make my way there. As it happened, some of Million Dollar Arm was filming nearby, so I made my way separately but met up with the Ginger at sunrise, before he went to work, so we could visit this iconic monument together.

  Here I have to thank the real Sanjay, who really did have the same flair for drama as Annie’s Taj guide in the book. I was so keyed up about this giant marble love-letter to a lost wife that I burst into tears the moment I saw it and didn’t stop.