I AM

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where do I go? All unanswerable questions for sure but India seemed a place where they had thought about this for a very long time and where at least there was a different view of things. We read Sidartha (Herman Hesse), Krishnamurti who has a lot to say, Yogananda ( his autobiography) Mdm.Blavatski,   Alice Bailey and other different and great minds. India seemed more spiritual then many other places at that time. As a matter of fact many young people from all over the world thought so and some burned their passports when they got there and some got lost and confused. Here I am not talking about a 2 week holiday to visit some famous places and stay in luxury hotels, no, I am talking about people who went there to experience the real India which has so much beauty and at the same time so much poverty and the fact that you are in a completely different culture enables you in a small way to undo all the things that have been put into you as if it was the only truth and the only way. What blew me away was that even when the people had next to nothing they would be smiling and make the best of it instead of complaining.

As I have told you in Paris we had become good friends with Tony and Susan Kent and we left together with them via London to New Delhi. Helmut Newton could not believe I left again while I could be working every day in the glamorous city of Paris. In Delhi it was excruciatingly hot and after staying a while with Tony and Susan at Tony’s  Sitar teacher Kumar, we decided to head for a cooler place and took a plane to Kashmir. When we got out of the taxi that took us to Srinagar where we were going to rent a house boat, we were met by a crowd of hungry people that just had past a very cold and terrible winter and were now looking for ways to get by. Of course there is always one person who knows everything, and is known to know, so the taxi brings you directly to him as he also speaks perfect English. We rented a house boat of very nice people, a big family who had that lovely boat with which we could do what we wanted so we painted it all colors and all the pillars in silver, they were amazed. Every day the little boats ( shikara’s) they get around with on the Dall Lake, would crowd outside our boat trying to sell something, beautiful flowers, gorgeous fruits and veggies, Persian carpets, marvelous jewellery and Antiques. Since the English had been there for a long time in the 30-ties and 40-ties, they had a lot of things specially made for them in European style but with the Kashmir touch. I found the most beautiful embroidered long cotton coats and skirts and soon the boat was filled with carpets, some precious Persian ones. Eventually we got our own Shikara and could spend afternoons in the middle of the lake listening to our music ( took our loudspeakers and tape recorder) or peddle around between the Lotus flowers and the Kingfishers (beautiful blue birds). I enjoyed very much the shopping that came to you and all this beautiful jewelry unveiled for prices that are hard to imagine now, also they had a lot of fur and showed me the most amazing white fox coats in 40-ties style, which I love so much, so gorgeous to look at but not to have. The family we rented the boat from was so poor, they had nothing, would wear the same clothes every day and had some old pots and pans in a shack they called their house but they were never complaining, instead they were always smiling and being happy, we paid them to cook for us and take care of us in general, they were very much a family. I know, you like to know more and there is a lot to tell but there is not enough space here,  instead I show you a some pictures that survived our travels and moves.

 From Kashmir we went to Goa…

 We stayed for more or less 6 months in Kashmir and then went by train via Benares to Goa which is in the South, on the coast below Bombay and that was a whole different picture, the deserted beaches I had seen a decade earlier were now occupied by lots of young American and European people, it looked like Woodstock to me at first glance. Once you have a place to stay, in our case a wonderful house right on the beach, things look different and it was all quite wonderful. We could not stay too long in Goa, maybe 2 months altogether,  because our visa’s were expiring and already we had had 2 extensions so now we had to leave the country and get a visa elsewhere. Singapore seemed the nearest to go to and so we packed our bags and left for Singapore. We were sure to come back to India so left our things there, cannot remember where but we did recuperate them so… There are some hilarious stories in Goa but that is for an other time. What I can say though is that again we learned a lot….

Remember: to see the pictures bigger you have to click on them and then click back to get back to the page. Links are highlighted and when you click on it you get something about the person or thing I am talking about, here you can click off and you automatically get back to the page. I am saying all this because some of you may not be that computer savvy to know everything. I certainly am not but am learning.