India

January 3, 1979. Agra, tourist bungalow. In India a week and a half, very happy and excited, everything going smoothly. This morning will taxi to Fatehpur Sikri for a second look at Akbar's amazing project, then continue on a bit further to Bharatpur for a day or two of birdwatching in the Ghana Sanctuary. 

No way I could get up the gumption to recap everything since Jakarta: Bali, Sulawesi, Bali again, boom, boom by bus across Java in two nights and one day, plane hop to Padang, buses to Bukit Tinggi for 10 days (flat on our backs with  dengue fever), Lake Toba for the same stay, zoom to Penang for a while, straight to Singapore, one week of shopping and Chinese food, Aeroflot to Delhi, Ah, Mother India, good to be traveling again with a capital T.

February 25, 1979. New Delhi.  

Dear folks, 

We got your Singapore letter last week after returning from 2 1/2 months in Indonesia  (we had planned on a month), then two more letters and a card in just a few days ago - nice to get family news, after a long dry spell between mail drops. Save those China slides and stories, because I suspect we won’t be going there for a while. Tell Mike Drooker we didn’t get kicked out, but we caught some neat internal disorders and skin diseases by staying so long: Indonesia's  blessings to the western tourist are indeed mixed. On the plus side, we learned how to make batik, saw and heard a lot of Balinese dance performances, took evening hot springs baths with dozens of naked Balinese from 3 months to 90 years, climb a volcano, body surfed, learned some more Indonesian, read a lot, exercised, meditated, drank mango and lemon shakes, ate grilled prawns, crab, frog legs, roast suckling pig, saw at least a festival a day, took a side trip to Sulawesi, traveled by bus through the jungles of Sumatra, grooved with the locals at Lake Toba, high in the north Sumatran mountains, and in fact had a pretty damn good time. 

Singapore was devoted to shopping and eating, and our bank account was the only thing that suffered. We bought a lot of clothes for Europe, some nice luggage, new glasses, even a hairdryer, in anticipation of a more classy lifestyle in Europe. Silk shirts? Need you ask? Nicole had three made, all from Chinese silk: beautiful. Funny to start thinking about clothes and such again, we’ve been traveling with so little for so long.

It is wonderful to be back in India  again - still our favorite country by far. Delhi is warm and dry during the day, cool enough at night to use a blanket. It’s also the music season, so we’ve been out getting our fill of classical Indian dances and music these past five nights. Last night we sat three rows from Ravi Shankar as he played ragas until 1:30 AM with the most amazing tabla player you can imagine: a young fellow who dominated, ultimately wearing the man out. (ah, youth).  It will be hard to leave, but we want to see as much of Rajasthan as we can before it gets any warmer.

We are staying in Delhi on our favorite street, truly a theater of the absurd. Just walk outside and all of India passes by: beggars, fruit sellers, fortune tellers, serpents of blind men snaking through the crowds, incense, dead bodies being carried to the ghats, marriage dances, western freaks, eastern freaks, cows, dogs, vultures overhead. we are used to it by now, but when our friend Helene flew in to join join us here direct from Paris last year, the street scene promptly put her into mild shock for about three days.

We bought some lovely color prints of Indian miniatures yesterday: $.50 each. The one I’ve sent with this letter is not as clear as the others (I didn’t want to fold a good one, and can’t find a mailing tube). Would you like some more? They would look lovely framed. We bought two real paintings, but these cost about $40 each. Still haven’t seen any horses for you…

We hope to be in Greece this summer  (June?) , Then a bit of a rest in France at Nicole’s home. Thinking positively of a trip to the states late in 1979: Christmas together, at Guadalupe or elsewhere, sounds pretty good: Woo hoo! I’ll probably end up working in Paris for a while with Yann to make back some money.

That’s all for now - love from Sam and Nicole

March 12, 1979. Pushkar, Tourist Bungalow. My, my, how difficult it is to get into the writing mood. I’m not really in it now, but this place invites one to sit and reflect. We are on a balcony of the Tourist Bungalow, beside the sacred lake, facing the town with its temples and ghats, a lovely warm sun on our backs, the desert stretching out beyond in all directions.

Lovely morning. Up at  8 (remarkably early, but the cold spell is gone), a nice joint (hashish goes for 10 rupees a tola, and a stroll into town. Invited into a courtyard where about 40 to 50 good old boys were cooking, smoking, making music; all with these extraordinary red and yellow turbans, silver and gold earrings, fine mustaches, soft eyes, full of warmth; some nice photos. Then into town for a curd. (sweet like whipped cream, with a delicious crust: one rupee). spotted one of the good old Rajputs in a tea shop, who invited me in for a bidi and chat (not one word understood on either side, but I gather that he lives 3 km from Pushkar, he is married with two children, he has camels and buffaloes and sugar cane, and I am welcome to stay with him); photos of him and his buddies; onto the barber for a shave, and a recap of which gods are married to which goddesses; to another shop to purchase some cakes for Nicole; and back to the hotel for an 11 o’clock breakfast of tea, toast, and butter, cakes, an apple, and an orange (going through about a half dozen a day).  

Getting hot now – will probably take a nap and read until 3 or so. Such a peaceful town! No hassles from the men, not much noise, except for the temple horns and drums, everybody mellow. Quite a freak population, and not surprising: good hash, cheap rooms (4 rupees a night), cheap food, mellow atmosphere. Pushkar has been a holy Hindu city since at least 1500 years, and most probably is much older. I would be very surprised if it has changed much in all that time; with everything fitting so well, why make modifications?

Jaipur wasn’t nearly as much fun, although it had a couple of neat sights: the Howa Mahal (Wind Palace), and the museums in the City Palace, especially the army collection (Akhbar's and Shah Jahan's swords), and some of the miniatures. But a big, busy city, impossible to relax in, even if it is pink. Bought a nice necklace for Sam and a nice bracelet for Nicole. Best deal was our hotel: an old mansion outside of town where we talked them down from ₹55-₹20 for a huge bedroom, writing room, and two toilets (one European, one Asian), old furniture, drapes, carpets, sheets, towels (!), even a painting of some Rajput prince over the bed. Our best hotel deal so far.

Richard and Jasmine, whom we had run across by chance at the Ghana Bird Sanctuary near Bharatpur, had driven us to Jaipur, and camped on the hotel grounds. So good to run across them again, after the good times we shared Bamiyan. He was as mellow as ever, she perhaps a bit rattled by the Indians. We enjoyed many lazy teas together, and one evening noted that we had smoked hash from three different countries - Nepal, India, and Afghanistan.  I’m smoking several joints a day now, with no intention of slowing down unless I noticed the effects outweigh the good. Must say I’m becoming sold on hash, and the thought of a marijuana joing fills me with indifference. 

They had to start thinking about returning to Europe, and funds were getting low.  Pity, they couldn’t have come with us to Pushkar - it is their kind of place.

Wow, it is now 1 PM, and still life glides slowly by on the balcony. This is the time of day when everything and everybody starts to slow down for a nice Rajput siesta, before beginning the evening promenade. Lots of birds  around - pigeons, peacocks, cormorant, ducks, pied kingfishers.  Monkeys, too: the nice gibbon-like ones.

Bharatpur: incredible bird sanctuary - thousands of water birds on the artificial lake and its tiny islands.  Nailed 50 to 60 species without a book. Also saw four-pronged antelope and “blue bulls“ (Nilgai in Hindi. Must be something during the mating season in Nov–Dec. Many sunset and mood photos. Itching even more for a mirror lens.

Today was a great day. This evening we had soup and vegetables at the Lotus Restaurant, and then chatted up the owner, a young western woman in a simple white sari who was serene. Then down the street for a tea and a photo of an amazing Rajput in a huge red turban, next to a Coke machine. Great locals on the stools beside us. Then on to buy material for pants (Holi in two days should finish off our oldest pants). A chat with the shopkeepers. Everyone is so pleasant and peaceful – I feel I know half the town already. A third restaurant for curd, and a fruit stand for apples and oranges. Missed the peanut man – one rupee for 100 gm, and really good. Last stop at the same old place I passed by in the morning.  The men invited us in and arranged a private session of music and singing for us.  Took another picture of these amazing folks, no one will believe these turbans and these-far away faces. We’ve been invited to a village for Holi, and we may go there. The people are so great that even a total language barrier doesn’t seem to matter.

Talked a bit with two Bhagwan followers in Bharatpur who lent me a book about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, and told us all about Pune - sounds like fun. Becoming more and more motivated to start some Ouspensky stuff, but still find excuses not to. Will try to keep more record of certain facets of my daily life, and see what happens.

• Exercises: 45 punches, 45 seconds big lift, 45 set ups, 45 push-ups.

• Health: left nostril still has unhealed sore. Producing snot at moderate rate. Fever blisters on lower lip drying up. Mushroom inactive and barely visible except under left breast. Cracking left heel healing. Shit loose this morning, slightly loose – third day like that. Ate modestly – hunger down.

• Awareness: 3. Trying to remind myself to stand straight. Nicole’s doing the same.

• Plans: Rajasthan, South India, Sri Lanka, Delhi (by plane), Kashmir to buy a carpet, Delhi by mid June, Aubenas for a month, home for a nice visit over Christmas, back to Paris for a year, working for Yann, meditating, taking piano lessons, cooking, partying, seeing Nicole regularly, studying French, reading philosophy and European history, lifting weights and jogging/swimming, checking out meditation center occasionally.

13 March 1979. Pushkar. Holi (day 1) bonfires, stick dances, lovely costumes, some flash photos of Nicole with the local ladies. Lunar eclipse at 1 AM!

• Exercise: same

• Health: both nostrils painful and dry. Appetite down. Slightly feverish – bed most of day.

• Feeling: in general, seven.

• Awareness: three.

• Plan: study programming. Make own traveling equipment: luggage, valuable pouch, camera bag.

March 14, 1979. Pushkar.  A lazy day: colored powder in the morning, three hour nap in the afternoon.  We leave for Ajmer/Jodhpur/Jaisalmer tomorrow. 

• Exercise: same 

• Health: nose slightly better, appetite up, Nicole still has stomach ache, not much hunger.

• Feeling: in general, seven. 

• Awareness: low. Thinking of starting meditation, but noise always a problem. 

March 15, 1979. Jodhpur.  Amazingly horrible six hour bus ride from Ajmer – no room, people standing on our feet, bumping our heads, etc. 

Saw the most heavily bejeweled lady ever: one unit went from her big nose ring to the top of her left ear, then branched, the lower branch swinging straight down across the ear, pinning it at the lobe, and on below another two inches, the upper branch swinging in loops across the upper forehead. She wore silver pink-tinted ivory bracelets in ascending sizes from wrist to shoulder, and a wide silver hip belt. Red, yellow, and green tie-dyed and printed cotton for her blouse, shirt, and sari, and you have a rough idea of the spectacle she presented.

Had meat at the hotel restaurant for the first time since Ajmer (Pushkar is a meatless city, not even eggs!) ; appetite, almost back to normal. Sorry to say goodbye to Pushkar, one of the truly fine spots on our travels. Ideal for studying something – an instrument, programming, birds, photography.

• Exercises. Some. 

• Health: nose painfully dry all day, much better this evening. Appetite up a little. 

• Feeling: In general, 6. 

• Awareness: got pissed several times, but noticed it (a bit) afterwards.

• Meditated twice at 15 minutes each. 

March 17, 1979. Jaisalmer.  Nice palace, full of the Maharaja’s goodies in excellent preservation, including ivory model trains, a room full of baby swings, palanquins, a dance room, and his bedroom with Huge Christmas tree bulbs on the ceiling and a plume fan activated by a servant outside the room. Richly decorated exteriors, finally carved windows, balconies, cows, as well as painted interiors, but always a good taste. The city less interesting, the people bothersome - one day was plenty. 

Took second-class sleeper to Jaisalmer: 14 hours, upper tier of two-tiered sleeper, no hassle, except noisy group of Indians in adjacent compartment, howling with glee until early morning. The walls of the old city rise from a natural oblong hillock, perhaps 1/2 x 1 km in size.  The battlements are 4 km long, work it out. Made of huge yellow stones, fitted without mortar in the late 12th century, they are still in fine shape. Images of Mycenae and Delphi floated through our minds. The walls have no sharp outer edges, but instead snake around the perimeter of the hillock's top, smooth and rhythmic, making it look like heavy drape from a distance.  Lovely yellow stone, which becomes like shiny yellow marble with heavy use. And, perhaps because the modern age hasn’t hit Jaisalmer with full force as yet, the air sparkles and the walls are clean - even in the niches of the carved windows, screens and wall decorations. 

The old city, both within and outside the walls, has certainly the most finely decorated private homes I have ever seen – they rival India’s gaudier temples in richness of decoration and detail. The window screens are impossibly fine – fire finer workmanship than we’ve seen so far, and we’ve seen, for example, Akbar's Tomb in the mosque courtyard at Fatehpur Sikri. Prelude to Mount Abu, I feel. Took a few slides of the buildings, then switched to black-and-white in the OM-1 , color in the Nikon; will try to stick to this for a while. Getting into photography again – India is certainly the finest country anywhere I’ve been for taking photos.

• Health: better - nose not as stuffed.

• Feeling: 6.

• awareness: ok.  Observing now the times I imagine I am busting somewodfy for some offense (like bugging Nicole) - I grit my teeth and clench my entire body when I hit the offender in my mind!  

• Continuing to observe the counting and spelling (typing) I do with my mind and sometimes teeth as well.  Hope to cut out this activity.

March 21, 1979. Udaipur. Pleasant city, perhaps the best one seen in India (Pushkar was just a village).  Folks not too obnoxious, as in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, though a kid did spit on me (and got a spanking on the main bazaar street before an admiring crowd of adults).  Two lakes, bordered by public and private gardens, and encircling islands of parks and palaces. City palace, funny, and slightly ridiculous taste. Ghats lovely, whitewashed temples, stairs, cupulas, locals bathing and washing with remarkable lack of modesty. Material and silver bazaars. Bought some chains and anklets. Homes often decorated before marriages with elephants and horses on either side of the front door.

• Health: knows much better  - A little listless, but is going nicely. Nicole has a dry throat which kept her coughing until late last night.

• Awareness: tightened up after paddling the kid, kept thinking about it until Nicole called my attention to it. 

• Feelings: seven

March 25, 1979. Mount Abu.   Great bus ride to Ranakpur three days ago: high, dry country, palm tree and cactus, and some trees just blossoming into shocking red flowers. Villages of stone huts and slate roofs, Nepal-like, but people in extravagant jewelry, the men in bright turbines, the women in colored skirts and short, fitted blouses with bright red and yellow shawls as well. Explained to inquiries from a fellow bus rider that there are no castes in America, and that ours was a love marriage – exciting news for all.

Ranakpur , a temple plus dharamshala, peaceful, situated in a flat area with brown Hhlls rising behind, cultivated fields of wheat in front. Wonderful cow-driven wooden contraptions everywhere for raising water from wells. Bedbugs got me, moved to another dharamshala at midnight, got me again, ended up sleeping on the concrete floor.

Temple heavily decorated, but sculpture nowhere near Khajuraho.  Roof fun, with domes, spires, flags. 

Mount Abu temples, a clear cut Ranakpur: finely finished marble, carved to resemble ivory, some figures very good, total effect magical, and growing on us as we lingered. Amazing disparity between sensuous female forms on pillars and ceilings and dull, ugly Jain gods with shiny eyes in their dark little rooms. Surely the most religious structure I’ve seen.

• Health: five. Cut on right toe now slightly infected. Both of us threw up after two Rich vegetarian meal at tourist bungalow yesterday night, but Nicole's cough is gone, thanks to the codeine syrup she bought at Udaipur.

• Exercise: 50, starting today

April 8, 1979. Shri Rajneesh ashram, Poona. The resolve to make a diary entry every day certainly weakened in a hurry. Since Mount Abu, we’ve seen a lot of amazing places: Palitana, Elephanta Caves, Ellora Caves, and Ajanta Caves, to be precise.  But I’m just not up to writing it all down. This place, however, positively forces me to do a bit of writing, because of the free time, hot sun, and limited options on what to do. Today, for example, we didn’t arrive until about 11, Read the course offerings until 12, and are now waiting for the taped discourse at 1:45. Yesterday, our first day here, after watching some of the Sufi dancing, participating in the hour-long, kundalini meditation, listening to a 1 1/2 taped discourse, and joining in the evening group sing – dance, I was, not at all sold on the place. 

Cons:

• Boring stuff, which I could very well do on my own. 

• Poona is no place, housing is a problem, no meat. 

• Apparently lack of intellectual  activities - no library, no studying, no good music, no movies, etc.

Pros:

• Bhagwan's taped discourse was a joy to listen to. 

• Once I started to read what he believes and and what his methods are, I realized he’s making a lot of sense. 

• General seriousness of purpose among the sannyasins. I suspect a lot of good people are here. 

This morning I read some more, especially about his plans to move to a bigger site, where all will be residents, and where such activities has pottery, weaving, cooking, etc. will be studied and pursued. Also, his university program sounds truly exciting. So we’ve decided to spend a little more time here: I’ll take the intensive 10 day meditation course, well Nicole will try to sign up for some individual or small group courses. 

Saw a girl doing tai chi yesterday.  So lovely.  Would love to learn it.