Overland to India 50 years ago: Part 1

 I am sitting on a bench on the edge of Clapham Common on a cloudy September day in 1971waiting for a bus to India.

 

It was a time when many young people took the overland trail from West to East - to find themselves. The perceived spirituality of India had been being exported wholesale to the West since the early 1960’s.  Some years before I had seen footage on the BBC News of the Beatles with their exotically robed, long-haired, bearded, guru, filmed at the colourful ashram on the edge of the milky blue holy Ganges against the backdrop of the mystic Himalayan mountains. A story of fairy-tale qualities. 

 

I harbour no doubts of being heavily influenced. Influenced by the assimilation of the sounds of the music of the East that had emerged in the 1960s, and words that had been culled from ancient Hindu texts. The jangling sitar of the Incredible String Band heralding that ‘all the world is just a play …’ in their song, “Maya’ echoes and intertwines with the classical ragas of Ravi Shankar, the master of the sitar. Influenced by the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who, though constantly reiterating that he was not a guru, seemed to hold the door open to another world – a world that had its origins in India. I had come across his work when attending a meeting at the London Buddhist Centre earlier that year. Through friends I had also read several poems written by Rabindranath Tagore, half-remembered for their simplicity of observation, anchored in nature, and moving effortlessly from the particular to the universal. Through both their work I had been touched by the expression of harmony with nature through which lense the world of humanity could be seen and understood. 

 

‘Why are you dropping out of this degree course? Have you thought about leaving it open? Why not come back next year.’

 

The college lecturer was interested and encouraging – he did not ask why I was going to India.

The length of my hair and beard was not conducive to good family relations. 

'India? Why India? You look like a hippie and now you are going to become one. You’ll never come back.'

However, that Christmas I received from my parents a very small book entitled ‘The Little Book of Indian Wisdom’. This contained short quotations from the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. 

 

‘So, are you looking for enlightenment? Are you going to find yourself?’

 

A friend asked with not a little hint of irony.

 

I had read the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and had been drawn to a small volume – ‘Zen Flesh, Zen Bones’ a collection of Zen stories published by Paul Reps in 1957. I had also read the Tao Te Ching. This journey was to be, without doubt, a spiritual quest, but I was not seeking enlightenment. Maybe I was looking to regain a sense of spirit, a feeling that seemed to have existed most strongly in me before I was sent to school.

 

Indeed, the journey, though born through a haze of romanticism, was fuelled by a perceived need to continue to educate myself, to find out how others live, to see great mountains, wide rivers, all kinds of birds and animals – to explore. 

 

What was surprising to me, sitting there on the edge of Clapham Common, was that I did not feel afraid; for fear had continued to be my constant, hidden companion, emerging from the depths of the past, threatening to paralyse all activity. As it was, I would not be alone, for there were two buses each expecting to carry thirty passengers of various ages. For this was not the brave pioneering step of a free-spirited individual; it was a packaged tour run by a professional company, one of the less expensive ones operating at the time - £84 London to Delhi and £84 back.

 

I was aware and immensely respectful of the courage of those young people who took to the road with their determination to be free, their sense of adventure, and their relaxed approach to all that the previous generation held as taboo. They would hitchhike, take an old van, or pile into trucks and travel in basic discomfort. But I did not feel that this was part of me; caution, hesitancy and reticence existed where there could so easily have been that carefree attitude I so admired.

 

I enter the bus with wide- eyed excitement. This is the step into the unknown I’ve been craving. At last, I can shake off the demands of others as to what I should be and who I should be. I know I’m not alone, but I sense my exploration is beginning from a sense of isolation or separation that had formed an integral part of my schooling. I am looking into the possibility of something that might reveal the connection with the universal that creates a depth of perception that goes beyond the daily routine. It is this quest that takes me to India.