Pandit Yad Adnan and the Hottest Month

By the time Sri Venkata Narasimha Rao fled Russia for Somalia, he had acquired three new names, two pairs of sunglasses, one linen suit of a color best described as unsuccessful pistachio, and a theory--unsupported by meteorology, theology, politics, common sense, or any other branch of human inquiry--that a man pursued by the consequences of his past ought always to travel south.

Russia, he had decided, was too cold.

This conclusion occurred to him after slipping on black ice outside a grocery store in Moscow and landing, with a cry invoking Hanuman, Dostoyevsky, and several Telugu obscenities, upon a bag containing six tomatoes.

The tomatoes survived.

Rao did not, spiritually speaking.

He had imagined Russian exile as a noble condition involving snowflakes, samovars, underground philosophical discussions, and perhaps a pale widow named Natalya who would admire his command of the instrumental case. Instead he had encountered expensive rent, wet socks, bureaucratic questions, supermarket mayonnaise sold in alarming quantities, and Russians who, while certainly familiar with Dostoyevsky, did not necessarily wish to discuss the Grand Inquisitor with an Indian astrologer at eleven-thirty in the evening.

Then somebody in Canada had apparently continued asking questions.

Then somebody in Russia had apparently begun asking different questions.

And Rao, whose courage was strongest whenever it was theoretical, left.

Why Somalia?

He later supplied four explanations.

To one man he said he had been invited to conduct spiritual research.

To a woman he said the Goddess had called him there.

To a hotel clerk he said he was an international cultural consultant.

To himself, while staring at a map, he admitted that he had simply panicked.

Thus Sri Venkata Narasimha Rao became Pandit Yad Adnan.

Except on one document, where he wrote Pandit Iad Adnan, with a capital I, a distinction upon which he insisted with such vehemence that everyone assumed there must be some profound religious significance behind it.

There was not.

"Iad is more international," he explained.

"What does 'iad' mean?" somebody asked.

"It means me."

"And Yad?"

"Also me."

It is one of the advantages of reinvention that etymology becomes optional.

He arrived in Mogadishu in June.

He had selected June because he had imagined, without research, that June in Africa would be "pleasantly tropical," a phrase that deserves to be displayed in museums beside other extinct ideas such as unsinkable ship and quick meeting.

The doors opened.

Heat entered him.

Not around him.

Into him.

It entered his nostrils, his ears, the folds of his shirt, his ancestral memory, and perhaps even his credit history.

Within twelve seconds, Pandit Iad Adnan ceased to believe in reincarnation because no just universe would make anybody experience this twice.

"My God," he whispered.

A young man beside him said, "Which one?"

Rao looked at him.

The young man was tall, narrow-faced, perhaps twenty-six, carrying a backpack and wearing a white shirt that somehow remained white despite the weather.

"Excuse me?"

"You said, 'My God.' I wondered which one."

Rao hesitated.

This was not the first question he had hoped to answer in Somalia.

"All of them," he said diplomatically.

The young man smiled.

"My name is Abshir."

"Pandit Iad Adnan."

"With an I?"

Rao stared.

"How did you know?"

"You corrected the immigration officer three times."

This was how he met Abshir Warsame, who would become his translator, assistant, accountant, critic, emergency electrician, theological censor, supplier of cold beverages, and ultimately the only person in Somalia willing to explain to Rao, every morning, why whatever he was planning was a terrible idea.

Abshir had studied business administration and spoke Somali, English, Arabic, and enough Italian to order coffee dramatically. He also possessed a skepticism so healthy that it had survived politicians, advertisements, social media, motivational speakers, and one cousin who sold imported cryptocurrency courses.

"You are astrologer?" Abshir asked in the taxi.

"Vedic astrologer."

"Different?"

"Ancient science."

"Science?"

"Spiritual science."

"Ah."

Rao disliked this ah immediately.

It was the same ah used by doctors when patients revealed that they had treated pneumonia with garlic.

"I also remove negative energies."

"Like electricity?"

"No."

"Then we need electricity. Hotel has bad generator."

Rao wiped his forehead.

His hand returned wet.

"Air conditioning?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"When electricity agrees."

Rao looked out the window at the white blaze of the afternoon and understood that for the first time in his criminal career he had encountered an adversary incapable of being bribed, frightened, astrologically diagnosed, or invoiced. 

The sun had no bank account.

...

Within eight days, Rao opened an office.

This was partly because he needed money and partly because a man deprived of his profession begins to feel that the universe itself has neglected to issue him a chair.

The office consisted of one narrow room above a mobile-phone shop.

The air conditioner had three settings:

OFF,

LOUD,

and 

THEORETICAL.

Rao selected LOUD.

The machine coughed twice, shook violently, and expelled air approximately one degree cooler than human breath.

"This is unacceptable," Rao said.

Abshir looked up from his phone. "It is working."

"It is blowing hot air."

"It is blowing moving hot air."

"What is the point?"

"You asked for fan."

"I asked for cooling."

"Then ask December."

The walls Rao decorated himself.

His old mural in Canada had possessed artistry; this one possessed adhesive tape.

He hung printed images of Hanuman, Lakshmi, Shiva, Ganesha, and Kali, plus a small reproduction of a Russian icon he had accidentally packed between two astrology charts.

Abshir examined the arrangement.

"What is that one?"

"Saint Nicholas."

"Hindu?"

"Russian Orthodox."

"And that one?"

"Kali."

"And that?"

"Hanuman."

Abshir nodded thoughtfully.

"You have assembled international coalition."

Rao considered this.

"Yes," he said. "Exactly."

On the desk he arranged his brass lamp, colored powders, bells, coconuts, seven limes, incense, and one ceremonial knife.

Abshir saw the knife. "No."

"It is ritual."

"No."

"It represents cutting negative attachments."

"No."

"It is not weapon."

"It is shaped exactly like weapon."

"It is sacred."

Abshir took it away.

Rao protested for half an hour and then replaced it with a butter knife.

Thus Vedic tradition adapted itself to local conditions.

His first customer was not frightened, lonely, cursed, heartbroken, bankrupt, or haunted.

She wanted to know whether Tuesday was a good day to open a beauty salon.

Rao was disappointed.

He calculated. "Thursday."

"Why?"

"Jupiter."

She shrugged. "Thursday rent is cheaper for opening event."

"Then you see? Jupiter."

She paid him twenty dollars.

Rao stared at the money.

In Canada he had once charged a woman three thousand dollars to remove an evil spirit from her refrigerator.

"This country will destroy me," he told Abshir.

"No," Abshir said. "Maybe save you."

Rao hated him.

...

The heat worsened.

His limes softened.

His powders clumped.

His incense burned with such enthusiasm that three clients simultaneously began coughing and one fled downstairs believing the building was on fire.

The wax candles bent.

The coconut developed an odor.

The Kali statuette grew so hot near the window that Rao picked it up and immediately dropped it.

"AH!"

Abshir ran in.

"What happened?"

"The Goddess burned me."

Abshir inspected the statue.

"The sun burned you."

"You don't understand theology."

"You don't understand windows."

They moved Kali into the shade.

The following afternoon a client arrived complaining of nightmares.

Rao lowered his voice. "Someone may have placed negative energy--"

Abshir coughed.

Rao glanced at him. "--or perhaps you are stressed."

Abshir smiled.

The client said he had dreamed repeatedly of drowning.

Rao prepared a ritual.

He placed four limes in a circle, sprinkled yellow powder, rang the bell, and lit incense.

At that precise moment the air conditioner, which had been dead for two days, returned to life with the roar of resurrected machinery.

A tremendous gust crossed the room.

Yellow powder exploded upward.

One lime rolled under the chair.

Another struck the wall.

Incense ash flew into Rao's hair.

The client's white shirt became turmeric-colored.

Kali fell sideways.

Hanuman detached from the wall and landed face-down upon the desk.

For several seconds nobody moved.

Then Abshir said, "Very powerful ritual."

The client nodded solemnly. "How much?"

Rao stared at him.

This was the problem with humanity: disaster frequently resembles authenticity.

"Fifty," Rao said.

Abshir kicked him under the table. "Thirty."

"Forty."

"Thirty."

"Thirty-five."

The client paid.

Later Rao accused Abshir of undermining sacred commerce.

"You are not sacred commerce," Abshir said.

"I am Pandit."

"You are sweating through two shirts."

"A Pandit can sweat."

"You are wearing socks with sandals."

"It is temporary."

"You changed your name because police are looking for you."

Rao froze.

Abshir continued drinking tea.

For the first time since Moscow, Rao felt cold.

"How do you know?"

"You talk in sleep."

"I do not."

"You do. Russian, Telugu, English. Very multicultural confession."

Rao sat down.

"Will you turn me in?"

Abshir thought.

"For astrology?"

"No."

"For scamming?"

Silence.

Outside, a horn sounded.

Somebody shouted from the street.

The air conditioner died.

Rao stared at Abshir.

Abshir finally said, "My uncle says men like you are witches."

"I am not a witch."

"You advertise spirits."

"I remove them."

"That sounds worse."

"I perform prayers."

"You charge too much."

"This is professional expertise."

"My uncle wants to report you."

"To whom?"

Abshir raised an eyebrow.

This question, innocent in Rao's mind, revealed how little he understood the country.

"To authorities."

Rao leaned back. "But I was told there is no government."

Abshir looked offended. "Who told you?"

"Internet."

"Then ask Internet to renew your business license."

The universe sometimes produces sentences of such concentrated justice that nothing further need be added.

...

Rao attempted reform.

For three days.

He changed his sign from:

BLACK MAGIC REMOVAL

to:

TRADITIONAL ASTROLOGICAL

CONSULTATION

and beneath it added:

NO GUARANTEE OF SUPERNATURAL

RESULTS

This caused business to collapse.

"People liked black magic," he complained.

"People like certainty," Abshir said.

"Exactly."

"That does not mean you should sell it."

"But uncertainty does not pay rent."

Neither did certainty, as it turned out.

The heat had driven away half his clients and spoiled most of his ritual supplies.

In desperation, Rao purchased a secondhand portable air conditioner from a man named Hassan, who insisted that it was "European."

"What country?" Rao asked.

"Europe."

"That is continent."

"Yes."

"What brand?"

"Cold Master."

There was no manufacturer listed.

Rao bought it.

The Cold Master possessed astonishing power.

For eleven minutes.

Then it tripped the electrical circuit for the entire floor, plunging the astrology office, mobile-phone shop, tailor, and dentist into darkness.

From downstairs came a chorus of objections.

One man shouted something in Somali.

"What did he say?" Rao whispered.

Abshir translated. "He says the astrologer has killed electricity."

"That is slander."

The dentist appeared in the doorway holding a flashlight in his mouth.

"Who plugged in machine?"

Abshir pointed immediately at Rao.

"You traitor!"

"I believe in accountability."

The dentist stared at the altar, the limes, the colored powders, the sweating Indian man in pistachio linen, and the powerless Cold Master.

"You are witch?"

"No!"

"Psychic?"

"Sometimes."

"Electrician?"

Rao hesitated. ". . . No."

"Good. Then stop touching wires."

This became neighborhood consensus.

...

By the final week of June, Pandit Yad Adnan--or Iad Adnan (aka Rao), depending on which business card one had received--had acquired a small following.

Not because people unanimously believed him.

Some did.

Some thought he was entertaining.

Some liked his stories about India and Russia.

Some enjoyed arguing with him.

Some came for astrology and stayed for Abshir's tea.

One elderly man visited every Thursday merely to ask Rao increasingly impossible questions.

"If Saturn controls delay," he asked, "why is my nephew never late?"

"Individual chart."

"If Mars means aggression, why is my goat peaceful?"

"Species chart."

"Goat has horoscope?"

"Everything born has horoscope."

"Mosquito?"

"Yes."

"Virus?"

Rao paused.

Abshir leaned forward eagerly.

"Yes," Rao said.

The old man slapped his knee and laughed for almost a minute.

"You are magnificent liar."

"I am not liar."

"You are very educated liar."

Rao accepted this as praise.

His greatest admirer was a young social-media entrepreneur named Fadumo who did not believe in astrology at all but thought Rao was "excellent content."

She filmed him discussing Mercury retrograde while perspiring so violently that his forehead reflected the ring light.

The video acquired thousands of views.

Unfortunately, its title was:

INDIAN WITCH MELTING IN MOGADISHU

"I am Telugu," Rao complained.

"You are also melting," Abshir said.

"This is defamation."

"It has twenty-three thousand views."

Rao reconsidered. "Can we monetize?"

Thus conscience once again encountered commerce and lost in straight sets.

...

Then came the hottest afternoon Rao could remember.

The power failed.

The Cold Master was dead.

The ceiling fan stopped.

The drinking water was warm.

The ice melted before reaching the office.

The limes had become soft yellow-green spheres resembling minor planets approaching geological collapse. A goat wandered upstairs from somewhere no one could explain, entered the office, and ate one of them.

Rao shouted.

The goat ate another.

"Stop him!"

"Her," Abshir said.

"How do you know?"

"I have eyes."

The goat then ate the corner of a printed horoscope.

"This animal is destroying evidence!"

"What evidence?"

"Spiritual evidence!"

The goat chewed.

Rao attempted to lure it away with a coconut.

The goat rejected the coconut.

"Even goat knows your ritual is scam," Abshir said.

At that moment Abshir's uncle entered.

He was a serious man named Mohamed, with the calm, devastating face of someone who had spent fifty years watching younger men invent problems.

He surveyed the room.

The goat.

The melted candles.

The powders.

Kali.

Saint Nicholas.

Hanuman hanging crookedly.

Rao holding a coconut.

The dead air conditioner.

His nephew drinking tea.

"You are Pandit Yad?"

"Iad with a capital i."

"Card says Yad with a capital y."

"Older card."

"Other man showed me card says Rao."

"Very old card."

Mohamed narrowed his eyes.

"How many names?"

Rao opened his mouth.

The goat sneezed yellow powder.

Nobody spoke for several seconds.

Finally Mohamed said, "You tell people you remove evil?"

Rao lowered the coconut. "I provide spiritual consultation."

"For thousands?"

"Not anymore."

"Why?"

Rao glanced at the powerless fan. "Market conditions."

Mohamed stared at him.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

Not politely.

He laughed so hard that he had to sit down.

"You come from Canada to Russia to Somalia to cheat people?"

"I would not summarize it that way."

"How would you summarize?"

Rao thought. "International spiritual career."

Mohamed laughed again.

Abshir joined him.

Then Fadumo, who had entered unnoticed and was already filming, began laughing.

Even Rao, who had endured police inquiries, Russian winter, theological disputes, business collapse, and now livestock interference, felt something inside him surrender.

He laughed too.

Perhaps from heat.

Perhaps exhaustion.

Perhaps because there comes a temperature beyond which dignity evaporates.

The four humans sat sweating in the powerless office while the goat consumed the final lime.

Nobody tried to stop it.

After a while Mohamed wiped his eyes. "I still think you should stop telling frightened people they have demons or evil spirits."

Rao nodded.

"And stop charging thousands."

Rao nodded less enthusiastically.

"And no knives."

"Abshir already confiscated."

"Good boy."

"He is tyrant."

"He is assistant."

Rao looked at Abshir.

The young man smiled.

Outside, somewhere beyond the buildings, the city continued beneath the white-hot sky: traffic, commerce, prayer, arguments, families, businesses, cafés, phones, generators, ordinary anxieties, extraordinary endurance.

Rao had crossed continents because he believed geography could save him from consequences.

Instead geography had given him heat rash.

Perhaps this too was karma.

That evening the electricity returned.

The fan began turning.

Everyone cheered.

Rao stood beneath it with both arms raised as though receiving revelation.

"Abshir!"

"Yes?"

"Tomorrow we rebrand."

"As what?"

Rao considered the altar.

The goat.

The broken Cold Master.

The melted candles.

The multicultural pantheon or coalition of gods.

Then his eyes brightened.

"Pandit Iad Adnan--Astrology and Climate Resilience Consultant."

Abshir stared at him.

"No."

"Listen first."

"No."

"Spiritual heat management."

"No."

"Planetary cooling rituals."

"No."

"Twenty dollars introductory--"

"No."

Mohamed shouted from downstairs:

"NO!"

Rao sighed.

Once again he had encountered organized resistance to innovation.

He sat beneath the fan, opened his worn copy of The Brothers Karamazov, and read three paragraphs before sweat dropped from his forehead onto the page.

He closed the book.

"Dostoyevsky," he muttered, "you never had to deal with this."

Abshir looked over. "Maybe Gordon was right."

Rao's head snapped around. "What?"

"Maybe Dostoyevsky is boring as--"

"GET OUT."

And so ended one of the hottest days in the international career of Pandit Sri Yad-Iad-Adnan-Rao, astrologer, refugee from his own decisions, enemy of functional air conditioning, reluctant ethical reformer, and the only known spiritual practitioner in Mogadishu to have lost half his ritual equipment to a goat.

Whether he abandoned fraud afterward cannot yet be established.

We are historians, not optimists.

But he never again promised to remove black magic during a power outage.

Even a con artist must eventually acquire standards.