The Road East to India

by Devika A. Rosamund

  They believe that the world goes through cycles, passing through a new age every few thousand years. The first age was the golden age of the gods when the world was a utopia. They believe in the karma of the soul – and that the poorest people are now suffering for their misdeeds of their past lives. I suppose it is a way to explain away the poverty. This idea I dislike but some of their other ideas are quite beautiful. I like their central philosophy of meditation and I like the fact that they are vegetarians.

  The student who had come with me there took me for lunch in a little restaurant – rice plate – the main south Indian dish. I have had it before in south India. It consists of a plate of several small bowls containing different things: rice, buttermilk, curd, spicy dal, (thin lentil soup), and a thin vegetable curry, usually. All this costs only one rupee per plate which is very cheap and has some nutritional value. It’s nice to have these traditional dishes occasionally and I enjoyed it very much.

  Afterwards my friend took me to his home to meet his family. They were lovely people. He has no mother, but he, his father, his brothers and their wives, and one sister, all live together in a large house which he showed me around. He told me that a marriage had been arranged for his eighteen-year-old sister four days previously to a boy who is distantly related. She is to be married in August and until that day she will see her future husband only about once a week or every ten days, but they will not go out together. He told me that his father will also arrange his own marriage in a couple of years.

  I am so glad that I don’t live here! How I appreciate being free to meet many different people. When I first started travelling and I was feeling so confused about my relationships with the opposite sex, I almost envied the Indian women – everything seems so simple and easy for them – they would not be criticised for being virgins before marriage, or for not wanting to have sex. I have almost felt persecuted by both cultures: Indians have disapproved of me for what they thought I was – a permissive, liberated, amoral woman travelling around alone; and American men wrote me off, so it felt, as a psychologically hung-up, immature individual who had not experimented with sex by the age of twenty-two, unlike American girls.

  Both cultures, though, seem to deny me the right of freedom to be myself – to choose for myself what I do and how I conduct myself. Freedom to be oneself must surely be the most fundamental right of every living being.

  However, I think that sex, when both partners are in agreement and in love, is surely a beautiful and sacred act, not an ugly thing to be despised and hushed up as it seems to be portrayed in eastern society. Nature has created it for us, after all.

  Goa in the Monsoon

  Saturday, 26th June 1976

  I am in Goa. I have been here for a few days and now I want to catch up with the news again!

  I was fortunate enough to meet up with a Canadian traveller on the way here. He was sitting in the railway restaurant waiting for the train – we had to change trains. We sat together and chatted throughout the journey and I have grown to like him during our few days together. He is a very sweet person. His name is Daniel and he has a very unassuming, gentle nature. He makes me feel peaceful and calm, unlike Len who I travelled with in Sri Lanka who argued and criticised me all the time.

  I arrived in Goa with Daniel and we found a hotel together in Panjib, the capital. Goa is a delightful state – so unlike the rest of India that we felt as though we had entered a different country. It seems much cleaner and there is less poverty and overcrowding.

  I could not believe it when I saw Indian women getting on the train with short, permed hairdos, high-heeled shoes, mini-skirts and even make-up – dressed like westerners. Actually they wear the kinds of clothes that we wore in the sixties in England ten years ago. What a contrast they are to the conventional Indian women in other states, with their beautiful saris and their long waist-length hair tied back, and their clear skins. In fact, I prefer the way the women dress everywhere else in India. I don’t really like this imitation of the west in Goa. The women in traditional dress look far more beautiful. Who cares for western fashions! I like the anklets that many Indian women wear around their ankles. I think fashion is really just a matter of what you get used to seeing.

  Many people in Goa are Roman Catholics because it was a Portuguese colony for so long – up until only a decade ago. I have read that the people in this state were forced through violent means to convert to Christianity and change their lifestyle and give up their Indian culture.

  Goa reminds me of Europe – we could be in Spain or Portugal. Some of the little towns here are prettier than those I have seen in the rest of India.

  There are souvenir shops like those you find in sea-side towns in Europe, and the countryside is quite beautiful with many palm trees, winding roads, rivers and lakes. There are houses dotted here and there in little groves of palm trees, and villages tucked away amid forests and hills. The beaches are lovely too, and I can imagine that in the tourist season it is like paradise here when the sea is turquoise blue and calm, and the sunrises and sunsets are as magnificent as they are in Sri Lanka. Certainly it does remind me a little of Sri Lanka except that I saw more wild life, especially elephants in Sri Lanka, and also I think the Buddhist religion creates a lovelier atmosphere on the island. The island of Sri Lanka seems more relaxed, more laid back. Goa seems to be trying to be too western.

  Goa is not as overcrowded as the rest of India, or as poverty stricken. Perhaps the Portuguese did more for their colony than the British did for the rest of India. I have read that the British cut down most of the forests in India and left vast, dry plains to be scorched by the sun so that nothing would grow there anymore.

  When trees are there, they provide shade that keeps water in the ground and this nourishes the soil and vegetation and the wild-life that live in it. Trees provide oxygen as well as fruit and herbs and medicinal plants for the villagers that live there.

  The British used elephants in this work of cutting down the forests – elephants whose home had been the forest, so when the forests were gone they had nowhere to go. Why did the British do this? Obviously they did not understand the importance of life-sustaining forests.

  In Goa there is still so much forest and it makes the scenery beautiful and keeps the air much purer. There is less dust and pollution and the environment is much more pleasant, and much more green, even though the climate is just as hot as it is on the dried-up, bare, yellow plains of India that I saw through the windows of the trains, especially in the north.

  I think that a few hundred years ago, the whole of India, covered in forest, was perhaps like Goa and Sri Lanka, with scattered villages and pure water streams and rivers. The west has brought so much pollution to India in the way of industry, and destroyed the land by cutting down the trees. It makes me feel so sad.

  I have been reading a book about the Freedom Movement in India. The atrocities done by the British here during their rule are quite horrifying. I was disgusted to read how the British behaved.

  India has been a conquered nation for so long – for hundreds of years. It used to be one of the most civilised nations on the Earth – one of the most advanced and wealthiest cultures − but for hundreds of years other nations have come to conquer it and plunder its wealth, and they drained many of its natural resources, as well as its gold and jewels.

  It was not for nothing that the British Empire called India, ‘the jewel in its crown’. In the time of the British, the cotton grown in India was transported to England and made into cloth there. Indians were not allowed to make cloth and the people in that trade sometimes starved to death.

  The manufacture of salt was forbidden in India – Mahatma Ghandi led a famous march to the sea to collect salt. Meetings of more than a few people in one place were also forbidden in case there was a rebellion against British rule. In 1919, in Amritsar, Northern India, peaceful crowds including wo
men and children gathered to hear a speaker belonging to the Freedom Movement, and were all massacred on the orders of a British General called Dyer.

  Before that, in 1857, there was an Indian Mutiny against the rule of the British East India Company and the British took terrible revenge. There is a statue in London honouring the man who crushed the Mutiny. I think that statue should be pulled down!

  India believes in non-violence, so for a long time they did not fight back and there were not many rebellions. However, I feel that the philosophy of non-violence in India is a supreme example to the world. It is wonderful how friendly the Indians are to foreigners travelling in their land.

  I have come to the conclusion that Britain only became a great power because of its exploitation of other nations, otherwise how could such a small country ever have become so rich and powerful as it did in Victorian times? Even so, the money remained only with the rich minority. Most of the population in Britain remained poor. It was not the fault of the ordinary British people – they cannot be blamed for it – but of their rulers.

  Reading the truth about the British Empire that we never read in our own history books makes me feel very ashamed. These books that tell the truth about what happened in the past in India were banned while the British were here, and their authors were imprisoned just as Mahatma Ghandi was imprisoned so many times. His wife died in jail.

  Now I want to write more about Goa!

  Daniel and I stayed in a little hotel in Panjib. We shared a room because it was cheaper than having a room each. My relationship with him has been platonic as usual, but it was nice not to be grabbed as soon as I lay down on the bed as I have been by some other men! As I have got to know him, I have developed a strong liking for him. He is a lovely man.

  Daniel has only just started his tour of India and can afford to sightsee and splurge his money whereas I have to be careful with my money. I will be returning to England to go back to college in September. Daniel has come across from Australia and south-east Asia.

  What a surprise – in Panjib there are little bars stocked with liquor, and western music! We had a very pleasant evening sitting in the one attached to our hotel and we drank bottled beer. I did enjoy the western music. There were several groups of Indian men and boys sitting in the bar, but only one girl came in with someone, probably her husband. I feel sorry for the youth of this country but I think that they are perhaps a little more modern in Goa, though I expect the parents are still very strict.

  I have drained Daniel of knowledge about Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia and learned about the beautiful beaches there. How I love beaches. He tells me that there are also some wonderful beaches in Australia.

  Today, after walking around the town, Daniel and I took the bus and ferry to Calangute beach, which I hear is full of westerners in the high season: winter. We travelled through some lovely countryside and arrived at the village on the beach.

  We have put up in a hotel called ‘Tourist Hotel’. It costs ten rupees between us for this lovely room – very clean – with attached bathroom and two beds. The hotel is right on the beach and opposite are a few little restaurants and restaurant bars where we eat Indian and western foods. There are delicious milk-shakes also. You always find milk-shakes in the places where young people stay in Goa.

  There are few westerners around as this is the low season, though we have seen a few who are renting houses among the palm trees behind the beach. We were offered a house for a week for thirty-five rupees, but we do not want to stay a week. In the tourist season it would cost about twenty rupees a night for a house, but usually many young people share one house.

  Although I have been to some less pleasant places in India, still I feel happy that I have seen much more of India than many other travellers have – and I have seen the real India, not just a Portuguese colony that is more like Europe than India.

  I wanted to go swimming, and in fact I have, but the sea is rough because now the rainy season, the monsoon, is approaching fast. It did rain yesterday and today for a couple of hours in the afternoon but the rest of the day has been sunny – not too hot, but pleasant. Certainly the temperature here in this rainy season is better than the heat I experienced in the dried-up northern plains of India. Daniel and I went for a walk along the palm-studded beach today and it began to pour with rain – we got drenched. When it rains here in the monsoon, it really does rain!

  This evening we sat again in one of the little restaurant bars listening to western music and drinking coffee. Here the other few westerners congregate at the little tables and we chatted with an English girl and her German friend. Perhaps she was in her late twenties. She said she had come to India to do research on Indian dance and is writing a book. Two years ago she lived in Delhi and started a drama group which she is going back to visit. She was very well-spoken and said she had attended a boarding school in India.

  All the young people I have met travelling have been very well-educated, usually university students, and many come from wealthy families. Australians especially travel a lot. Travelling around as I am doing is still quite uncommon in England, and I have never had much money and I don’t come from a rich family. I am just spending what I have saved in the last few months. I was inspired by my elder brother, Tony, who loves travelling the world.

  I think most people in the west are so afraid of losing their securities that they are unable to take off spontaneously and travel to unknown places. People spend their lives ‘building’ and gathering possessions as soon as they can because this makes them feel safe. It is so much more exciting to live in this supreme insecurity, to see life in all its colours, to see how the poor people live, and to live like them for a few days also. I think travelling the world is the best education anybody can have.

  I have always felt that there are things much more valuable than money in this life. I feel rich without having much money – I feel as though the whole world belongs to me to roam in. I always remember that saying of Jesus: “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.” I think ‘meek’ means ‘non-aggressive’, and inheriting the Earth means to wander in it anywhere I want to go.

  Sunday, 27th June 1976

  I have left Goa now and I am on the train again. While I was waiting for the train at the station I was talking to someone, an old man, who was also waiting for a train. He said to me, “You are such a small, small girl travelling all alone.” It made me laugh.

  I have also just had a long conversation with a university professor who was sitting in my carriage on this train. People everywhere are so friendly. He asked me about my life and travels and finally I told him that last year I was a teacher in a primary school for a year but I gave up my job to come travelling. Then, before he got off the train, he turned to me and said, “I have to make an apology to you. When I first met you I thought you were a hippy.”

  This also made me laugh, although I have been told this a hundred times! I wonder what a hippy really is! I still don’t know the difference between travellers and hippies! They think we are all hippies!

  I told him I am on my way up the west coast of India where I hope to meet the Magic Bus in Delhi which will take me back to England, but I possibly might stop in Pune* to visit an ashram. I got out my notebook where I have written the name and address of the place that was mentioned at the back of the book I saw in Amsterdam called, My Way, The Way of the White Clouds and showed it to him.

  I was so surprised because he immediately recognised the name of the spiritual Master, Osho*, who gave the discourses recorded in that book. He said, “Yes, you must go and see this man. I have a lot of love and respect for him.” He told me he had been a fellow professor at the same university as him, years ago. What a coincidence!

  I wonder whether I have the energy to visit any more places. I had decided that if the train stops in Pune I will get off but if it doesn’t then I won’t. H
owever, I have been told that the train is going to stop in Pune so I am going to take the advice of this professor and visit the ashram. I expect I shall stay in Pune for a few hours and leave this evening.

  Chapter Twelve

  An Ashram in Pune

  Monday, 28th June

  I am still here in Pune because this is an amazing place. When I got off the train I took a rickshaw from the station to the ashram. I was very surprised to see many people dressed all in orange going in and out of the front gate – the men all have long hair and beards and many people including westerners, are wearing long orange robes. I saw many people hugging. Everybody wears a necklace of beads around their neck with a picture of the spiritual Master. I had expected that he would be living in a house alone or with just a few people and I thought I could go and have an interview with him and leave the same day, but it was not like that.

  I went inside the gate and entered a small building which looked like an office on the left-hand side and said to the woman sitting there: “I want to see Osho*.”

  She said to me, “You will have to do three days of meditation first.”

  This was a blow to me. I had to make a decision then, whether to stay or go and so I asked if there were any cheap hotels nearby. She told me of one, but then introduced me to a woman who works in the ashram kitchen here, who in turn introduced me to some English people who have invited me to stay in their rented house by the river. They told me they would meet me after the evening meditation which is called Kundalini Meditation, and take me back home with them. The rent is cheap – including food, it is five rupees a day.

  I went to look around the ashram which consists of three houses and their gardens. They are called Krishna house, Jesus House, and Lao Tzu House. Lao Tzu House is the smallest house where the Master lives in one room. Other people also have rooms in the house and in the other houses.