“The Four Keys”: Chapter 2

Sheily Shah

Missed Chapter 1? Read it here before moving on!

Arushi’s phone pings with a text message notification as she walks to her first session. It’s the scavenger hunt group chat.

Arushi laughs as she walks through the double doors of one of the larger breakout rooms for her first session. The room is already almost full. Other members already seem to know each other, and she finds a spot in the last row of seats.

Arushi has a flashback to just a few months ago when she had attended her first class at Georgia Tech University after moving from Mumbai mid-semester. Her stomach had clenched at the sight of people who looked and sounded different than she did and talked about things she knew nothing about. As a nineteen-year-old in a large class, she had kept her head down and talked to no one for the first few weeks of the semester.

Here, everyone looks like her and shares a similar purpose for being at Convention, but something still seems off. She feels her stomach clench in the same way, but any feelings of discomfort quickly dissipate as she focuses on the session leader at the front of the room. As the speaker starts to introduce themselves and their story, Arushi thinks back to her upbringing and what brought her here.

In Mumbai, Arushi lived on a street where a Jain temple, Gurudwara, Church, and Mosque were only blocks apart for lunch and recited the Navkar Mantra every morning with her classmates.

People start chattering and Arushi quickly snaps back to reality as she catches bits of conversations around her.

“Would Jainism have a stance on policy like that? I never really knew how much I could say during the protests!”

“There are so many entrepreneurs in the Jain community! But in order to own a business and hold onto Jain values, I feel like I would have to come from a place of privilege.”

“Honestly, the party culture at colleges is hard to navigate, and I always feel so guilty because I have no clue how I’m supposed to behave.”

The session speaker asks Arushi to share an experience of how she has been at odds with Jain values in her life, and Arushi is at a loss for words. Despite being immersed in Jain education her whole life, she can’t think of a time when she was challenged. She quietly looks down and whispers, “I’m not sure,” hoping the attention goes away from her. The session leader moves on, and Arushi sighs, disheartened.

Later that day, the grand ballroom is transformed into an amalgamation of colors and sparkles at the Convention Garba. People arrange themselves into a mosaic of concentric circles. Lines are being formed and you can hear people hitting their Dandiyas (wooden sticks used in raas) together to the beat of the loud folk music.

Arushi is laughing as she leads a raas line, finally in her element. She counts off the music for everyone to begin dancing. Her red and blue skirt flares out as she spins to her next dance partner, and one of her dandiya sticks flings out of her grip. Someone taps on her shoulder.

“I think you dropped this,” he says. He speaks with the familiar Mumbai accent she associates with home. She thanks him, and goes to return to her line when he stops her. “Wait, can you teach me how to play?”

She quickly shows him the steps before including him in the line and counting off again. After a few rounds, both Arushi and her new friend take a break and go to grab a sip of water.

“Hey, are you from Mumbai too?” she asks. He nods, sipping water at the same time.

“It’s actually kind of embarrassing,” he responds. “I feel like I should know how to dance at a raas event, and everyone here is a pro.”

Arushi felt the same twinge in her gut that she felt earlier, in the session. She starts sharing how she couldn’t relate to the session as well as she thought she could. “I honestly felt insecure,” she says. “Like I knew less than everyone else.”

“I mean, I guess that’s the point of these sessions, right?” he replies. “Not everyone has the same experience. In fact, we have experiences and knowledge that others don’t, like being able to talk to Maharaj Sahebs and actually witnessing what it looks like to renounce everything.”

Arushi feels a sense of comfort and validation upon hearing this, as an adult volunteer coordinator hands her a cup of mango lassi. With the mango lassi are a key and a piece of paper. The key has a thin pen shape on the bottom, and there are embellishments that look like the pages of a book. She whips out her phone and shares a picture with Sam and Neel in a hurry.

“LOL, so what was picked up? What was thrown?” Neel responds.

It was the dandiya stick. She had accidentally dropped it, and someone had picked it up.

As she travels back to the dance floor, she sees Atam.

“Atam,” she yells his name excitedly. “I need the last clue.” Atam runs up to her and hands her the last slip of paper.