Overland to India 50 Years ago: Part 2

 Worried about spending too much money, I barely ate for the first few days, aware of the time and space that lay before me. With a significant lack of exposure to the practical details of life, this excursion into the unknown was challenging to this nineteen-year-old, not long out of the cocoon of boarding school, well versed in words, but little else. Various stages of the journey opened diverse doors, revelations of possibilities. There were thirty individuals aged from nineteen, that was me, to an American couple in their sixties. This couple pulled out of the trip in the early stages, unsure of the level of comfort and the actuality of arriving safely at the destination.

 

The first stop was the Munich Beer Festival, not the beginning of a series of spiritual experiences which would deepen my understanding and enable me to go beyond the material world one might expect. Groups of people, mostly, but not exclusively young, from various parts of the world, fuelled with the flow of amber frothing liquid, created a sense of camaraderie that I had not experienced before. It was not long before I began shedding the skin of uneasy and debilitating self-consciousness, quietly becoming friends with everybody. 

 

‘All Pommies are bastards! All Pommies are bastards!’

 

The mellifluous tones of young long-haired drunken Australian men filled the bus returning us to the campsite on the edge of the city.

 

‘Are you a Pom?’

 

 Where this was leading was painfully obvious. What might happen afterwards was a matter of hoping for the best.

 

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re a bastard!’ 

 

Howls of uncontrolled laughter followed.

 

‘Are you a bastard?’ 

 

The Australian’s bearded face loomed towards me.

 

‘Actually, I am not.’ 

 

Oh God, I sounded like someone from the 1950s announcing on the BBC .

 

‘Yes, you are, you’re a Pommy bastard. Because all Pommies are bastards!’ 

 

The two of them proceeded to embrace me and pat me heavily on the back.

 

‘And you are a real Pommy bastard! You’re our mate… mate!’

 

More laughter, more chat. More alcohol fuelled friendship.

 

But alcohol assists in building a window of deception and leaves both physical and mental wounds that over time do not always heal effectively, lubricating false friendships and destroying lives.

 

On our return to the campsite it became clear that one of the bus drivers had disappeared. So, on this mild September night several of us wandered back into the city to look for him – we had no idea where we were going, or how to get back to the campsite. However, it was one of those occasions when all the right things happened – he was found, we returned, and all woke up feeling unsure of ourselves in bright sunlight the following morning

 

Soon we passed through Yugoslavia, a country that now only exists in echoes a shadows of brief unity; and we were becoming conscious of fewer vehicles, more animal traffic and different modes of dress. I realised that I was changing with the journey, a mind being opened by what I saw, although not fully realising the significance of what this meant in terms of the lives of the people we were seeing.

 

We swam off the glorious coast of Greece, camping on the beaches. We walked round the ancient wonders of Athens and then moving on to Turkey. What an assault on my seriously under-developed senses.

 

Istanbul heralded the advent of the East, although already my outlook had moved in synchronisation with the bus towards a slower, more rural aspect of life; peasant farming was still prevalent in most of Europe. In Istanbul I stood outside shops selling the most wonderful cakes and puddings, fully aware my money would not allow such luxuries. 

 

I listened to conversations of the many travellers who gathered in the cafes and outside the shops; tales of drug use, prisons, illness and danger. All the while I breathed the heady air of unwashed bodies, stale cigarette smoke and marijuana, caught in the romance of abandoned youth, dowdy beards, long straggly hair, and the warmth of smiling young women. I was entering another world. Magic was taking place, the magic of infinite possibilities, a magic that was never really to leave me.

A young couple from Wales, who must have been in their early twenties, regaled us with their own tales of sex, drugs, jails, illness encountered through hitchhiking around Europe. She was short with long unkempt, brown hair and a lively, friendly face. He stood taller and they had their arms around each other as they talked; his smiling face framed by darker hair of about the same length as hers, stained teeth shone through strands of wispy beard. Both were clad in dirty denim dungarees with what appeared to be very little underneath. They smiled as they talked of the friends they had met, who had been arrested by the Turkish police, who had been searched for drugs and then beaten up. 

 

They told stories of young Americans they had heard of who had been found with drugs on them and had been thrown into prison and left to rot with no food, sharing cells with murderers and dangerous criminals, only a bucket for a toilet. For some reason Americans were not well-liked in Turkey at that time. What we thought were the exaggerations of these natural story tellers at the time was clearly true.

 

 

 I was used to being with people but was discovering that the tendency to keep my distance from others was still very strong in me. Shyness? Self-protection? To share such a journey in the close proximity of others was both a joy and a challenge. Most of my fellow travellers were under the age of forty. There were young couples from the UK and Australia. Individuals travelling to the Far East and beyond. There were nurses, teachers, students and those who were taking time out from all types of work. We shared laughter, worries, silence and the marvels of the lands we were passing through.

 

An Australian couple from Wollongong took me under their wing. She was small with long dark hair hanging below her waist. He was taller and blond. They both exuded a vitality and openness that entranced me. With them, Steve, a young man from the UK just a few years older than me, and another young couple from the UK became the people I was most friendly with. We were all from different backgrounds, heading towards diverse destinations; and thoroughly enjoying the ride.

 

There were also several girls, one or two travelling alone and others with friends. Despite spending a year in London, I was still very uncertain in the company of young ladies. Nine years in boys only boarding schools and a short lifetime at home with five brothers had firmly placed me in a very male world. I liked the girls I was travelling with, but such close proximity to them made me nervous. 

So much to learn.

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

 

 

From London to Delhi Overland: Fifty Years Ago

 Introduction.

 

In early September 1971 aged nineteen, two years after leaving boarding school, I took a bus for a ten week journey overland to India. A great-aunt had left me and my brothers £500 each, and I was excited to have this extraordinary opportunity to learn about the world first hand.

 

We are approaching the ending of our second year dominated by the COVID virus which is severely restricting travel. The people of Afghanistan are being subjected to further devastation and pain. Political, economic, and social disturbance are on the increase throughout the globe. Floods and fires signal climate breakdown. Fear causes people to retreat into isolation and aggression towards those who are different, in the hope that clinging on to the prejudices of the past will lead to a more secure future. Information flies instantly around the world with no reference to the true or the false.

 

Consequently, I have decided to create a series of blogs that will follow my journey from London to Delhi as a reflective experience to understand this personal journey as a human being. I write to understand the world around me, to explore what life is, and to come to terms with ageing. I feel that I am writing within the context of the totality of human consciousness, not as a single, separate being.

 

My intention is to produce a series of four blogs outlining the journey that will be relatively brief and accessible. The first one will appear this weekend.

 

Who will read them? I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter.

 

Learning in the time of the Coronavirus: Part two.

 ‘This is a crime against Humanity’

 

‘The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity. Virologists predict that the number of cases in India will grow exponentially to more than 500,000 a day. They predict the death of many hundreds and thousands in the coming months, perhaps more. My friends and I have agreed to call each other every day to mark ourselves as present, like roll call in our school classrooms. We speak to those we love in tears, and trepidation, not knowing if we will ever see each other again. We write, we work, not knowing if we will live to finish what we started. Not knowing what horror and humiliation awaits us. The indignity of it all. That is what breaks us.’

 

On India’s Covid catastrophe: Arundhati Roy – The Guardian 29^th April 2021

 

My wife, Maggie, and I consider we have many homes, including the one we are renting at the moment in the solitude of the North Dorset countryside. A significant number of these homes are in India.

 

Fifty years ago this coming September I stepped on to an old single decker bus at Clapham Common to join twenty other people for a ten week trip overland to India. I was a naïve, hesitant nineteen year old, a somewhat isolated product of professional middle-class privilege. The journey ahead was to open my mind to an extraordinary diversity of life and ways of living. I was able to adapt and change with the flowing countryside and disparate people as we made our slow journey eastwards across Europe. Once we had entered Asia, traversed Afghanistan, driven through the Khyber Pass and crossed the Pakistan border into India just two weeks before a war between the two countries that would result in the newly independent country of Bangladesh, the goal was reached.

 

I loved India then.

 

Twenty years later Maggie and I, individually, began to take groups of students aged from sixteen to nineteen from the school at which we were working to Rajasthan to learn from people in Jaipur and some surrounding villages. Ten years after that we began to make regular visits to India together, visiting schools associated with the work of Jiddu Krishnamurti, educational institutions founded by Rabindranath Tagore, and other fascinating places where work was being done around education, ecology and biodiversity.

 

We have made so many friends, received so much kindness and affection over the years, and joined in so much laughter and happiness. Occasionally, we have also shared the sadness at the passing of friends – truly feeling that we are part of a wide community. Perhaps it is because all the places we are associated with are informed by philosophies which care for the young, the vulnerable, and the poor.

 

India, however, is a chaotic place full of dangers, contradictions and misery. Where so often life seems cheap, and emotions run high. Travelling is intense and there is always a sense of gratitude when the destination has been safely reached. The appalling poverty of so many people is so evident on the streets of the cities and towns and in the villages. How are we supposed to react as descendants of the white colonialists that looted and divided that vast sub-continent? 

 

Nevertheless, India has been our constant teacher where learning has been a continuous process, and conclusions are rarely found. So many paradoxes emerge in discussions, in chance meetings, fleeting observations, sights, sounds and smells that invade the senses. Sweeping statements about life rarely work, and spending time in India makes that clear every day. So much is nuanced, ambiguous, what you see is not necessarily what is. Relationships are lived out through a background of caste, creed, economic status, gender and, not least to our sensibility of British politeness (superficial and hypocritical?), considerable cultural differences. Being aware of our own cultural biases is vitally important. It is only then that understanding can come about through suspension of judgement when observing and listening.

 

Now, as we watch the destruction, horror and intense suffering so many people are enduring as the result of the Covid catastrophe, the wisdom, much of which has emerged from India, of living with humility and compassion is teaching us the need to care for each other. The Indian government, like many others, including the UK, has a “strong man” at its head and is set on making money rather than looking after its citizens, and in order to do this it is deliberately divisive. The provision of affordable healthcare for all has never been a priority - if you have money there are excellent hospitals in most cities, if you don’t have money, and especially if you live in rural India, there is almost no healthcare provision.

 

Arundhati Roy’s article ends: ‘No, India cannot be isolated. We need help.’

 

There are individuals in India with vast amounts of money, there are corporations in India with vast amounts of money, and there are countries in the world with more than they need to address the pandemic. Meanwhile, our sisters and brothers are experiencing terrible pain, fear and loss. 

 

Action is happening, but will we all learn the lesson of these desperate times?

 

 

 

 

Learning in the time of Coronavirus: part One.

 

I don’t know how it will end. I cannot see a way out of here. I do not need someone to lead me; I do not need someone to tell me; I do not need a hero. All I am looking for is the opportunity to listen and talk over with others; the way we, together, may explore an approach to living that is harmonious, humble, intelligent and healthy.

 

 

 

Schools open or closed? Students at university or not? Months of remote learning; that is if you have a functioning laptop, reliable broadband and a quiet space to work. Teachers planning, recording, marking, communicating with student and parent. Children looking at screens, hour after hour, doing tasks that may be of some interest, some relevance, some enjoyment; nothing communal, nothing face-to-face. University students trying to make sense of Zoom seminars. Everything directed at a very narrow view of what education is.

 

Children are falling behind; they are being disadvantaged; they will not know enough to be able to pass whatever exams take place. The key is knowledge and the feeding of memory. How will children be able to function fully in the modern world if they don’t know enough? Are teachers fulfilling the requirements dictated by the curriculum and policed by OFSTED? 

 

The present model of learning as a commercial activity dictates that the university student and schoolchild gets value for money. The sacred relationship of service provider, consumer and purchaser is well and truly cemented in the world of money. For many the purpose of education is to get a good job and to be able to earn a decent wage: to feed the economy. The consumer is the individual with their specific preferences, aspirations and interests who chooses from a limited table dictated predominantly by the Government. Similarly, the service providers, the schools and universities; and the people who work in them, teachers and academics, are expected to meet the demands of the consumers. There is very little by way of conversation or meaningful discussion that exists across this relationship, which is dominated by an increasingly rigid and authoritarian hierarchy.

 

Space, both physical and psychological is essential to living harmoniously; having the freedom to listen and observe is essential to the activity of learning; as well as having the opportunity to freely explore ideas through friendly face to face conversation. What happens to us if we are deprived of diverse social activity? Can we fully understand one another through limited communication obtained through screens and disembodied voice?

 

In order to enable the return of the coming together to learn whilst the threat of the virus remains ever present, certain conditions have to be met. These generally revolve around reducing transmissions achieved through small gatherings in spacious and well-ventilated places. As successive lockdowns have led to a variety of psychological stresses and strains, there a necessity for teachers and students to meet together in the spirit of care, exploration and inquiry. What will the world that will greet us when the pandemic begins to subside look like? How can it be met with energy and curiosity, and not fear? How can the futured be shared and not be an imposed vision of ideology or privilege?

 

Learning is a process of making connections, cooperating and understanding, firmly based on the joy and freedom of exploration and discovery. The fettering of the education process to an adult view of what future the next generation should expect denies the necessity of engaging with uncertainty. Lives that delve back in time are the context in which we live in the present, but the past does not need to bind the present. The global pandemic is teaching us that any solid vision of the future is built on shaky ground. Learning is movement; time shifts unsteadily; all living things change; all living things end.

We seek to return to our blinkered view of live at our peril.

 

 

What to do?

  

The cherry tree, whose pink blossoms heralded the approach of Spring, is now bringing on another change as its leaves begin to turn the colour of flames. The apple trees are full of fruit, yellow/green and reds that sparkle in the Autumn sunlight; wasps sleepily devour the fallen, rotting carcasses. Early morning mists can be seen lying across the fields and encircling the far woods; the sun now sets low over the woods behind the house.

As the year slowly settles into deepening Autumn, in gentle stillness some days and wild wet storms on others, modern life continues to unravel. The balance and harmony of the turning year is represented by colours changing, movement of birds and animals and a feeling of preparation for the conservation of energy in anticipation of rebirth. Humanity, so out of touch, scrabbles about to avoid, ignore, and desperately engage with the opening of a new decade of chaos – so much the outcome of greed and self-centred behaviour. 

This morning there is much activity of small birds in the garden; at the base of one of the apple trees a spotted woodpecker is working hard to dislodge the loose bark to find the insects beneath. A strong breeze sends down jewelled leaves that scatter across the grass. 

It appears we are reaching the end as we drown under waves of words and images that are serving to create a two-dimensional world of right or wrong, for or against, you or me. The language of conflict is used to divide and feed ideas of safety in separation. Those who have built walls to protect the obscenity of their wealth and possessions continue to send messages of aspiration to the young – ‘you can be like me if you work hard enough.’ But the reality is that ‘you’ll be working hard to make the likes of me even richer’.

I wrote the last blog on 13th April and it still appears that many countries around the world are struggling to come to terms with Covid-19. It is interesting that a significant number of countries experiencing the greatest chaos are those with male-dominated, authoritarian, nationalist governments, desperately trying to ensure that their backers are making money, whilst simultaneously controlling information and communication so they are not tarnished by the deaths of thousands of their country's inhabitants.

As the cold darkness of a Norther European winter approaches, we face the necessity of relearning our existence; finding out what we need to do to stay healthy, socially alive and exploring what we can do to ensure that harmony, balance and wisdom come to the surface of our daily lives. For not only does it seem that the effects of the virus will not diminish, indeed the winter months are likely to see an increase in infections, but the UK has to contend with Brexit; a project driven by conflict, aggression and misinformation.

What to do?

Coronavirus Blog

A few people were wearing masks when we entered Bangalore airport at five in the morning. The small number of cafes that were there were shut, and not many people were about. It was early February this year.

I found a seat whilst Maggie went to have a look around to see what might be open. It was not long before I became aware of the overweight, old man just a few seats away from me; he was wracked in paroxysms of coughing. His coughs came straight from his lungs as he struggled to dislodge some secretion deep inside, and his faced turned rapidly from white to purple. He did nothing to impede whatever matter was projected from those depths; no handkerchief, no tissue, no crook of the arm, not even a hand. I moved away from him.

When we had taken our seats on the plane the same man came stumbling down the aisle and took his seat with much wheezing and grunting, between two young Indian men not far from where we were sitting. Once he had settled himself, he proceeded to surrender to a succession of coughing fits, much to the disturbance of his neighbours. Luckily, soon after we had taken off, he slept for most of the following ten hours. He was not a well man.


Today is Finley’s twelfth birthday, our eldest grandson living in Worthing, and we are unable to visit him. Last week was the birthday of youngest son, Josh, who lives in Oxford, normally we would see him as well. We have planned to stay with our son, Joel, in Copenhagen next month; and, in early June, we were expecting to visit our eldest son, Tom, in Lisbon. These journeys will not take place.


In India vast numbers of migrant workers have been forced by lockdown to travel from the cities in which they were working to their home villages, the majority having to walk for miles without food and water. For the homeless and the poor, who live in cramped conditions, social distancing is impossible, and access to food has been severely limited. Similar conditions are being experienced throughout the world. Jobs have been lost and incomes have dried up with no prospect of improvement ahead. People are dying attached to machines and connected to tubes, surrounded by nurses and doctors who are only identifiable as human through the outlines of their bodies encased in protective clothing. There are no relatives, no friends to hold them, no human face, no peace. It is a catastrophe well beyond human control.


I am sitting writing this in the warmth of a Spring day masquerading as Summer. The cherry tree has blossomed and is at the stage where the fragile petals are drifting to the ground to be replaced by fresh green leaves. All the trees around have that green sheen of new leaves, bees buzz noisily over the grass from dandelion to daisy and then daisy to dandelion. There are a few new lambs in the field at the end of the garden, and the smell of growth and renewal is in the air. Occasionally the scent of bluebells steals across the land from nearby woods. Birds of all variety are gathering for their nests, singing to each other, calling for new life.

However, there is deep disturbance in the consciousness of humanity. It is, of course, possible to cement that wall around yourself in this world of horrific injustice, greed and self-absorption; what you cannot see does not exist. It is possible to separate yourself from all suffering until it comes knocking on your door. We can drum up the language of war to raise the spectre of the enemy outside with which we are doing battle and indulge in the sentiment of victory or defeat. We look to leaders as if we were compliant children, responding to their words with surges of emotion, taking courage from the illusion that they are acting in the interests of all the population.

Are we learning as this crisis moves from moment to moment? Can we observe any changes taking place in our assumptions? Or are we so fixed on getting through each day and returning to the old normality that we are essentially unaware of what is happening around us?

Our frailty is being exposed; our interdependency highlighted; and the imperative to take care of the vulnerable written clear in the way forward to a more just, sustainable and compassionate planet. We are working for the survival of the species; all living things.


May you be safe and healthy.