Where is the Light

The Living Legacy - Make the most of being alive. Enjoy the self.

1972: The Journey Home: Hospital in Delhi

  Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972 ISBN ‎ 978-0993210716 

 Whilst Al was on the long journey by train to Delhi and his future, he began to think of what had happened to him on his journey, some of which I never knew.

They had already travelled from the UK, across Belgium, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia and then to Greece. The group had had several minor adventures on route, but those stories are for Al to tell at another time. Let it be known that they had all enjoyed their expedition so far.

After I found myself upon Al's head, Al had travelled to Turkey with John, Keith, Mike and Marion, They made their way to southern Turkey and Al had left with Keith by boat to go to the east of Turkey.

From there Al and Keith travelled to India.

Al's biggest problem had been funds. He had left the UK with just sixty pounds. That was about twelve days work for him. By the time I met him, he had just about thirty pounds.

It was the “Hippy Trail” and it was 1972. Al was twenty-two years old, I was about the same age as far as I know.

My story restarts with a long and uncomfortable train ride back to New Delhi.

We had just left Haridwar, North India. On the railway station Al was vomiting and had diarrhoea. He had very little money, no companionship, wondering where he really was and would he get home.

When we reached Delhi, Al went and stayed in the same small guest house, Mr Jain's, on Janpath Lane, that he had used before.

Every time Al ate or drank anything, he was sick.

He began noticing that his urine was a dark yellow colour and his stools were white.

Al thought these were the symptoms of Infectious Hepatitis, so the first thing the next day was to go to a local clinic not far from where he stayed.

When he explained to them his problem, they sent him straight to a Delhi hospital. We were to spend two weeks there, thankfully free of charge, giving Al plenty of good vegetarian food – boiled vegetables, chapatti, dahl and yoghurt, so he stopped being sick and began to build up some strength.

The hospital was clean and the staff friendly. A male ward orderly that delivered meals befriended Al and always gave him extra to eat.

Whilst there Al met an aged Indian Hindu man who said that he was dying. But the man had a deep calmness and joy about him. Something Al remembers to this day.

On our travels, Al had come across several people that seemed to have that joy about them. An elderly Sikh teacher, a Spanish hippy, a Hindu priest, a “Mahatma” in Haridwar on the banks of the Ganges, and now the old chap in the hospital.

He was thinking that maybe there was some sort of answer, one that neither religion nor science had provided him, some sort of key to the meaning of life that would bring peace and joy such as those men had emanated.

Also during his time there, Al had received a visit from a pleasant lady from his embassy who had given him ten pounds. So when he was released, at least he had some rupees.

1972: RECURRING ILLNESS

 Previously published in INSIDE MY HAT AND OTHER HEADS  ISBN 978-1-9163107-0-4

I wrote this in 2018,  46 years after those days of those recurring illnesses.

1.  I’d thought I’d been lucky to get out of Afghanistan alive. I had been ill for months and now, after a three day bus journey from Kabul, I found myself sitting in the street. My head was spinning and I could hardly walk. I had been vomiting again throughout the night and unable to keep even water down for long. I was dehydrated again and I still had little money. Nobody seemed to want to help for a while, then a man asked me if I needed help. After telling him I was English and wanted to get to the Embassy, he helped me to the busy and dusty street corner and pointed me down another street filled with various vehicles and people, saying that it was the American Embassy. I slowly walked to the entrance and discovered it was in fact the UK Embassy after all. Then I remembered I was in Tehran, on my way home. The Embassy was closed and the costumed guard at first would not let me in, but I insisted, entered a large room and lay out on wooden bench, saying that is was UK and I would stay until I saw an official. That is how I was taken to the Tehran hospital. I was treated well over the week of my stay, put back on my feet and afterwards the Embassy guy took me back to my hotel to get my bags and next day took me to the airport from where I flew to Heathrow. Unfortunately, just as in the previous two hospitals they did not cure me.

 

2.  TRANSLATION: the dirty hippy man that Mahatma Ji brought into my Chai shop by the bridge in Haridwar, did not look well. He was hot and I think he had been smoking charas. We did not speak the same language but I wanted to help him and I wanted to tell him to go to doctor. I could only give him Chai with extra sugar and milk. Then he soon went off and I never saw him another time.

3..It wasn’t until I had reached Delhi by train that I knew that I was far more ill than I knew. As well as having dysentery, I had contracted Hepatitis A, the infectious sort, that I thought I had picked up in Kabul. I spent a week in hospital in Delhi, well fed and resting in the cool, which was good for me as I had completely run out of money. It was good that I had left Haridwar which was where I’d first got sick. I don’t think there would have been much of a hospital there and surely no ashram would want me

I had a horribly-tasting porridge for breakfast that morning, along with poorly cooked eggs and toast and tea. That was the day I became ill with dysentery, the day everything changed. That day I was cleansed.

Kabul was a lovely city with friendly yet strange people and hardly a local woman to be seen without a full Burkha. But it was filthy. They had little care for hygiene. The water provided on the tables of restaurants was dodgy; even bottled water could not be guaranteed clean and often may have been from the tap. Whilst salads were washed in tap water, fruit was not washed at all. We saw donkeys shitting in the street next to open stalls cooking and selling food, fruit or bread. We were advised to be careful when eating with a wet fork or spoon or when drinking in a cafe, for fear of hepatitis or other sicknesses. As for the opium den, well it was the pits. We had two pipes and left hoping that we would not be ill later. It was nothing like the clean opium farm we had stayed at for three days in Iran.

When I was admitted into the hospital in Wales, they took away my Iranian medication and ignored my diet of no fried food or salads. As a vegetarian, then, I had to eat salad and chips twice a day until their test results came in, after which time they reinstated my diet and fed me better. They kept me there one week and loaded me up with pills. Apparently I had a bacteria that came from dirty water.

The bus ride from Kabul to Tehran took 5 days, changing buses several times, sleeping and eating in the cheapest places I could find, having to drink tap water. I got sick a few times but I did arrive in Kabul, dirty, hungry and ill.

 

4.  TRANSLATION: We were sitting in the shade of a holy tree and smoking chillums of the holy herb, when I saw a thin and bedraggled western man with long hair walking besides the Holy River Ganges. I watched as he slowly stepped down into the rushing waters and he disappeared beneath them briefly. After he had pulled himself out and was walking closer, I called to him to come to us and invited him to smoke with us, the Holy Herb. I asked him why he had come to the city of Haridwar and he said to meet with me. We laughed; we shared a drink of water from the river. A short while later he left with Mahatma Ji from the ashram of Prem Nagar, the place of the Guru Sant Ji Maharaj, I never saw the young Western man again.

5.. I sipped fruit juice on my way back to the railway station bench where I had slept. I think it was that what made me puke. I’d been quite stoned on chillums that day so being sick was doubly unpleasant.

6.  I saw a young man with very long hair sitting in a busy street in my home town of Tehran. He looked as he needed help so I spoke to him. He asked me to show him to the UK Embassy. I knew it was round the corner in the other big street so I took him there. It was in fact UK embassy so I left him there and he went inside. I don’t know more than that.

 

7.  After several chillums besides the Ganges and a brief dip, I met a Mahatma and was invited to stay at an ashram. I drank some tea and returned to my sleeping bench at the train station in Haridwar. I became sick and never made it to the ashram. The illness was to last for weeks and reoccur. I have often wondered if it was something I drank or just Karma.

 

8.  Peshawar was one of the filthiest places I had to stay in. Eating almost anything was a risk. We were lucky to be taken to The Secret Restaurant, run by Swiss hippies, which was clean with good food and dope. Our hotel was dirty with an open toilet on the roof. There were a lot of sick people in Peshawar and many drug addicts.

 

9.  The Mahatma took me to a chai house and ordered a cup for me. He invited me to join the Arti parade through Haridwar early evening and said that afterwards, if I wished, I could go and stay in the ashram. He left without paying for the chai, telling the waiter that it was baksheesh and not to ask me to pay. The waiter or tea-house owner did not seem to happy with that. The chai tasted strange but it was hot day so I drank it down fast. Afterwards I went back to the bench at the railway station where I had spent the previous night, I thought to relax until the evening parade. On the way I bought some fruit juice and sweet cakes. It was not long afterwards that I began to vomit and soon I had diarrhoea so I never made it to the Ashram.

 

10  TRANSLATION: I was walking alongside the river with a group of Premies on our way back to our ashram. A local Baba called to me and there I met the young man from UK. As were many young men who visited our city, he was long-haired and quite dirty. We took him to a Chai shop where I ordered a drink of chai for him, telling that he should not be charged any money. The owner was not pleased but served chai. I invited him to join our Arti parade that evening and to stay at our ashram. Then we left. I never saw that young man again.

 

11.  I’d awoken early and took a breakfast of spicy chai, porridge and eggs on toast. I wasn’t too keen on the porridge; it was slimy and too sweet. Then I made my way across the bridge to the other side of the Ganges, one of the major holy rivers of India. It is said that to drink the waters of the Ganges is to purify the soul. So I strolled along the river bank and spotted a group of younger men sitting around an orange-robbed elder – they called them Baba’s or holy men Sadhus and they smoked chillums of hashish dedicated to the god Shiva. He shouted and waved me over. On such a hot day, sitting in the shade of the tree smoking a chillum was appealing enough, alongside a possible dip in the river. So I went over and sat with them. They lit and passed me a chillum. I gave a couple of rupees and we smoked another. I said my thanks and carried on walking down besides the river but soon was invited to smoke another chillum with a different group. By now, I was very high. I took a quick dip in the Ganges but slipped my footing and quickly found myself below the rapidly moving water, getting a mouthful. By luck or grace, I managed to pull myself out and clamber up the steps. I was soon sipping weak fruit juice with another Baba, smoking more chillums. This Baba asked me why I had come to Haridwar. “To meet you,” I said and we both laughed loudly. He asked if I would like chai and said that soon the Mahatma would pass by and take me for tea. After drinking a strange tasting chai I went back to the station to rest on my bench, intending to accept the Mahatma’s invitation to his ashram. Then I got sick. I puked onto the station platform and managed to get then to the toilet where I emptied my bowels. It was the beginning and the end – the beginning of an illness and end to my outwards journey. Maybe it was a cleansing?

 

12.  TRANSLATION: the Young man from England had slept on the platform bench. In the morning he left. He came back again late that afternoon and returned to the bench. I decided to let him rest there. After a while I saw him being sick over the platform onto the tracks and then he rushed into the latrine. That was at the end of my working day, so I went home and prayed for him. The God never showed me that man again; I do not know what happened to him. The sickness here can quickly kill people from the West.

 

13.  The young hippy man was stretched out on a bench in Reception at the Embassy when I arrived. Although the Embassy was closed that day, he had, I was told, insisted that he be allowed inside as it was UK territory and he was British. He was quite correct. He told me his name and explained that he was travelling back from India after becoming ill there with dysentery and hepatitis of the infectious kind; he did look very ill. He told me that he had been in hospital in Delhi and in Kabul. He had run out of money but some had been sent to the British Embassy in Kabul, but instead of using it to fly back to the UK, he had left most of it at the Embassy and tried to go all the way by road. So he had been several days travelling and had booked in at a Tehran hotel. That morning he had set off to the American Express offices where he hoped would be some money waiting for him. I decided to take him direct to the Tehran general hospital where they admitted him immediately; then I made arrangements to transport him to the hotel to collect his baggage and then to the airport to fly back to Heathrow, one week later. I know that is what happened but apart from that, I don’t know. We get quite a few poor travellers coming from India or Afghanistan with little money and poor health, that need help to get home. In this case it was the man’s parents that paid; often it is the country itself, then we must take their passports when they arrive back in the UK until they repay the transport costs.

 

14.  I was staying at the same hotel in Kabul. He got more and more ill. I know he was being sick a lot, getting dehydrated and hardly eating. Then one day I heard that he had been taken to the hospital and they kept him there for about a week. I was still at the hotel when he got back. He still wasn’t very well, but able to walk; when they took him in, he could hardly stand up. A lot of people get sick on their journey through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. I must be one of the lucky ones.

15.  Inside the opium farmer’s house was surprisingly clean and comfortable. It was all ground level, cushions and carpets and low tables, sleeping mattresses on the floor. The village was very basic, just a small group of stone houses, a rough road running through it, where we had driven to the house. Quite a lot of donkeys were tied up outside. Soon after we arrived, they served us black tea with sweet cakes, followed by bread, salads and dips, all of which we ate with our washed hands. That was quite novel, no forks or spoons, but somehow it seemed so natural. The water, they said, was good to drink as it came from the well. After lunch we lazed around chatting for a few hours, then our host, the opium farmer’s son, invited us to smoke opium. Apparently the father had permission from the government to grow the poppies and, strangely, was not only a supplier of opium to locals (and maybe the occasional travellers), but he was also the local policeman. We smoked several pipes each: we were each given our own mouthpiece that slipped easily onto our end of the long wooden pipe with the bowl at the other end; as we inhaled to maximum, the farmer applied heat to a small ball of black opium with he turned, gleefully, until he knew we could inhale no more. Actually, although not one that I intended to repeat, it was a pleasant feeling, a relaxed, dreamy buzz, in the room with the men who were also laying on cushions, taking their turns, was nothing at all as I would have imagined an opium den to be. I felt safe.

 

16.  The train ride from Delhi to Haridwar took many hours. The carriages were crowded and dirty and the stink from the unflushable toilet was sickening. I had very little money left so ate what was available at the many stations where we stopped. Dahl and chapati or samosas, spicy milky sweet Chai and biscuits or sweet cakes, lots of bottled water although I wondered if they were simply refilled from a tap. It was a very uncomfortable journey and as soon as I reached Haridwar and was off the train with the crowds wandering off to do whatever they do, I spotted a bench on the platform and stretched out and slept for the first time in 48 hours. Mercifully, nobody disturbed me or robbed me. Next morning I bought a cheap breakfast and headed off to cross the River Ganges.

17.  I was wandering about New Delhi with little purpose and no money, when I spotted Al sitting on a wall. He was long-haired and bearded and looked friendly enough, smiling as I approached him. I introduced myself and he invited me to sit besides him. I explained that I had come to India over a year ago with my boyfriend but when I got pregnant, he left; I told Al that I had had an abortion and was now penniless and hungry. He told me that he had been ill with hepatitis A and dysentery and that he had been in hospital in Delhi. Well he did look quite ill, very skinny and worn. He said he was just 22 and I was just 20. Al said that he could not give me money but I was welcome to share his fat-free meal at the Chinese restaurant and that he was sitting waiting for the to open up. That evening and for many weeks to come, we shared food. That night we lay together in the local park but he would not get close as he said he did not want to risk giving me hepatitis. After a few days he received a few pounds from England; about a week’s wage there but should last many weeks here. Al wanted to get back to the UK overland and he agreed to take me with him. Actually, I just wanted to get to Kabul. We took the train to Amritsar then buses through Pakistan to Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They were two cities, new and old, right next to each other. We stayed in a cheap hotel in Rawalpindi. The hotel was as dirty as the streets. I had to take a bus to the new city of Islamabad to the British Embassy to pick up some money that my parents had sent. Then we took buses to Peshawar and then through the Kyber Pass to Kabul. The money went quick though. We’d been in Kabul a week or so and he started getting sick again. One day he couldn’t stand up so I took him to the hospital and they kept him there. I visited after a few days and he looked so much better but he did not know when they planned to release him. I got the taxi driver to translate and he said that the only doctor that spoke English was away until the weekend, so they were keeping Al ’til then. Al said that they were feeding him on soggy rice and black tea. He came back to our hotel a few days later. He was not happy when I told him I had given most of the money away to a French woman whose husband was locked in the prison, and I had lost my passport. Al wanted to leave Kabul as soon as he could and said he thought he’d die there if he stayed. So he helped me get a new passport and himself went to the embassy for help. He managed to get some money from his parents sent out. But when I got the new passport they wanted me to have to go back through the Kyber Pass to the border to get an entry stamp, or they would not let me out of Afghanistan. That was stupid, to me, to have to pay for two bus rides when I thought they should be able to do it in the post. We argued about that a lot. We had a weird trip on acid then, which seemed to bring us closer together but we still argued the next day. Al said that if I would not go to get the entry stamp, he would catch the bus alone to go west. I didn’t really care as I was not going back. So one night he said that the next morning he would either go back to the border with me or go west alone. I decided to stay – he gave me half his money and left. I never saw him again.

 

 

June 1972: Haridwar, Chillums and A Dip in the Ganges

 

 The following morning after a breakfast of fruit, yoghurt and bread, Al took a stroll around the town. It seemed very old. The streets were crowded with people going about their days amidst the cows.

After a while he found a bridge over the river Ganges. It looked greener on the other side, with trees to sit beneath and watch the powerful currents pass.

So he crossed the bridge and turned right to follow a rough path running besides the River.

He spotted an orange-robed elderly and bearded man sitting cross legged beneath a tree, a semi-circle of younger people sitting facing him.

Al knew that they were called Baba's, as he himself had been called a few times.

“Maybe he's one of those guru teachers,” Al thought.

Back in England Al had read about the pop group The Beatles who had taken up with a Guru called Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who had taught them how to meditate and himself gained great publicity and popularity. Maybe it was something to do with that?

The orange-robed 'teacher' shouted something and motioned to Al to go over and join them and sit down. Al complied.

The elderly teacher smiled and asked Al where he was from and why he was in Haridwar, in a broken English with an almost German accent.

Al explained that he had travelled overland from the UK, simply on an adventure and that he was here because he had met a Spanish man in Delhi who had recommended it as a good place to stay for a while.

The teacher laughed and from under his robes produced a chillum. The chillum was prepared, wrapped in a “safi”, a small piece of cloth that served as a sort of filter, the tobacco hash mixture poured in and the lit chillum passed around so that everyone including Al had a good puff. 

The teacher-come-chillum-maker, the “Baba”, asked Al if he had a few rupees for another chillum. Al handed over a small note. A young boy suddenly appeared from amongst the nearby thickness of trees, took the note, ran off into the trees to return seconds later with a small lump of black hash which he passed on and which was instantly made into another chillum and smoked.

Al stayed a short while and as nothing was being said and he was quite high on the hash, he said his goodbyes and left, carrying on in the same direction as before.

Within minutes he was sitting with another group under another tree, smoking, buying, smoking again.

“This is the good life!” thought Al, so high that he was beginning to feel like he was in a Holy city in India.

“By the Ganges!”

Al left the second group and walked some hundred yards before he had the idea that immersing oneself in the Ganges was supposed to purify the soul.

“Well,” he mumbled under his breath so only he (and I) could hear, “Why not, it's hot and I'll soon dry off.”

Across the river he could see a long walled building complex with steps going down to the River.

As he got closer he could see steps going down on this side too. A few steps, “I should be OK.”

The water was moving very fast. Al thought maybe he would not immerse himself, just splash himself all over. “After all, I can't swim.”

So he put down his bag, took me off his head and put me on his bag, took off his sandals, and stepped down and into the water.

With some hesitation, one step, second step, third step – then his feet were swept from under him. He felt himself falling backwards into the water which he knew would sweep him away. Too high to feel real fear, he envisioned the situation if he was to be swept down the Ganges he would have to try to float. He had to hope he would be saved, but who would swim in this? How many bodies had ended up like this. Was this really Holy Water?

As he fell he reached out and somehow managed to grab a chain that was attached to the land, maybe for mooring a boat. He grabbed the chain but the force of the water was now tugging at his body like a hungry monster and now splashing his whole body with his head about to go under. As his head went under he felt a wrenching on his arm but he pulled stronger, now his head was out, now his body, now he was clambering up the steps, drenched and coughing up Holy Water. He made it to the grassy bank and collapsed on the ground.

I felt so many emotions and thoughts and images flooding Al's brain.

“So fucking stupid! I could have died.”

“Am I cleansed? Am I saved? Don't feel any different.”

“God I'm stoned! I shouldn't have done that. What would have happened if that chain wasn't there?”

“Glad I took Myhat off!”

So was I.

Had I been in that water I would surely have been swept away for ever.

But it wasn't long before Al was dried out and sitting with yet another group smoking another chillum.

After a while, that particular teacher said that they had seen Al go into the River and now his soul was clean. That was about all he said, except he asked Al if he wanted some chai and said that “Mahatma is coming, he will take you for chai.” Al liked the spicy milky tea drinks.

Al wondered if this was the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or maybe some local lord or lord's son, a rich man probably. Everything was so strange that Al did not know what to expect next. I was wondering about who this "Mahatma" was - maybe he made hats?

After a while a man in orange robes accompanied by a small group of Indian-looking people approached. Apparently he was the Mahatma. He exchanged words with the teacher under the tree and said to Al: “OK, you come now for chai and this evening we will do our 'Arti' parade through town and then you join us and come to Ashram maybe?”

They walked a while, crossed a bridge and entered a small chai shop where the Mahatma said something to the owner or waiter – who did not look too pleased. He was pointing at Al and the chai was seemingly somewhat disgruntled. He delivered to his table with "no charge Sir" and the Mahatma and his entourage left, saying “Join is for Arti parade.”

There was still a few hours before evening so Al decided to go and wait on his bench back at the railway station.

 That was when everything changed.

I sensed that Al's head was spinning, not like it had been after drinking alcohol and nothing like the hash or opium he had smoked or eaten; not even like the blues that he had swallowed in Lahore.

This was different, not at all pleasant.

Suddenly Al jumped up and ran to the edge of the platform. He vomited onto the ground. He started to sweat profusely. He felt the need to rush to the toilet which he found just in time and his bowels emptied over the hole in the ground. He was sick again.

A while later he cooled down and felt a little better.

He returned to his bench. He was thinking that he had so little money and so few possessions but he had never set out to be a Sadhu, and people called him “Baba” too! 

 Nw he was ill – he had no idea where Keith was and Miriam was probably in Nepal. He had little or no contact with anyone in the UK. He didn't even really know where Haridwar was. He didn't know where Prem Nagar was. He would have to miss the “Arti” parade.

Was it the holy Ganges water that made him vomit like this, or the reluctantly-given Chai?

Now he was sick. He would have to try to get the train back to Delhi and hopefully, some money.

And that is how I, Myhat, felt, like the head, Al,  thatI went with.

And felt I did as felt was part of my fabric.

 

 

June 1972: Train, Jungle and Rishikesh

  Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972 ISBN ‎ 978-0993210716 

(Pics found on line) 

When Al awoke it was really early in the morning. He left the station and found a small café where he ate some breakfast. Whilst he was in there, the waiter recommended that Al go by train to Rishikesh, another of India's sacred Ganges cities. He headed back to the station and yes there was a train in an hour. By now Al had just less than one hundred rupees and his ticket back to Delhi. He wanted to stay at that ashram for a week and then felt sure that money would be in Delhi when he got back.

All he had was a few dirty rupees notes and a fifty rupee note. The fare to Rishikesh was just five rupees return.

Al queued for over an hour for the tickets which were sold just before the train arrived. When he finally reached the ticket office window and presented his fifty rupee note, he was told that it was no good because it was torn. He was told to go to a bank to change it. Of course that would mean we would miss the train.

So he decided to board the train and he could show the ticket inspector his ticket from Delhi and pay the extra few rupees.

It was not long before the inspector arrived, the train chugging slowly onwards.

Al showed his ticket and explained the problem back in Haridwar.

The ticket inspector said that as Al had no valid ticket, he would have to pay 100 rupees fine on top of the fare. Of course he didn't have one hundred rupees and said so.

There was a short argument between them and suddenly the inspector turned away and pulled the emergency cord. The train stopped.

The petty official ordered Al to get off the train and feeling that there was no alternative he did.

He climbed down, heard the blowing of a whistle and watched as the train pulled away up the track towards Rishikesh. All around seemed like jungle! Al imagined monkeys in the trees and then thought about tigers.

All he could think to do was follow the railway line.

“Bloody petty bureaucrats!” thought Al; “Here I am between two of the most holy cities on the Ganges and I get kicked off a train by an official without compassion.”

After walking for about ten minutes and enjoying it, the track crossed a road. As Al reached the road he spotted a car heading towards the direction of Rishikesh. He waved down the car and it stopped.

There was a man and woman and two children, presumably a family, and the man speaking English asked Al if he wanted to go to Rishikesh and offered a lift. The man, told Al that he was a Hindu and his name was Ashok. He told Al that he was very happy to meet him and that, if Al wanted, he could spend the day with them. They were planning to visit the ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi near Rishikesh. Al quickly agreed.

Al could hardly believe his luck. Travelling with this family could be far better than on the train.

 

Ashok told Al a few things about Rishikesh.

Al already knew that it was a special holy city on the Ganges, but he was surprised to hear that it is also known as 'The Gateway to the Garhwal Himalayas'.

Apparently the name means means Lord of Senses or Lord Vishnu.

Ashok explained that the Maharishi taught meditation to rich foreigners that paid for their courses. It was called Transcendental Meditation. The ashram was just outside Rishikesh surrounded by trees. Ashok said that normally Westerners were not allowed to look around but Indians could do so, and he thought Al would be allowed inside with them. “John Lennon and George Harrison and the Beatles and many pop stars from UK and US have come here to learn,” He said.

The ashram was within a complex of lecture halls and sparse concrete cells where paying students stayed. The contrast between the luxurious lecture halls and the cells was shocking, as is the contrast between rich and poor throughout India. There were pleasant gardens with many trees where people could stroll or maybe meditate.

It did not appeal to Al at all. He felt he wanted no part of that. How could anyone charge money to supposedly teach peace?

After leaving the Maharishi's ashram, Ashok drove first to a small restaurant for a delicious vegetarian lunch. Ashok told Al that Rishikesh was vegetarian by law. That suited Al.

Ashok explained to Al: “Legends say that Lord Rama did penance here for killing Ravana, the demon king of Lanka; and Lakshmana, his younger brother, crossed the river Ganges using a rope bridge."

Now there was a new bridge for locals, tourists, cows and monkeys.

Rishikesh was quite full of people in all sorts of styles and colour of clothing, Many women dressed in bright coloured sarees. There were also the sadhus and babas that had renounced worldly goods and wealth and lived beside their holy river Ganges. At this point where two rivers met it was the origin of their holy waters.

The sounds also bells and chimes was everywhere.

It was almost like a supermarket for the occult and spiritually-minded, offering courses on well-being and some form of enlightenment, as well as services like palmistry, massages, healing and yoga.

The streets were lined either side with stalls and shops offering, as well as food and drink, amongst other things, gems and semi-precious stones, sarees, all sorts of clothing and shoes and boots, kitchen utensils, wooden goods, books, sweets and cakes. There were street-side barbers, dentists and pharmacies, travel agents and shops offering to tell one's future.

The streets were full of the smells of incense and wood fires, mixed sometimes with the smell of cooking or unpleasant drains.

The most astounding site was the thirteen-story red temple, called the Tarah Manzil, believed to have been built over five hundred years ago.

The bridge itself, built where Lord Rama's younger brother Laxman was believed to have crossed the Ganges by a rope bridge, was a narrow and swaying suspension bridge. It was used by rickshaws and bicycles as well a pedestrians. At the entrance to the bridge there were monkeys ready to grab what they could from unsuspecting travellers.

 

The plaque there read:

"Lahshman Jhuala Bridge - first Jeepable suspension bridge of U.P.

"Span - 450 feet; Carriageway - 6 feet.

"This bridge was constructed by U.P.P.W.D. during 1927 – 1929. It replaces the old bridge of 284 feet span which was washed away by great floods of October 1924. This was opened to traffic on 11 April 1930".

The views both from and of the bridge with the beautiful mountain backdrops were stunning.

After a pleasant afternoon with Ashok and his family, they drove back to Haridwar and Al was dropped off back near the railway station where, once again, he slept on the wooden bench.

What is Peace and Who Wants it?

What is Peace and Who Wants it?

Most people in this world would say they want peace – peace for the world and peace for themselves. Even the arms dealers and profiteers of war will say they want peace for themselves. That is why they do what they do, even at the expense of others, because they think that the wealth and power that war and the sale of weapons will bring them will enable then to find peace.

So really I am asking about personal peace, not “just” the absence of war, for even when we are not directly involved with war, we may not be feeling peace.

It is the feeling of peace and the joy that it brings, that we seek.

Even if we are fortunate enough, as many are, to be able to go to a place away from the rest of the world – a bedroom, the garden shed, the riverside, a cave or even a WC, where nobody will disturb us for a while, we may still not feel peace. We may still suffer from the problems and worries that we each carry in our heads. Even when we eventually find sleep, we may suffer from the dreams and nightmares that our minds create. Plus of course, we cannot stay in that place for ever.

Many people say they are troubled by the incessant thoughts – the noise – in our own minds even when we they are alone. They want their mind to shut up, to stop. They may be lucky to get away from the hassles of the world for a while but they cannot escape their own minds.

The mind of course is a useful tool that w need to get through life in the best possible way. But it is like a horse pulling a chariot in which you are the passenger. It’s fine so long as we can control where the horse pulls us. We can go to beautiful or even dreadful places; we can turn round sometimes and go back to some place we liked.

The problem can be, however, that we have to stop steering the horse sometimes, to eat, sleep or focus on something else. But that horse is not capable of stopping (maybe it’s just a mechanical horse with no off switch and it doesn’t need to eat or sleep!). It just carries on.

By that I mean that horse, which is our own minds, will not rest, even when we want it to, it just babbles on, giving is fears, regrets, anger, wishful thinking, whatever, about the past or the future, or telling us how bad or uncomfortable the now (our life) is.

So people may look for ways to stop it: meditation, exercise, drugs etc or ways to temporarily distract us from it.

If only we could stop listening to the babble, the noise, could we then find peace?

My answer is yes.

I believe, based upon my own life experience and the belief that I am nobody special, that every human being carries those feelings of peace and joy within us. I believe that in those moments that we do feel peace and joy, we feel it within, not because we have created it but because there is that place there within us all the time.

So I believe that everybody should seek those experiences, as everybody does, know it or not, but that we should seek the place within where we feel.

There are many people and teachers in the world, many books and videos, many ideas and philosophies, that tell us how to find peace and I believe we need to look at some of them – we need to try.

Some people believe that they can find t themselves, if only they could make the world around them exactly the way they want it. And many people that have made the world around them the way they wanted it have realised that what they wanted was not entirely correct as they still lack peace.

I am fortunate enough to have had the means, the techniques, to enable me to look within and focus as best I can, in such a way that it brings we peace and joy, shown to me, fifty years ago now, and it works for me. That is why I tell others about my teacher. For some it may work, for others it may not. Some may go on to seek peace in some other way and I hope they find it. It is like finding hungry people and offering them a free plate of food. Some will just say no for whatever reason, some may eat it and move along, some may not even like the taste. Some may even get the recipe book and produce their own ingredients. All I can do is offer.

And who was that who gave me what I consider to be the best thing in my life, the greatest Knowledge, the greatest truth? His name is Prem Rawat.

 

Prem Rawat website

https://hearyourselfbook.com/

 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1838440127

 

June 1972: Back to Delhi and Train to Haridwar

 Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972 ISBN ‎ 978-0993210716

 A couple of days later and Al was back in New Delhi by train. He checked the post office but there was no mail. He checked at American Express. There was no money for him.

He decided to sleep in the small local park and save money.

The next morning he went again to the Poste Restante. This time there was a letter from a friend back in Norwich promising to send some money in a “few days.”

So Al decided to best use what money was left and buy a train ticket to Haridwar to try to find that Prem Nagar Ashram that he had been told about, where he could sleep and eat for free, on the Ganges riverbank.

He had now run out of film so immediately went to the Sikh indoor market and sold his camera.

He bought a big bag of samosas and another bag of fruit, and sooner than imagined was on a packed train to the foothills of the Himalayas. Talk about a crowded train, there were people riding on the roof.

Al actually now had very little idea where he was heading or how long it would take. It took almost twenty-four hours. The train seemed to be taking a zigzag route, a steam engine pulling us one way then the other, as it travelled up and down the valleys, through places that Al had never heard of. It was supposed to be about 150 miles but with all that zigzag was probably closer to two hundred and fifty.

Haridwar, Al had learned, meant 'Gateway to God' and was one of the Hindu holy places in India and a centre of Hindu religion and mysticism for centuries. It was on the banks of River Ganges and attracted a large number of Hindu pilgrims from all over the world.

When the train arrived at Haridwar, it was not long before dark. Al slept that night on a wooden bench at the railway station.

(Photos found on-line)

June 1972: Fatehpur Sikri

 Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972 ISBN ‎ 978-0993210716 

The next day, Al decided to take a twenty-five mile taxi ride to 'Fatehpur Sikri'.

He read about the place in a book at the Tourist Bungalow and it sounded fascinating. He borrowed the book to take along with him.

The Elephant Tower

 “Fatehpur Sikri is a deserted city founded in 1569 by the Mughal emperor Akbar, a planned walled city He named the city, Fatehabad, with Fateh, a word of Arabic origin in Persian, meaning "victorious." it was later called Fatehpur Sikri.

“The Imperial complex was abandoned in 1585, shortly after its completion, due to paucity of water and its proximity with the Rajputana areas in the North-West, which were increasingly in turmoil.

“Today much of the imperial complex which spread over nearly two mile long and one mile wide area is largely intact and resembles a ghost town. It is still surrounded by a five mile long wall built during its original construction, on three sides. However apart from the imperial buildings complex few other buildings stand in the area, which is mostly barren.”

The walled palace was mostly a pink red sandstone and quite massive. Al had to pay an entrance fee. There were several levels to explore. Al soon found the magnificent Tomb of Salim Chisti, a renowned Sufi saint, with its delicate carvings.

There were many other buildings to see that he did not read about and also some magnificent views over the walls and across the plain. Al enjoyed the place and vowed to return. He enjoyed the tranquillity, with very few tourists wandering around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri

You Never Walk Alone

There was a time that I walked the shore and spoke with my beloved every day. Now I walk alone and when I talk receive no answer. I look back and see only my own footprints in the sand. Now few days seem easy.

Then, one day, I met a man who asked why I looked so sorrowful. I told him that I was sad because I was alone, my beloved had gone and no longer spoke with me.

The man said that he had ben watching me walking the beach every day and I had never been alone.

“Some days” he said, “when it was easy it was because your beloved was carrying you. On the days that seemed harder it was because you were doing the a carrying. There was only one set of prints but for sure you have never been alone.”

“But why when I speak do I get no answer?” I asked.

“Because your beloved has accepted peace in exchange for avow of silence,” he said.