Rajneesh, Goa, India
Chapter 19 - Hand to Mouth to Indiaa
Bright and early the next morning, a truck full of guys who'd come all the way from the Himalayas stopped for me and they were delighted to know that I'd spent some time in their home state. They left me with some rupees for lunch and by evening I had come to Pune-though only after some mind-numbing hassle in asking directions in a country without logic. Check it out - they have the same word for 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'.
It was assumed by the locals that, in my pink outfit, I must be one of the 'sunnyasins'of Osho's Ashram, the instituion that put this city on the map for millions across the world. Osho, also known as Rajneesh, was an India vastly learned in the traditional scriptures who announced himself as a Realised Being. Whether he was a Buddha or a caon man seems to be a matter of the individual heart. For me I wince at the sound of his voice and wouldn't buy a second-hand car from this guy, let alone become a disciple. Yet when i read his words on paper I'm bowled over by their eloquence and i don't doubt that the man was a genius.
Some feel that he simply tapped into a profitable market of Westerners come to India in search of the Truth. Rajneesh gave them a package whereby they could combine their spirituality with sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Hell, that's what most of us want and makes for a far more interesting path than offered by most of the gurus out there. But with any religion come those who mooch about parroting the words of their master and using the robes as a holy shroud for their own shortcomings.
However, I've also met many whom i love and respect who spent years soaking up Rajneesh and they tell me that everything was great at the Ashram until the burueacrats moved in. Most of the religion-makers of this world usually wait until the founder has died before they usurp power but a powerful team of Austrians and germans moved in while Rajneesh was still on his last legs, dying relatively young, allegedy from CIA poison in his pillow case when he was once detained in the US.
One of his insiders wrote a book about him called 'The God who Failed'. The US won't tolerate any more gods any time soon and so deported Rajneesh to India wher business began once again. The Ashram turns over millions each year and once again the observer ends up asking himself how the Road to Enlgihtenment always seems to come down to money.
However, I've been rather sternly told that I shouldn't speak so authoritively of these things without personal experience. I've heard that the grounds of the Ashram are beautiful but I didn't get to find out. I couldn't afford the entrance fee. I had thoughts about trying to hitch through the night but these were soon soggy notions as a mighty thunderstorm let loose. Everyone was forced to retreat to the shelter of door ways and the odd bit of terracing or else face the punishment of truly angry rain.
When the torrents eased up I scuttled along to the train station, to see if I could travel some of the remaining distance through the night. A strange vibe was in the air and there were not too many smiles to be seen in one of India's most modern cities.
The rain had caused everyone at the station to huddle closer, away from the dampness that crept in at the exposed edges and which each dripping arrival. People slept on laid-out pieces of cardboard on the concrete platforms. I didn't know if they were homeless or if they were just waiting for a train that for them, looked like it might never arrive.
Others slept on the benches of the waiting areas until the police came along and rapped the metal benches with their batons, producing a harsh clatter that shook all the reclining awake with a shocked dizziness. They had nowhere to go but otrders were orders and it was the duty of the police to make sure that no onw stole any public sleep. It all seemed in accord with the dark mood of the night and I was glad to board my train going South.
I climbed into what used to be the third class compartment before such terminology was abolished and fought for a seat on the uncomfortable wooden benches with the poor folk. Sleep came, more or less and I awoke at about two or three a.m. when ticket inspectors came in from each end of the carriage, denying any route of escape. I was rehearsing my lines in Hindi to explain that I was a sadhu and was thus claiming my right to travel for free-when the conductor stopped at the man in front of me: a poor man in peasant clothes, sitting on the floor. The conductor yelled at him:
"Paise nahin?(no money?") Then clipped him roughly about the ear and stood back to let fly a huge punt into the small man's thigh as he cowered on the ground. He then turned to me and fortunately, I was too sleepy to be as afraid as I might have been. I gave him my story in faltering Hindi. He replied in English:
"What are you doing in India?" And he began to walk past to check the next tickets as I replied:
"Oh, just living in temples and trying to stay alive really!"
I suppose if I'd been a real defender of the people, I should have broken his ribs as the reward for his minor fascism-but sometimes the waves of evil just sweep over everything and everyone, overwhelming all that gets in the way. So I took the path of least resistance and hoped he'd get his just desserts sooner rather than later. Surely I could reply upon the laws of karma to function properly in India?
When I woke again, it was morning and we were coming into Kolhapur station. Some great change had occurred during the dark of the night and now the world seemed to be full of flowers and fresh smells. The sky shone with a bright blue that the North could never have known.Colours and sounds resonated with a new-born vibrance and it was a happy hitchhiker that bounced down the early morning streets to waste no time in flagging a lift out.
Since coming into Maharastra, the general wealth of the areas could be seen in contrast to the bleakness of Middle India and Kolhapur was no exception. The most striking thing was the middle classness of the people, who wore smart Western clothes and walked down streets that were alarmingly clean for India. The attitudes were of a predictable bent also as whenever I asked directions for the road to Goa, I was directed to the bus station. This would happen however I might phrase my question. The Indians I met were all so pleased with themselves for being able to direct me to the bus terminal that they couldn't consider that I might be asking them something else. When they finally did just listen to my actual words and understood that I was hitchhiking, they would invariably answer:
"Oh! This is not possible, here!" I would then heatedly inform them that I had managed my first six thousand miles and I reckoned I could manage the remaining two hundred okay! Indians just love to make pronouncements on things whether they know anything about the subject or not.
I breathed deeply and counted to ten as I received this reaction again and again. I reminded myself that it would soon all be over. I laughed as I realised that I had not had this hassle in leaving a town since the times I would hitch out of London-I would stand in outer Streatham, waiting for a lift and almost invariably some black guy would come up to me saying:
"You've got no chance, mate! No one's gonna stop for you! You're gonna have to walk home!" Which is just what you need when you've been waiting in vain for three hours.
A truck going all the way across the continent to Pondicherry picked me up and I found myself chatting to George and James, two Indian Christians, who wanted me to come with them to the East coast. They bought me a South Indian breakfast of rice cakes and coconut chutney and shortly afterwards I got a motorbike ride into the outskirts of Goa. This was a welcome change from the stifling cabins of the trucks, though I bruised my coccyx on a winding trail through shadowy roads as the holes in the road threatened to dismount us.
The journey was coming to an end and in the twelve days since leaving the mountains, I'd been on the move so much that I'd not really considered what would happen when I arrived. Goa is the place where people go, to run away from India. It's cleaner, more ordered and is probably less challenging in a cultural context than any other place in India.
Until 1961 it was a Portugese colony and it's full of Latin architecture and glorious white churches that prove that something can stay clean in India. After the Portugese left the Goans sat around wishing they'd come back, until the first few freaks arrived in 1965-as one old Goan lady said at the time:
"Thank God you've come-now we have someone to talk to!" Not only did life become more entertaining for the locals, the Western drop-outs brought in welcome revenue as they began to rent rooms and buy fruit and fish to cook on the beaches that, at the time, were almost completely empty. A beach is a pretty easy place to live on as most of the essentials of life are within reach. The natural beauty of the place was a perfect setting for the freaks to party and let all hang loose.
These beaches were previously only of importance to the Goans for the good fishing and coconut trees that maintained their livelihood. However, they soon became precious landholdings that families fought over-the natural panorama of the place was in many parts hideously marred as they built as many houses and hotels as they could. Now Goa draws over a million charter tourists a year as podgy beer-drinking European tourists arrive each winter to brave it in this tamed outlet of India. They sit in huge hotels with swimming pools that usurp much of the scarce water supply and bring the foreign currency that fuels the ambition of the locals, polluting their peace of mind. The fishermen now have motorised boats instead of oars and every Goan family has televisions, radios and motorbikes that are good on acceleration, bad on brakes. They no longer smile very much.
If that has been the fate of the locals then a similar change has occurred amongst the freaks themselves, who are not any longer so freakish. Whereas they used to eat and live communally and regularly take acid to expand their minds to live each day a-fresh-now most sit back on their stories and whinge and complain about the decay of their paradise, like old folks anywhere in the world: 'Oh, it's not like it used to be!' they cry-and they're right.
In fact a while ago, it was even better when techno music came to Goa in the 80's and added a new dimension to the traditional thriving scene. A few hundred people would take acid from a free punch and dance through the night on personal journeys that all chrystallised with the arrival of the morning. With the approach of daylight you could suddenly see just who you had been dancing with all night and colour returned to the world. Mind expansion amongst alm trees, a sparkling sea and unspoilt beaches. LSD can be a precarious veenture but there existed a kind of pschedelic community where everyone would take care of each other's trip. A kind of support network of understanding that helped people integrate their voyages into the unknown back into the continuity of day-to-day life.
I arrived at the tail-end of this as the whole scene became corrupted by over-exposure, the greed of Goan and Indian business and all of the nasties that came with it. Parties still do happen but the police receive up to a thousand pounds baksheesh for each one for permission to be given and they're staged at locations centred around a bar serving alcohol rather than in remote idylls in Nature. It's no fun to be trying to hold your head together on acid and turn to find a beggar thrusting their poverty in your face-especially if they look like they're having a better time than you!
However, there survives a kind of precious beauty to the place and it holds a special magic of its own that may survive all the crassness that descends upon the area. There are still many, many interesting people who spend up to six months living here each winter and there's still a kind of international village feeling, that exists within certain strongholds of freakdom in hidden-away spots. It's not always immediately obvious to outsiders though; One morning, whilst sitting on the part of the beach where characters of twenty or thirty years standing hung out, three Brits on holiday turned up, a little lost. After ordering three beers in the midday sun, they asked me if I knew where the 'hippie camp' was.
McDonalds hasn't arrived yet and certain areas hold an ambience that can't be beat. It's quaint to stroll through dirt tracks in the shade of palm trees, as pigs, chickens and cows roam about and there's the space to do your thing without interference from others. It gets harder and harder to maintain a peaceful space but for now its the best that I've found.
I arrived in Panaji on Saint Xavier's day and the Goans were in full festive mode. There were lots of guys in suits bombing around on their scooters and respectable Catholic girls who milled about in vaguely content crowds. I weaved my way through and stretched my memory by taking various backroads to avoid the traffic generated by the Wednesday flea market.
It all got easier by the moment as I came across the little turnings and places that I knew so well. My final ride was in the back of a three-wheeled pick-up truck.
Standing like a proud charioteer, I rode into the sunset and ran the final two hundred metres across the rice paddies and down to the sea.
The moon hung in three day-old virginity and glints of phosphorescence played at the water's edge.
The thump of techno resounded behind me and everyone had come out to play for as long as the stars held session.
I had come a long way. I still had my health, my sanity and thirty rupees in my pocket.
Did this mean that the journey was over?
It still wasn't going to be easy but is it ever?
I ambled down the beach, away from the music and lay down to gaze at the sky, with my head a few metres away from the sea's edge.
I listened to the lapping water and smiled as I heard each arriving wave bring the message, that there is no ending.
