Back in Madras - I remember the women's last name was Patel. It is as common a name as Smith here - so I'm not tipping any nasty secretes. Anyway - I hooked up with Clare and we got an apartment in Madras that the first person I met in the airport lived in and moved out of. We set up an apt - sharing a one bedroom, living room, kitchen and bedroom - this was right behind the Hotel that we started in. It was still close and the disco tech that was there playing Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel in beautiful surround sound attracted the college boys from the Madras Institute of Technology and the party was ON. My time in Madras began to unfold. The guys from MIT knew connections to get ganja (pot, grass, weed - you know what I mean) and Clare and I began our life together. The guy across the hall was a Yoga Guru and attracted lots of westerners to the studio to take instruction from him. Through the hallway we met loads of guys that were living at the Theosophical Society guest houses and coming to the yoga studio for lessons. There was Douglas, James and William. I picked up on James as we had the same sarcastic sense of the absurd.
We were hanging over the balcony of the stairway together one day - looking out at the world and a newish VW bug was parked out front. We both started laughing at the same time - looked at each other and the affair was on. We both though that WOW - what a modern fancy car that was to see on the street - and then jumped to - for God's sake it is a bug - not a Cadillac. In India it looked like a limo.
I rode on the front of his bike down the palm lined streets. We sat and talked under a Banyan Tree (one of the largest in the world) in Adyar - on theosophical grounds- for hours on end about how the world was made, the truth about God, the living mind of the universe - on and on and on.
God no where. We got drunk together and stumbled down the middle of a Madras Street and realized that we were the freest people in the world and if we wanted to have dinner in Paris, France tonight we could hope on plane and do it. Maybe only once but we could. Just didn't want to. So we stumbled back to my apt and slepttogether for the night. A few nights strung together for a little while.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sleep - yes sleep. It is now 3:09 in the am where I am - California. Sleep alludes me. The older (maybe not sure - but a boyfriend 20 years my senior - 40 to my 20 told me he didn't sleep as much as he used to) I get the less I can sleep. It is a drag because I used to like to sleep and still do - just can't.
Anyway - I woke up after a great sleep and they fed me breakfast and then bid their goodbyes and sent me back to Helen's with the driver. Back at Helen's I just settled into living with them for awhile. I would walk around Bombay and just take in the rush of the throng of people there.
My mother knew an Indian woman who was having a torrid affair with another Indian guy that was a friend of the man who would become the father of my sister. I knew her name at that time and knew she lived in Bombay somewhere. As my luck would have it - someone Helen knew also knew this lady when I mentioned her. (don't ask me how all of this shit came together the way it did - it just did.)
I located her and she invited me to her house to stay for a couple of days. She had never married. She was of the Brahman cast (priestly cast and therefore the highest cast in the system). I managed to get to her family house by train and she welcomed me into her home. The women were quite separated from the men in the home and I was with the women. We were all introduced - extended family living under the same roof - maiden (although not a virgin - if what my mother told me was true) aunt living with her parents and brothers, wives, nieces and nephews.
I had dinner with them and the woman (can't for life of me remember her name at the moment) invited me to hang out with them for the night and next day take in some sites with her and her niece. I spent the night there and again slept like I wish I could now. I got up in the am and had breakfast with the family as if I belonged and felt so relaxed - it is hard to explain the Indian culture of hospitality.
When you are invited in, you become one of the family - no matter how different you may be. I would just sit back and listen to the language and be lulled into a blissful state of relaxation and forget I was American and different. I hung out for part of the day and we headed out for a beach site. It was somewhat of an entertainment center of a beach and they had camels that could be hired for a ride.
Just the thought of riding on a camel with this distant contact from my mother's life of the '50's was just such a mind blower. We rode on the camel all over the beach and paid our few rupees and walked around for the rest of the day with this little niece. It was quite an experience.
I ended up back at Helen's and continued my visiting with all of her friends. Many people she knew were in the movie business there in the Indian Hollywood. Actresses came to her house for lunch and we went to their places for lunch as well. Most of these "stars" were slightly older and had moved from playing the main love interest to playing the older sister type roles - much as Mr. Singh and moved from the romantic leads to the heavy.
I finally decided to go back to Madras and my friends there. I hopped a train and headed back.
To be continued - I need to sleep sometime.
Anyway - I woke up after a great sleep and they fed me breakfast and then bid their goodbyes and sent me back to Helen's with the driver. Back at Helen's I just settled into living with them for awhile. I would walk around Bombay and just take in the rush of the throng of people there.
My mother knew an Indian woman who was having a torrid affair with another Indian guy that was a friend of the man who would become the father of my sister. I knew her name at that time and knew she lived in Bombay somewhere. As my luck would have it - someone Helen knew also knew this lady when I mentioned her. (don't ask me how all of this shit came together the way it did - it just did.)
I located her and she invited me to her house to stay for a couple of days. She had never married. She was of the Brahman cast (priestly cast and therefore the highest cast in the system). I managed to get to her family house by train and she welcomed me into her home. The women were quite separated from the men in the home and I was with the women. We were all introduced - extended family living under the same roof - maiden (although not a virgin - if what my mother told me was true) aunt living with her parents and brothers, wives, nieces and nephews.
I had dinner with them and the woman (can't for life of me remember her name at the moment) invited me to hang out with them for the night and next day take in some sites with her and her niece. I spent the night there and again slept like I wish I could now. I got up in the am and had breakfast with the family as if I belonged and felt so relaxed - it is hard to explain the Indian culture of hospitality.
When you are invited in, you become one of the family - no matter how different you may be. I would just sit back and listen to the language and be lulled into a blissful state of relaxation and forget I was American and different. I hung out for part of the day and we headed out for a beach site. It was somewhat of an entertainment center of a beach and they had camels that could be hired for a ride.
Just the thought of riding on a camel with this distant contact from my mother's life of the '50's was just such a mind blower. We rode on the camel all over the beach and paid our few rupees and walked around for the rest of the day with this little niece. It was quite an experience.
I ended up back at Helen's and continued my visiting with all of her friends. Many people she knew were in the movie business there in the Indian Hollywood. Actresses came to her house for lunch and we went to their places for lunch as well. Most of these "stars" were slightly older and had moved from playing the main love interest to playing the older sister type roles - much as Mr. Singh and moved from the romantic leads to the heavy.
I finally decided to go back to Madras and my friends there. I hopped a train and headed back.
To be continued - I need to sleep sometime.
Friday, September 11, 2009
O.K. On with the tale
Back in Madras I met an actor named K.N. Singh. Many guys took on the name Singh for professional reasons as it seems a common name for westerners to associate with India but it is a name of the Sikh religion - Mr. K.N. was not a Sikh but a Hindu who had transitioned into the roles as the bad guy in talkies from the days of silent Indian film. He was a full on drunk story teller of great charm and wonderful tale telling abilities. Of course as a young female I caught his fancy in a very Platonic way and he wanted me by his side to hear all his tales long into the night. He was heading back to Bombay as were many of my friends - Helen and the Panamanian Consulate so the invite was extended to head for Bombay by flight across the pointy part of India. Indian Airlines. Oh boy. Scary.
Now this is something about India - especially in those days. This was very much the time when just the very smallest shoots of modernization was coming into India. The Military had most of the advances and that was where the money was - not into infrastructure like phone lines, television etc. - the airlines were run by Indian companies and the staff had to be recruited from the upper classes in order to get educated people to do the work but they do not have a service component to their class structure. They are to be waited upon - not do the waiting on others. Now granted this is from my point of view as a Westerner and a young one at that. The stewardesses were not friendly nor did they smile and reassure the passengers when the turbulence hit the plane - I was very nervous and wished I had drugs. Alcohol is not my drug of choice when my stomach is already in my mouth.
We landed in one piece and I stayed with Helen. She was moving with her husband to a new apt. in the main city of Bombay. It was a penthouse - three structures from the Taj Mahal Hotel in front of the Gateway to India built for Queen Victoria. The Bay of Bengal was the view from the large patio/deck in front. Quite posh. It was the same spot as the terrorism attack of a couple of years ago - the guys with the guns from Pakistan. The area has changed and developed much since then but I did recognize the footage.
I visited with K.N. Singh- he took me around with his driver - to visit friends from his early life. We went to an apartment building in the city to meet a friend from his college days. The man lived with his wife and 2 daughters in a one bedroom apt in a walk up of a few stories. The man had had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side. His daughters worked in offices and they seemed quite poor by any standard but cheerfully welcomed us into their lives. The flask was offered to the old friend and tea was made for me.
I had to pee while there and they had me pee in their kitchen sink - which was a raised lip of about a brick height in the corner of the kitchen. I was quite proficient at squatting on ledges of things like curbs so this wasn't too difficult. They also don't use toilet paper - anyone traveling or fighting in the middle east with the local guys know this - one uses water and the left hand - and drip dry. I was glad I was young and adventurous. I took it all in stride and kept smiling.
From there we went to visit an "Old Jewess" his words - who was in silent movies with him but couldn't transition to Hindi when talkies came in - so she retired. The house was very Gothic with cobwebs in the corners hanging down like grey/black drapes. The furniture was all antique and well kept. Everything was like a museum of art and everything was old. The servant was an old skinny Indian lady with white hair pulled back - she wore a black sari - which really set off this white hair with her dark skin. She hung out around the stove and smoked cigarettes.
The actress friend was lovely and also a delightful story teller. She was heavy set and dealing well with the circumstances life had handed her. It was all the feeling of the formerly wealthy and famous in the declining years of life. The three of us played gin rummy and laughed and talked - we sent the driver out for Chinese food - yes - the best Chinese food in the world was in India. God bless the Chinese - they are all over the world with their restaurants and help those of us who haven't developed a taste for burning food yet. We finally wrapped it up when the "adults" were good and drunk - thank God for sober drivers - my friend guy could barely walk by the time we left. Again, alcohol was not my choice - especially when life and limb depend on sharp thinking.
He had the driver take us to his apartment. His wife came to greet her husband - as only a patient wife of 40 some years can do and accepted that he brought home a young lady without so much as a word of reproach. I slept on the couch bed and oh how I wish I could sleep like that now.
Post for now and continue later.
Now this is something about India - especially in those days. This was very much the time when just the very smallest shoots of modernization was coming into India. The Military had most of the advances and that was where the money was - not into infrastructure like phone lines, television etc. - the airlines were run by Indian companies and the staff had to be recruited from the upper classes in order to get educated people to do the work but they do not have a service component to their class structure. They are to be waited upon - not do the waiting on others. Now granted this is from my point of view as a Westerner and a young one at that. The stewardesses were not friendly nor did they smile and reassure the passengers when the turbulence hit the plane - I was very nervous and wished I had drugs. Alcohol is not my drug of choice when my stomach is already in my mouth.
We landed in one piece and I stayed with Helen. She was moving with her husband to a new apt. in the main city of Bombay. It was a penthouse - three structures from the Taj Mahal Hotel in front of the Gateway to India built for Queen Victoria. The Bay of Bengal was the view from the large patio/deck in front. Quite posh. It was the same spot as the terrorism attack of a couple of years ago - the guys with the guns from Pakistan. The area has changed and developed much since then but I did recognize the footage.
I visited with K.N. Singh- he took me around with his driver - to visit friends from his early life. We went to an apartment building in the city to meet a friend from his college days. The man lived with his wife and 2 daughters in a one bedroom apt in a walk up of a few stories. The man had had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side. His daughters worked in offices and they seemed quite poor by any standard but cheerfully welcomed us into their lives. The flask was offered to the old friend and tea was made for me.
I had to pee while there and they had me pee in their kitchen sink - which was a raised lip of about a brick height in the corner of the kitchen. I was quite proficient at squatting on ledges of things like curbs so this wasn't too difficult. They also don't use toilet paper - anyone traveling or fighting in the middle east with the local guys know this - one uses water and the left hand - and drip dry. I was glad I was young and adventurous. I took it all in stride and kept smiling.
From there we went to visit an "Old Jewess" his words - who was in silent movies with him but couldn't transition to Hindi when talkies came in - so she retired. The house was very Gothic with cobwebs in the corners hanging down like grey/black drapes. The furniture was all antique and well kept. Everything was like a museum of art and everything was old. The servant was an old skinny Indian lady with white hair pulled back - she wore a black sari - which really set off this white hair with her dark skin. She hung out around the stove and smoked cigarettes.
The actress friend was lovely and also a delightful story teller. She was heavy set and dealing well with the circumstances life had handed her. It was all the feeling of the formerly wealthy and famous in the declining years of life. The three of us played gin rummy and laughed and talked - we sent the driver out for Chinese food - yes - the best Chinese food in the world was in India. God bless the Chinese - they are all over the world with their restaurants and help those of us who haven't developed a taste for burning food yet. We finally wrapped it up when the "adults" were good and drunk - thank God for sober drivers - my friend guy could barely walk by the time we left. Again, alcohol was not my choice - especially when life and limb depend on sharp thinking.
He had the driver take us to his apartment. His wife came to greet her husband - as only a patient wife of 40 some years can do and accepted that he brought home a young lady without so much as a word of reproach. I slept on the couch bed and oh how I wish I could sleep like that now.
Post for now and continue later.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Long time - huh? Been drinking beer so posting seemed like a good idea. I just came back from a Willie K concert. Blew my mind. Such talent. Can sing any style - including opera - and give 100% perfect. That is today - now to the past: U.G. was to be in Bangalore in October - I had packed off to Ashram.
Now - the next a.m. after arrival. When I woke up in the morning I went off to breakfast. At the table in the dining area there was a woman named Helen. She lived in Bombay and came to the Ashram for spiritual renewal. She was an American born of a Panamanian mother and Anglo father. She was actually born in Panama but educated in U.S. and all that. She met her husband in college. He is Indian and works for Burma Shell Corp. After they married they made their home in India. Helen was to become quite an influence in my life.
We started talking at the breakfast table and as seemed the common thread - she was fascinated by my story and thought I was something special. She wanted to take me around and introduce me to the influential people in the Ashram. We did meet the woman who was closest to "The Mother". We sat on the veranda sipping tea and she stared into my eyes for what seemed to be 20minutes without talking at all. It was weird. I never knew whether I "passed the test" or not - but I could really out stare just about anyone after that encounter.
From the Western Guest House I went to a traditional living space. A room and a mosquito net is all that is needed. I started reading The Synthesis of Yoga I–II. The following is the description of the work as described by the publishers of his works:
"Sri Aurobindo's principal work on yoga.In this book Sri Aurobindo examines the traditional systems of yoga and provides an explanation of certain components of his own system of integral yoga. There is an Introduction, "The Conditions of the Synthesis", and four parts: "The Yoga of Divine Works", "The Yoga of Integral Knowledge", "The Yoga of Divine Love" and "The Yoga of Self-Perfection". The material was first published serially in the monthly review Arya between 1914 and 1921; the introduction and first two parts were later revised by Sri Aurobindo for publication.
I stayed in my room and read and fought the battle in my mind of the desire to return to Madras and continue the fun I was having at the time. I was forcing myself to concentrate on this heavy and ponderous work - a dictionary at the ready - and absorbing about 1/2 of it. I finally came to a point that I looked up into the heavens and made this bargain - "O.K. God - I am here - doing this intense study and I'm not really into it. If you are agreeable I pray that I will be offered a ride back to Madras. I won't get on a bus myself, but someone will have to approach me from outside of myself for this exit from the Ashram."
Now what do you think happened? That very afternoon that God and I had this "conversation" Helen knocked on my door and asked me if I would like a ride to Madras to attend a party at the Panamanian Consulate's residence. Whoa. Now in the state of mind I found myself I took this as a message from the Heavenly Father Himself that it was "His will" that I trundle myself back to Madras with Helen.
A side note about my use of " " marks. I am attempting to indicate that as of now - I don't perceive these statements as reality. I'm not certain as to how else I can set aside yesterdays folly.
I ended up back in Madras, back at the hotel with Clare and all the friends I had made - including the lovely guy I had become involved with before I left for the Ashram. It was a blast. The Consulate's party was a gala affair. All of the people were well placed and extended the hand for ay assistance that may have been needed - expecially money changing. There were many who offered more than the bank would give in exchange. It was a common way for Indian's to obtain dollars that they could put is Swiss bank accounts for when they travel abroad.
Hopefully I will finish this tale soon - as of now so long - I'm tired.
Now - the next a.m. after arrival. When I woke up in the morning I went off to breakfast. At the table in the dining area there was a woman named Helen. She lived in Bombay and came to the Ashram for spiritual renewal. She was an American born of a Panamanian mother and Anglo father. She was actually born in Panama but educated in U.S. and all that. She met her husband in college. He is Indian and works for Burma Shell Corp. After they married they made their home in India. Helen was to become quite an influence in my life.
We started talking at the breakfast table and as seemed the common thread - she was fascinated by my story and thought I was something special. She wanted to take me around and introduce me to the influential people in the Ashram. We did meet the woman who was closest to "The Mother". We sat on the veranda sipping tea and she stared into my eyes for what seemed to be 20minutes without talking at all. It was weird. I never knew whether I "passed the test" or not - but I could really out stare just about anyone after that encounter.
From the Western Guest House I went to a traditional living space. A room and a mosquito net is all that is needed. I started reading The Synthesis of Yoga I–II. The following is the description of the work as described by the publishers of his works:
"Sri Aurobindo's principal work on yoga.In this book Sri Aurobindo examines the traditional systems of yoga and provides an explanation of certain components of his own system of integral yoga. There is an Introduction, "The Conditions of the Synthesis", and four parts: "The Yoga of Divine Works", "The Yoga of Integral Knowledge", "The Yoga of Divine Love" and "The Yoga of Self-Perfection". The material was first published serially in the monthly review Arya between 1914 and 1921; the introduction and first two parts were later revised by Sri Aurobindo for publication.
I stayed in my room and read and fought the battle in my mind of the desire to return to Madras and continue the fun I was having at the time. I was forcing myself to concentrate on this heavy and ponderous work - a dictionary at the ready - and absorbing about 1/2 of it. I finally came to a point that I looked up into the heavens and made this bargain - "O.K. God - I am here - doing this intense study and I'm not really into it. If you are agreeable I pray that I will be offered a ride back to Madras. I won't get on a bus myself, but someone will have to approach me from outside of myself for this exit from the Ashram."
Now what do you think happened? That very afternoon that God and I had this "conversation" Helen knocked on my door and asked me if I would like a ride to Madras to attend a party at the Panamanian Consulate's residence. Whoa. Now in the state of mind I found myself I took this as a message from the Heavenly Father Himself that it was "His will" that I trundle myself back to Madras with Helen.
A side note about my use of " " marks. I am attempting to indicate that as of now - I don't perceive these statements as reality. I'm not certain as to how else I can set aside yesterdays folly.
I ended up back in Madras, back at the hotel with Clare and all the friends I had made - including the lovely guy I had become involved with before I left for the Ashram. It was a blast. The Consulate's party was a gala affair. All of the people were well placed and extended the hand for ay assistance that may have been needed - expecially money changing. There were many who offered more than the bank would give in exchange. It was a common way for Indian's to obtain dollars that they could put is Swiss bank accounts for when they travel abroad.
Hopefully I will finish this tale soon - as of now so long - I'm tired.
Monday, March 16, 2009
O. K. - Previous post described my first encounter with U.G. I think we heard from him via a letter to my mom in the early 60's but that was it. Fast forward to my first lunch in Madras 1971.
As I sat at the round, white linen table cloth table - I waited for my friends of the airport/taxi ride/hotel register rescue - to arrive. I stick with my tea, toast & jam with some fresh fruit for my lunch order. I look up and what do I see? A young lady roughly my age, attractive & with a smile wide as can be that lights up her whole face. She sees me and is at my table directly from the door and makes herself at home. We hit it off as partners in crime - in seconds. She is from a different part of the U.S. and "social strata". Thousands of miles from home that means jack sh*t. We are filling in the important parts of the back story when Mya and White Bearded Guy (wbg from now on) join us and introductions around. There was an Indian young man at the table too, people just seem to join in a group without formalities. He is the informer who told us about the discotheque in the very hotel we were in.
The wbg asked me what I was planning to do and if I had any connections with Southern India and if I knew what I was actually getting into. In the conversation that rambled around I mentioned that my mother had an Indian family from Madras living with us for awhile when I was a little girl. We called him Krishna but his name actually was U.G. Krishnamurti. The bwg kind of blinked and asked "U.G". Yeah, I replied - now get this - he knew him and knew when he would be in India in October. He had gone through a "transformation of some sort" and become a "non-guru" and sat in a room put up by friends and for some unknown reason people would come and ask him questions. Hummm and Hummm.
I came to India to go to Pondicherry and read the books of Sri Aurobindo (again someday I will learn how to insert links meanwhile there is google). I hung around Madras for a couple of weeks. In that amount of time I had made a set of friends, that except for the dearly departed, are still around. I met a guy. Now what 22yo hasn't met a guy that really rocks her socks? I will spare details - mainly as he is still alive - happily married - and I don't want to bring embarrassment to him. The unfortunate aspect of this encounter was that it sort of dampened my enthusiasm for hanging out in an ashram for 6 months.
I did swallow hard and get on the bus and head out for the ashram. I was glad I had spent that first couple of weeks in Madras as it did get me familiar with human excrement around in the open and cows taking a dump and someone - always a female - swooping in from nowhere to scoop it up - and all the stares. I will spare you the sights and smells of the trip. Warning! I will not always spare you but poop stories get old after a short while.
When my bus pulled up to the bus stop. I looked for a taxi. All I saw were Rickshaws powered by bicycles (pedicabs) - or even worse (in my mind) an elderly barefooted man pulling it himself. I opted for the pedicab. It was some minutes past sunset, the sky had a crescent moon with a star (probably a planet I now know) that was beautiful. As the driver pedaled along with his bell ringing, my mind wandered back to the guy back in Madras.
In those days I was subject projecting my inner thoughts into "visions". I could see him smiling at me in the crescent moon. Oh boy. I was truly under the delusion that when I stepped off the plane in India I would have a "transformation" and my "self" of drugs, sex and rock&roll would fall off like the mold from a casting. (please see the previous post regarding drugs). Guess what? Did you see the word delusion? That is exactly what it was. I was still the same person I always was.
The biggest difference was that I was a young, white, free spirit, not bad looking, female traveling alone in a foreign country. This made me even more attractive (sort of a deployment 10 where I would be a 6 when the plane touched down in the U.S.A.). As many deployment 10's (I imagine they also are young) don't understand, the attention is inflated, I didn't either. I had never lacked for male attention in the states but back in Madras I had a guy banging on my door in the middle of the night claiming his undying love for me and that just seeing me caused his heart to leap with joy. Very poetic these suitors. It took time "in country" to realize that they are looking for a ticket out.
The worldly pulls were still pulling and the love of fun, music and dancing etc. was there in full force - fueled by the money in my pocket - which went very far in India and being the bell of the ball. India has ganja, beautiful fabrics a tailor can stitch into whatever you want, food that may take getting used to but is really good, music places, places to hang out and do nothing and I discovered in Madras the Theosophical Society headquarters (more about in future - see google). So where to start and being a 10 to boot. Now that is a pull.
Back to my poor guy on a bicycle taking me to a place to stay. With my English he did understand ashram and deposited me at a closed gate. Great. I wandered around until I found someone to ask about a place to stay and he directed me to the "western styled" guest house. I managed to drag my stuff over there and knocked. They did have a room available. People were forever being blown away by the fact that I would just show up without any plan whatsoever.
The gentleman in charge, a German by birth, showed me to my room. As he was giving me the tour we came to the bathroom where there was a dead rat the size of a 2mo old kitten. He just picked it up by the tail and carted it out. ? Was it alive and running around the room before it keeled over? will I have a huge rodent running around my room in the middle of the night and how do I get this gentleman in my room in 2seconds flat should that event occur? When he returned from his rat disposal, he informed me that he baits with poison and seldom do they get to the stage of running around the room and he did give me a way to dial him in the middle of the night - no guarentee of 2 seconds flat. Some comfort.
Next post will be breakfast the next day. Slept like a rock and if there was a kitten sized rat running around my room that night, it didn't get in bed with me and I didn't wake up until daylight. 'till later
As I sat at the round, white linen table cloth table - I waited for my friends of the airport/taxi ride/hotel register rescue - to arrive. I stick with my tea, toast & jam with some fresh fruit for my lunch order. I look up and what do I see? A young lady roughly my age, attractive & with a smile wide as can be that lights up her whole face. She sees me and is at my table directly from the door and makes herself at home. We hit it off as partners in crime - in seconds. She is from a different part of the U.S. and "social strata". Thousands of miles from home that means jack sh*t. We are filling in the important parts of the back story when Mya and White Bearded Guy (wbg from now on) join us and introductions around. There was an Indian young man at the table too, people just seem to join in a group without formalities. He is the informer who told us about the discotheque in the very hotel we were in.
The wbg asked me what I was planning to do and if I had any connections with Southern India and if I knew what I was actually getting into. In the conversation that rambled around I mentioned that my mother had an Indian family from Madras living with us for awhile when I was a little girl. We called him Krishna but his name actually was U.G. Krishnamurti. The bwg kind of blinked and asked "U.G". Yeah, I replied - now get this - he knew him and knew when he would be in India in October. He had gone through a "transformation of some sort" and become a "non-guru" and sat in a room put up by friends and for some unknown reason people would come and ask him questions. Hummm and Hummm.
I came to India to go to Pondicherry and read the books of Sri Aurobindo (again someday I will learn how to insert links meanwhile there is google). I hung around Madras for a couple of weeks. In that amount of time I had made a set of friends, that except for the dearly departed, are still around. I met a guy. Now what 22yo hasn't met a guy that really rocks her socks? I will spare details - mainly as he is still alive - happily married - and I don't want to bring embarrassment to him. The unfortunate aspect of this encounter was that it sort of dampened my enthusiasm for hanging out in an ashram for 6 months.
I did swallow hard and get on the bus and head out for the ashram. I was glad I had spent that first couple of weeks in Madras as it did get me familiar with human excrement around in the open and cows taking a dump and someone - always a female - swooping in from nowhere to scoop it up - and all the stares. I will spare you the sights and smells of the trip. Warning! I will not always spare you but poop stories get old after a short while.
When my bus pulled up to the bus stop. I looked for a taxi. All I saw were Rickshaws powered by bicycles (pedicabs) - or even worse (in my mind) an elderly barefooted man pulling it himself. I opted for the pedicab. It was some minutes past sunset, the sky had a crescent moon with a star (probably a planet I now know) that was beautiful. As the driver pedaled along with his bell ringing, my mind wandered back to the guy back in Madras.
In those days I was subject projecting my inner thoughts into "visions". I could see him smiling at me in the crescent moon. Oh boy. I was truly under the delusion that when I stepped off the plane in India I would have a "transformation" and my "self" of drugs, sex and rock&roll would fall off like the mold from a casting. (please see the previous post regarding drugs). Guess what? Did you see the word delusion? That is exactly what it was. I was still the same person I always was.
The biggest difference was that I was a young, white, free spirit, not bad looking, female traveling alone in a foreign country. This made me even more attractive (sort of a deployment 10 where I would be a 6 when the plane touched down in the U.S.A.). As many deployment 10's (I imagine they also are young) don't understand, the attention is inflated, I didn't either. I had never lacked for male attention in the states but back in Madras I had a guy banging on my door in the middle of the night claiming his undying love for me and that just seeing me caused his heart to leap with joy. Very poetic these suitors. It took time "in country" to realize that they are looking for a ticket out.
The worldly pulls were still pulling and the love of fun, music and dancing etc. was there in full force - fueled by the money in my pocket - which went very far in India and being the bell of the ball. India has ganja, beautiful fabrics a tailor can stitch into whatever you want, food that may take getting used to but is really good, music places, places to hang out and do nothing and I discovered in Madras the Theosophical Society headquarters (more about in future - see google). So where to start and being a 10 to boot. Now that is a pull.
Back to my poor guy on a bicycle taking me to a place to stay. With my English he did understand ashram and deposited me at a closed gate. Great. I wandered around until I found someone to ask about a place to stay and he directed me to the "western styled" guest house. I managed to drag my stuff over there and knocked. They did have a room available. People were forever being blown away by the fact that I would just show up without any plan whatsoever.
The gentleman in charge, a German by birth, showed me to my room. As he was giving me the tour we came to the bathroom where there was a dead rat the size of a 2mo old kitten. He just picked it up by the tail and carted it out. ? Was it alive and running around the room before it keeled over? will I have a huge rodent running around my room in the middle of the night and how do I get this gentleman in my room in 2seconds flat should that event occur? When he returned from his rat disposal, he informed me that he baits with poison and seldom do they get to the stage of running around the room and he did give me a way to dial him in the middle of the night - no guarentee of 2 seconds flat. Some comfort.
Next post will be breakfast the next day. Slept like a rock and if there was a kitten sized rat running around my room that night, it didn't get in bed with me and I didn't wake up until daylight. 'till later
This blog will jump around - but what the hell - it's my blog. So, when I was 8 years old my father was killed in an auto accident - that is a whole story in itself. Sometime in the following year we (bro & Mom) trained our way across the glorious West & Mid West to Chicago. (this was a 2night, 3day trip or reverse). It was the Empire Builder with the real Pulman cars, dining rooms with silver pitchers, silverware and starched white linen. It was still the day when all of the porters were black and we had a most precious "Sam the Pillow Porter". I think he worked that route every time we traveled and when I made the trip alone at 9 years old he was my Guardian Angel. Bless his soul - the best thing was that all boundaries of race were eliminated in me at a very young age. On one trip there was a television personality of great note - lost to antiquity so I will not mention his name - Sam asked him if he would see 2 little kid fans. TV Star agreed and we were ushered into his Pulman Suite, he talked to us and signed autographs. Forget that - if you can - as a little kid. Wow.
Anyway, we made it back to the homestead my mother was raised in - again this house is a tale in itself. It was broken up into rooms or apts, depending on who was renting it - an old fashioned rooming house. In the upstairs apt (where my uncle & aunt lived just a few years before when we all lived there) there was now a family living. They were from Madras, India. Humm. The family consisted of wife, in a sari and all the traditional dress, husband - standard issue dress, and a son. The son was in our age range (bro & I being 7&8, I'm the oldest) and cool. He had polio as a small child which affected his legs - he could wrap them around the back of his head without it ever being a yoga posture) and loved Batman and Robin as much as we did. Side note - this is the Batman of comic books in 1957 & 8 - not the Dark Knight of 2008. We hit it off well.
I had just lost my very loving father. He always made me feel as if I could do anything and that I was very smart. He taught me the lessons that have held me in good stead all of my life. #1. I cheated once and he caught me. His lesson was that "If I cheat then he couldn't know where I needed help and he didn't think I ever needed to cheat, that I was smart enough to figure out the right way. He never told my mom.
#2. Caught me playing with matches. Lesson: I was so beautiful and pretty that I should never do anything willingly that would disfigure me. Note he did not rant about the house or others, but focused on what a 5yo child cares about THEMSELVES!!! When someone handed me a vial & spoon of drugs (snorting type - figure it out) I took it and went to the restroom with it, feeling so very cool and sophisticated - I looked in the mirror and at the drugs and thought to myself ("Do I want to look aged beyond my years, selling my body to support a habit for this?) my dad's words came back to me as if he were in my head and I never did it. Take care the things you say to your children.
Back to this Indian family living with us. The father's name is U.G. Krishnamurti. This is perhaps one of the few actual names I will use. He has since passed but if you Google him you will see how much of a story this really is - especially in the "search for spirituality".
So - you have a little girl - crying herself to sleep every night - missing her father (mainly because bro & I figured out that Mom was F*cking CRAZY) discovering a kind and sensitive father was under the same roof. He had 2 daughters in India, left behind while they sought medical care for their son with polio, so he had some understanding of children and maybe he missed them. He would visit me when I was in bed at night crying my eyes out and just sit there - sometimes he would put his hand on my head - I mean only my head - nothing weird or anything - I have a very good memory and never have blocked anything out - I do remember others not so supportive - so there. He would talk to me and encourage me to talk about my father or anything else - he is the person I told I had a tooth cavity - not my mom. He told my mom (by the time she did anything about it is was so huge that I had to have it pulled. Thanks mom).
So that is my first encounter with U.G. He and his family lived with us for several months and we were neighbors a year or so later - but that is really another story. end for this post
Anyway, we made it back to the homestead my mother was raised in - again this house is a tale in itself. It was broken up into rooms or apts, depending on who was renting it - an old fashioned rooming house. In the upstairs apt (where my uncle & aunt lived just a few years before when we all lived there) there was now a family living. They were from Madras, India. Humm. The family consisted of wife, in a sari and all the traditional dress, husband - standard issue dress, and a son. The son was in our age range (bro & I being 7&8, I'm the oldest) and cool. He had polio as a small child which affected his legs - he could wrap them around the back of his head without it ever being a yoga posture) and loved Batman and Robin as much as we did. Side note - this is the Batman of comic books in 1957 & 8 - not the Dark Knight of 2008. We hit it off well.
I had just lost my very loving father. He always made me feel as if I could do anything and that I was very smart. He taught me the lessons that have held me in good stead all of my life. #1. I cheated once and he caught me. His lesson was that "If I cheat then he couldn't know where I needed help and he didn't think I ever needed to cheat, that I was smart enough to figure out the right way. He never told my mom.
#2. Caught me playing with matches. Lesson: I was so beautiful and pretty that I should never do anything willingly that would disfigure me. Note he did not rant about the house or others, but focused on what a 5yo child cares about THEMSELVES!!! When someone handed me a vial & spoon of drugs (snorting type - figure it out) I took it and went to the restroom with it, feeling so very cool and sophisticated - I looked in the mirror and at the drugs and thought to myself ("Do I want to look aged beyond my years, selling my body to support a habit for this?) my dad's words came back to me as if he were in my head and I never did it. Take care the things you say to your children.
Back to this Indian family living with us. The father's name is U.G. Krishnamurti. This is perhaps one of the few actual names I will use. He has since passed but if you Google him you will see how much of a story this really is - especially in the "search for spirituality".
So - you have a little girl - crying herself to sleep every night - missing her father (mainly because bro & I figured out that Mom was F*cking CRAZY) discovering a kind and sensitive father was under the same roof. He had 2 daughters in India, left behind while they sought medical care for their son with polio, so he had some understanding of children and maybe he missed them. He would visit me when I was in bed at night crying my eyes out and just sit there - sometimes he would put his hand on my head - I mean only my head - nothing weird or anything - I have a very good memory and never have blocked anything out - I do remember others not so supportive - so there. He would talk to me and encourage me to talk about my father or anything else - he is the person I told I had a tooth cavity - not my mom. He told my mom (by the time she did anything about it is was so huge that I had to have it pulled. Thanks mom).
So that is my first encounter with U.G. He and his family lived with us for several months and we were neighbors a year or so later - but that is really another story. end for this post
Friday, February 27, 2009
been a long time
Last entry was Christmas last year. This blog is difficult for many reasons. One is because much of my experience was during a time of women coming into their own sexually and in freedom from the constraints of societal expectations. Now I am a 60 yo women with a "respectable" career and life. I have two sons. One is married and has 3 children, the other is single without any children. I have not really changed inside, however. I control the outside to prevent embarassament for my older son and for my profession which has a great deal of prejudice from the start of a person's life to the end.
In order to not have this become a series of stories "sanitized" for public and differing family consumption - it also doesn't tell the real story of my experience. This is frustrating for me and in all the years I have thought about writing about it has been the sticking point. I was giving my younger son an example of how an experience relates to world view or universal view and he said "wow, I hope you write about that in your blog". I really can't. Many things are just too "far out" (to use a '60's term) to write about when it could be read by a grandchild or whatever. Not to mention my "potty mouth" as my brother refers to it. I have every letter I wrote to him while I was traveling. Every other word was f*cking far out and various other "colorful" terms that is and was the way I talk, except when I am talking to my older son (he never uses profanity) or at work when I am speaking in a professional capacity. So!!! what to do but make this another orphan blog or come to a happy medium. I looked at "my profile" just now. It doesn't really give much information, does it?
In order to not have this become a series of stories "sanitized" for public and differing family consumption - it also doesn't tell the real story of my experience. This is frustrating for me and in all the years I have thought about writing about it has been the sticking point. I was giving my younger son an example of how an experience relates to world view or universal view and he said "wow, I hope you write about that in your blog". I really can't. Many things are just too "far out" (to use a '60's term) to write about when it could be read by a grandchild or whatever. Not to mention my "potty mouth" as my brother refers to it. I have every letter I wrote to him while I was traveling. Every other word was f*cking far out and various other "colorful" terms that is and was the way I talk, except when I am talking to my older son (he never uses profanity) or at work when I am speaking in a professional capacity. So!!! what to do but make this another orphan blog or come to a happy medium. I looked at "my profile" just now. It doesn't really give much information, does it?
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