Oh Calcutta V - The Return of the Guru

Calico Jack Rackham

Calico Cloth

Victoria Memorial - The Maidan, Kolkata

He, inquiring: “Do you enjoy Kipling?”
She, blushing: “I’m sorry but I don’t believe I’ve ever actually kippled.”

We last glimpsed my Guru, P.R. Sarkar, embarking from his compound in the back of a 1952 Packard, whisked away to parts unknown (see Calcutta Day 3). As a good chela (or devotee), I have been dogging his tracks ever since. I now learn that he is back home! Only two days left of my trip. It’s bliss or bust! My quest for personal contact with Guru Shri Shri Anandamurti resumes at full intensity. But not without the requisite detours, diversions and perambulations associated with the pursuit of enlightenment.

One of these is calico – a cotton fabric, and another is Jack Rackham – a part-time pirate hanged and gibbeted in Jamaica in 1720. I found out today that calico is not named after Calcutta, Bengal, India as I had always thought. Calico (or muslin) is a type of cloth produced by traditional weavers in Calicut, Kerala, India. It is thick cotton that is less coarse than denim and very cheap. In 1700, colorfully printed calico from India was a big hit with certain lower-class ladies of London who were called “Calico Madams”.

Two of these women were Anne Bonney and Mary Read, who made their way to the West Indies and joined a group of 11 pirates led by Jack Rackham. Anne and Mary took to wearing pirate clothes and Jack took to wearing the colorful Calico cloth of the London working girls. Hence his nickname – Calico Jack Rackham. After stealing a small sloop, this cross-dressing band of buccaneers terrorized small fishing boats near Jamaica, until they were captured and imprisoned in Port Royal, Jamaica. Jack was hanged but the ladies pleaded pregnancy and escaped the noose. (I have a hunch that Jack Sparrow of the film Pirates of the Caribbean is modeled after Calico Jack Rackham but it’s only a hunch.)

Incidentally, calico cloth also was responsible for one of the major public health coups of the 18th century – i.e. cotton shorts. The nobility of England had long ago taken up the French fashion of silken “small-clothes” worn next to the skin to prevent good English woolens from irritating the hell out of their noble privates. Cheap cotton muslin from India made possible underwear everywhere for everyone. The new calico cloth was snatched up by English tailors, who fashioned affordable undergarments for the lower classes. Washable undergarments reduced the transmission of parasitic diseases, drastically improving public health and longevity 100 years before the industrial revolution. As my old high school Latin teacher, Dr. Flowers loved to say, “Semper ubi, sub ubi.”

Like a shipload of drunken pirates, this narrative has managed to drift from the East Indies to the West Indies, from the late 20th century to the early 18th and from ladies’ dresses to men’s underwear. It is now high time to return this blog to Calcutta for another glimpse of the guru.

I hear the rumor that Shri Anandamurti is back in town from a fellow devotee while dancing Kirtan on the Maidan late this afternoon. The Maidan, a 5 square km open field in downtown Calcutta, is Kolkata’s Central Park. It is home to the Victoria Memorial and many other public places – including a racecourse and a golf course. The park was originally a drill field for the British and is still owned and operated by the Indian Army. On weekends, military parades compete with political rallies and cricket matches for the public’s attention.

From the Maidan, I hop into a cab and prepare to rush back to the Guru’s bungalow. Unfortunately, rushing and Kolkata are not compatible at this time in the afternoon. The cabbie and I are stuck in traffic for hours. By sunset we are hopelessly enmeshed with hoards of diesel farting auto-rickshaws. My driver, Rasik, and I have exchanged our life stories. He is a retired military officer who served in India’s tribal areas in the Northwest Territories. We decide to knock off and await brighter vehicular prospects after dinner. I am escorted by Rasik’s cab to the Hoogli Hamburger Haven. (Unfortunately, I have neglected to inform Rasik that not all Americans are carnivores.) The Haven is on the riverbank with a beautiful view. The burgers are only so/so. Rasik insists on paying for my repast. I can’t believe it. By 8 P.M. he deposits me at the P.R. Sarkar compound where I spend the night. Fare - $8 with tip. The experience – priceless!

Oh, Calcutta, what a wonder you are! Taking a break during a cab ride to eat imitation American hamburgers in a vegetarian country while the sun sets behind the burning ghats on a tributary of the sacred Ganges is a very weird experience. “Holy smokes!” I haven't achieved Nirvana yet, but I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Oh Calcutta IV- Not your Mother's India!

Mendicant Monks meet Regular Beggars

Mother Theresa

Mother Ali & Baby Sophie

Readers of a certain vintage will remember the time when all good American mothers would remind their offspring over dinner about “the starving children of India”. This was usual when a kid balked at chowing down fried liver, canned peas, lima beans or other unappealing staple foods of the 50’s.

Well, do I have some good news for you!
As I passed the docks on the Hoogli River this morning I noticed freighters taking on loads of rice from the Bengali countryside. A passerby explained that India, thanks to the green revolution, not only is self-sufficient in food but is also a net exporter of grains to other countries! That makes me feel happy for the starving children of India. Although I must admit I still resent Mom for all those wasted hours I spent staring at bits of rapidly cooling liver on my plate, long after everyone else was excused from the table.

Another marvel of the ‘new Calcutta’ is the subway system which is being constructed downtown. It is fascinating to watch a modern engineering project being built by hand. In the U.S. everything is moved into place by cranes and bolted or riveted together with power tools. In India most of the work is done by hundreds of men in loincloths and turbans dangling precariously from bamboo scaffolds while hauling on thick ropes attached to large pulleys. Rivets are heated on charcoal braziers and banged flat with mallets. Bolts are seated by young boys and men hanging off the ends of wicked long wrenches. It is fascinating. The 19th century meets the 21st century on the new Calcutta Metro construction site. I’ll take bets from anyone that the Kolkata Metro will outlast Boston’s Big Dig by a century or two.

(An interesting thing about the Metro is that the laborers sleep with their families in the sections of tunnel they work on during the day. Yet another example of the ‘all-in-one’ philosophy that characterizes the Bengali mind-set.)

In the new Calcutta even Mother Theresa is no longer sacred. She is considered rather old hat by your average Kolkata man-on-the-street. Although still revered by Catholics all over the world, this diminutive Albanian nun is only tolerated by the average Calcuttan. They consider her a harmless old relic who does a lot to perpetuate the myth of their city as a place chock-full of dying beggars. “Why does every visitor come to see Mother Theresa and no one visits the Calcutta Heart Institute?” is what my informants ask me. They are also proud of the fact that satellites are now being launched into earth orbit via the Satish Dhawan Space Centre near Chennai.

The beggars in my Calcutta neighborhood are clean, well behaved and not evidently at death’s door. They politely line up in the morning near a bridge over a small tributary of the Hoogli where people walking on their way to work dutifully drop coins in their outstretched hands. Higher caste people with jobs are expected and even obligated to provide charity in this way. The beggars are usually greeted by name by their benefactors. In return, they give a ‘namaste’ blessing to their usual patrons. So in traditional Bengali fashion, giving to the less fortunate is part of the daily round.

It’s interesting that in India wandering sadhu’s (or holy-men) are beggars too! They present a small wooden bowl into which people put alms. Somehow this ‘holy beggar’ archetype sanctifies the entire profession. Beggars in America have no such sanction. Their degraded condition contrasts sharply with the lowly but respected position of beggars in Indian society. One difference is that alcohol is readily available in the U.S. In India it's illegal and mostly restricted to fine tourist hotels.

Unfortunately, airport and tourist-hotel beggars in India are just as annoying as anywhere else in the world. I wonder if I offer one of them a case of lima beans will he give me ‘namaste’ or not – somehow I doubt it.

Daktari

P.S. As of this blog date, the Indian space program is still going strong. The launch date for the first Indian lunar orbiter is scheduled for July 2008, to be followed by an unmanned lunar landing in 2010 or 2011.

P.P.S. It’s OK Mom. I forgive you!

Oh Calcutta III - Guru Puja

The Goddess Kali

Daktari meditates in younger days

The next morning I am allowed in at Baba’s compound for his once a week ‘guru puja’ – devotions at the feet of the guru. An event not to missed on my short stay in India.

First I devote myself to the “All-in-One” personal hygiene station from whence I emerge ‘clean clear through and deodorized too’. I note that I have picked up a disturbing cough. Initially, I attribute this to a virus from the flight. But then I cough a loogie of dark black phlegm. Yucch! Later, I realize that the air in Kolkata is so polluted with soot that coughing black sputum is a normal morning event like brushing one’s teeth. “Too many diesel farts from too many auto rickshaws,” I surmise. Even one’s boogers are black in Calcutta.

This seems appropriate since the city of Calcutta is named for the goddess Kali. Kali, in Sanskrit, is the feminine of Kala or black. She is the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. In union with Lord Shiva she creates or destroys worlds. The Tantric approach to Kali is to display courage by confronting her on cremation grounds in the dead of night, despite her terrible appearance. Meditation in cemetaries at midnight is one of the spiritual practices recommended by my guru. Needless to say, I have never had the courage or the opportunity to actually confront Kali on these terms.

All the people I meet tell me it is too bad that I have missed her annual festival – the Kali Puja – by just one week. However the decorations are still up and everywhere one sees statues of Kali – her open mouth dripping blood, a necklace of human skulls round her neck and covered by her devotees with garlands of marigolds.

As I walk down the main thoroughfare away from the Hotel Bliss, a Bengali tradesman beckons to me. At first I don’t think he means me. So I point to myself in the universal gesture for, “Who me?”
He gives a vigorous Bengali head nod and I stroll over to his roadside ‘duka’ (informal stall or shop). As I approach he reaches under the counter and proudly brings out a battered brown plastic water bottle. Sure enough, it’s my canteen! He must have seen me drop it and he has kept watch over it until I returned. I offer to give him something but he refuses any reward. I perform ‘namaste’ greeting and shake hands vigorously to show my gratitude.

Believe it or not, Calcutta is one of the friendliest and most polite cities I have ever visited. The streets of Calcutta seem to offer up examples of caring to visitors on every corner. My ‘canteen miracle’ seems to be just one of the many daily miracles in this municipality of the miraculous.

I arrive at the guru’s house just as the ‘guru puja’ ceremony begins. An intimate gathering of as many followers as can be crammed in a small gymnasium listens to Shri Shri Anandamurtiji give a lecture followed by his blessing. Baba is a small white-robed figure at the front of the assembly. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in person. How exciting. Unfortunately, the lecture is in Bengali and about two hours long. This combined with the body heat of a couple hundred attendees and my residual jetlag induces torpor and then sleep. Luckily I am not the only worshipper to conk out!

I do wake up in time to receive the guru’s blessing or ‘prasad’. This is a twist of newspaper holding a dollop of rice crispies blessed by the guru himself. (I was hungry but didn’t eat the prasad. Instead I saved the blessed rice crispies for two decades, then lost them when we moved to our new house about six years ago. The moral of this story re: rice krispies – if you got ‘em, eat em.)

Afterwards, my guru exits the lecture hall. Anandamurti is helped into the back of his black 1952 Packard sedan and then is whisked from the compound for his evening drive. We all wave ‘bye-bye’. Then a group of saffron robed monks organizes a 24 hour ‘kirtan’. It’s a sort of devotional dance marathon to Indian music. Participants chant and dance in relays for a full day and night. Very fun but I don’t want to stay all night. As evening falls I clutch my canteen and my small packet of holy rice krispies and walk back to the Hotel Bliss. In a fog of devotional good feeling, I forget to gather up the red plaid wool blanket from Scotland that I sit on for meditation. No miracle this time – it’s gone for good. In the spiritual seeker game – you win some and you lose some! Next installment - life on the streets.

Baby Sophie - March 6, 2008

Sophie Rose Bolick

Baby Burrito!

Sophie and Dad

Bigfoot?

We interrupt this narrative of far-away India to bring you the latest travel report from New Haven, Connecticut.

Our last trip to New Haven involved buckets of anti-freeze, tons of anxiety and a car with a blown head-gasket. See On Another Hand - Connecticut Road Trip - December 14, 2007.

By contrast our trip on Thursday was pure joy.
To be specific, it was 7 lbs 6 oz of pure joy named Sophie Rose Bolick. She was delivered to my daughter Alison on March 6th at 1:21 PM by C-section. What a thrill when husband Christopher emerged from the labor suite to give us the news!
I’m a grampa!

The photos don’t do her justice! She’s cute as a bug. Note also the long, long legs and big feet.

Here are some random thoughts on childbirth in New Haven:

1.) New Havenites wrap their newborns into tight little burritos. Swaddling is in! When properly swaddled Sophie’s big feet are up around her ears and her hands are strapped down to her sides. They say this is what babies like. Who new?

2.) Mothers can eat after C-sections but only if they like pizza, which is all that they make in New Haven. Even public stairwells and parking lot elevators smell like pizza. (In most other cities they smell like stale urine.)

3.) Breast feeding is big in New Haven. They have not one but two Lactation Nurse Specialists on the maternity floor. Good thing little Sophie has a suck like an Oreck! These lactation specialists won’t take no for an answer.

4.) You can’t spoil an infant. Lord knows, I’ve tried.
She even likes my singing. How bizarre is that!

Daktari

Oh Calcutta II - The 'All in One'

Street Barber - Kolkata

Question: What did the Buddha say to the Coney Island hot dog vendor?

Answer: ”Make me one with everything!”

The auto rickshaw drops me off in front of Baba’s ashram in a much nicer suburb of Calcutta than Tiljala. Instead of rushing in immediately, I hoist my knapsack and go for a walk in the neighborhood. It is a sunny and pleasant morning. Small shops are opening, dhoti clad servants are sweeping the compounds and sidewalks, and birds are singing in the tamarind trees. Some of the residents are out for a morning run (men only of course) and one fellow is rowing a single scull down the river.

I stop passersby and ask politely where I might find cheap, mosquito-free accommodations. English is widely spoken in Calcutta and everyone is very friendly and very curious to know that I am from America. To a man, they proudly relate that India is the world’s largest democracy. Indians are very keen on politics in the U.S.A., which they follow closely via many daily newspapers. What I know about politics in the world’s largest democracy could be summed up in two words – Indira Ghandi.

After the political chit-chat, I am directed to the main road and pause to watch haircuts being given by barber wallahs who squat in the gutters while their customers sit on the curbs for a trim. I wait while a herd of goats is driven through traffic by very agile small boys.

Many of the locals are just rolling up their mats after spending the night on the side streets. These homeless people are clean, well-kempt and speak English, too! One of them explains to me the etiquette of sleeping on the streets.
“Very safe and very clean,” he asserts. “Only don’t sleep on the grass. Sleep only on the walks.”
“Isn’t the grass softer?” I inquire.
“It is, yes, it is,” he answers. “But there all always chiggers. On the sidewalks we have no bugs.”

Before going off to look for the day’s employment, my street friend directs me ‘round the corner to a local hotel – ‘very clean and no bugs’.
“Sounds like my kind of place,” I think gratefully. I thank him for the advice and he is pleased to receive a few rupees from the foreigner sadhu.

The Hotel Bliss is indeed free of lice, chiggers, fleas and mosquitoes. Each room is equipped with a bed, a small cupboard and window screens. It costs just $4 per night. It is indeed bliss!

I lie down immediately and sleep like the dead. When my eyes open, they are staring at an amazing contrivance lit by a beam of late afternoon sunlight dancing with motes of dust. It gleams dully in my jet-lagged consciousness and I’m unable to recognize it at first. Then my eyes focus and suddenly – illumination!

Could it be I have found the “All in One”? It can’t be – but it must be. How exciting!
I crawl off the bed and move closer. Behind a cloth curtain in one corner of the room, rests the object of my contemplation. The Hotel Bliss toilet sits pristinely behind the curtain – its metal seat glowing dull silver in the sunlight. Directly above the ‘throne’ is an an old-fashioned 6 inch shower head with a pull chain. On the side wall is a mirror, tooth brush holder and soap shelf. A recessed drain in front carries away waste water. The whole plumbing ensemble is brightly painted in variegated colors a la Dr. Seuss.

Now just imagine this ultimate appliance in action. It’s early morning as you awaken and take your position on the “All in One”. Empty your mind of extraneous thoughts and chant your mantra three times. Then empty your bladder and bowels and pull the chain to wet your whole body in a gentle torrent of room temperature water. Lather with soap and apply shampoo, then turn to the mirror while brushing your teeth and shaving. Yank the chain again. All suds, lathers and expectorations are carried away down the recessed drain. Stand up, grab the towel and lever the chain one last time to allow water from the shower to flush the loo. It’s an amazing ablutional experience. The tropical sun will dry both you and the bathroom in no time. Hotel Bliss – how aptly named.

I’ve only been in India one day and already the weirdness is beginning to seep in. What a wonderful and funny place. Even the plumbing brings enlightenment. I begin to unpack my knapsack. I grab a couple of PowerBars and munch away. Unfortunately, I can’t find my plastic canteen so I have nothing to drink.

In those long-ago days, bottled mineral water was only available in France and other such effete European locales. Instead, I carry my trusty canteen, filled with Daktari’s special mix – 1 L. local tap water, 2 oz. Famous Grouse whiskey and 2 iodine tablets. The iodine kills the bugs and the Famous Grouse kills the taste. (Admit it – good scotch does taste like iodine doesn’t it?). Or should I say that ‘I used to carry my trusty canteen’ – it has definitely gone missing from my travel kit.

After supper, I meditate for a half hour and then fall back to sleep. My last thoughts before the goddess Lethe takes possession of my partially-enlightened corpus: Where does one find a canteen around here? Will I see the guru tomorrow? But that is another story.

Daktari

Oh Calcutta I - November 1985

Auto Rickshaws -Calcutta

Tiljala Street Scene

“The older I get, the more I remember things that never actually happened.” – Mark Twain.

(This is the first of a multipart series on my spiritual journey to India in November 1985)-Daktari!

As our pilot, Nigel, dangles the Dunlops, we commence our descent into Calcutta’s Dum Dum Airport (a.k.a. Chandra Bose International). “Just call me Dum-Dum,” works for me.

It’s my first and only trip to India. I pick Calcutta (a.k.a. Kolkata) not because it was the jewel of the British East India Company, nor because it is the home of Mother Theresa, but because my Guru – Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar a.ka. Shri Shri Anandamurti - has his ashram there. (His devotees refer to him as 'Baba' or father, for short.) I was initiated into the Ananda Marga cult in 1970. After 15 years of Tantra yoga, meditation and exercise, it’s time to meet the Man. How exciting!

My spouse, Rena, is not so thrilled. It is the first time I have traveled away from home by myself. I’m away for just one week plus travel time. She stays at home with Ali, age 8, and Dan, just turned six.

As the tyres touch the tarmac, I think to myself, “India at last- the Raj, land of Kipling and Tagore. Rikki-tikki-Tavi. Mongeese versus cobras.” Actually the first conflict is not mongoose vs. cobra but me versus the customs agents. The bounders are trying to confiscate my Swiss army knife! I explain to the mufti clad minion of the Indian Security Forces that when I was a boy, my Dad, a colonel in the Swiss army, passed away from cancer. At the funeral my Mom gave me Dad’s knife and it is my most precious possession. All lies of course, but the Gurkha is a sucker for regimental sentimentalism and I get to keep the knife.

Is it Satyagraha – truthfulness? The answer is no. With the first steps on my spiritual journey, I’m already telling lies! But at least I won’t be defenceless in case one of Calcutta’s naga cobras does attack.

I am quite defenseless, however, against the attack of three local baggage wallahs who confiscate my luggage outside the terminal and escort me to their auto-rickshaw, a three-wheeled motor vehicle without doors or seatbelts. I shower the baggage wallahs with rupees as the auto-rickshaw chugs forward, farting small cloudlets of black smoke. We’re off to Kolkata!

“Where to sahib?” inquires my Bengali rickshaw wallah.
“Tiljala,” I assert firmly.
Tiljala is a suburb of Kolkata, mostly poor and working class. This is not where Baba's Ashram is located. The visitors dorm and Ananda Marga operational headquarters is in Tiljala. The driver is dubious dropping me off but responds to more rupees. I enter the compound and dump my backpack in the mens’ dorm.

In the neighborhood, cows and children roam freely amid open sewers, burning garbage and shacks made of flattened food tins. The monsoon has ended leaving gazillions of puddles and their attendant hordes of marauding mosquitos. Nobody promised that achieving personal contact with one’s guru would not involve suffering.

I spend one mosquito-filled night at A.M. Central. The whine of the mosquitos and the swats of other disciples are interupted at about 1 AM by a blood-curdling scream. A European devotee attempts to enlighten his surroundings by reaching for what he thinks is a light cord. Unfortunately, Ananda Marga H.Q. is a work in progress, and the light has yet to be installed. He grabs a live wire at 220 volts. Talk about a spiritual jolt! I dress the burned fingers with some salve from my emergency kit.

The next day I pack up my things after morning meditation and move my mosquito swollen corporeal self to the Hotel Bliss.

Daktari.

The Next Generation - January 6, 2008

Three generations plus Kellan makes Four

The Great Grands

Travis demos the Kellan Crotch-Hold

The Durango blog series is at an end. On January 6th we have a small family get-together at my Dad's place in Lafayette to welcome the next generation.

Above is Kellan Arthur Alvey, my great nephew, who is one month old. He is being held by his father, Travis, using the patented Kellan Crotch-Hold which leaves the right hand free to manipulate the mouse on Dad's computer! Travis' twin brother, Davis, is in the group photo with wife Tashka who is due this month. (My own daughter, Alison, is also due this month!) Also present are Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Bean (Mom and Dad to me).

It's back to Boston tomorrow for the Beans. I'll fish in the memory banks for more exotic adventures. As Mark Twain said, "The older I get, the better I am at remembering things that never actually happened."

Enjoy all your adventures - past, present and future. Life is a journey in time and space and so is this blog!