Second Journey to the East
4/12/88
New Delhi
The first time I flew from London to India it was with the cheapest air ticket I could find, Syria Arab Airlines. The second time I was determined to do it in luxury and got Club Class tickets on British Airways for me and Jonathan. I had cabled the YMCA Tourist Hostel asking that two air-conditioned rooms be reserved but they claimed never to have gotten the request, so we ended up in a large double room with just an overhead fan. The place looked just the same as it had sixteen years earlier, as did much of central New Delhi. The Sikh who had run my main hangout, the juice bar in Mohan Singh Place, was gone and it no longer had the same laidback atmosphere; the Cellar had been replaced by a yuppie pizza parlor, but Connaught Place itself had changed very little.
It was already very hot so we spent the two weeks slowly looking around town and ended up most evenings in the air-conditioned luxury of Gaylord's Restaurant where Jonathan quickly got the reputation of eating spaghetti almost every day. Because of the generous portions, we both left so much food on the plates that our regular server could be seen finishing them off as he carried them back to the kitchen, gaining the nickname "Tubby". Eventually the poor man didn't show up one evening and we were told he was off sick, probably from over-eating. We made good friends with the young Muslim headwaiter, Sheikh, and he recommended a move into a hotel around the corner from Gaylord's where he knew the manager. I've forgotten the name of the hotel, but we had a very comfortable air-conditioned room overlooking an area on the edge of Connaught Place which was a main hangout for the young boys selling hashish, many of whom we came to know during successive stays there.
I wanted to take Jonathan to Mussoorie and, despite the protests from everyone that it was silly to hire a car for the drive rather than taking a taxi, I found a very handsome driver who agreed to what seemed a reasonable price to drive us there, stay until we were ready to leave, and then drive us back.
4/26/88
Hardwar-Mussoorie
We spent one night in Hardwar to break the journey and drove on to Mussoorie the next morning. It hadn't changed at all. We took a suite of rooms at the "grand hotel" and spent a lot of time just walking around. Jonathan loved it there, especially the beautiful walk around Camel's Back Road with its view of the snowcaps in the distance and the peaceful tranquillity of Happy Valley. One day we had been sitting up on the crag with the fire altar and as we were climbing back down, a Tibetan man stopped us and politely asked if we would pause for a few moments because His Holiness the Dalai Lama was about to leave the temple and would be passing down the path we intended to use. We watched him and his entourage walk past and after waiting a few minutes, proceeded on our way, literally walking in the Dalai Lama's footsteps. It was for both of us the highlight of our stay in Mussoorie.
5/11/88
New Delhi
We returned to the same hotel, bought a cassette machine and some tapes, and settled into a lazy time of smoking, listening to music, going to Nirula's for ice cream sodas and dinners at Gaylord's. Sheikh would often stop over after getting off work and spend the rest of the evening smoking with us and talking.
Jonathan was so thin and pale that he was often the subject of much curiosity and sometimes concern. Everyone we met treated him with much kindness, none more so than a Hindu priest at the Lakshmi Narayana temple where he was given the traditional mark on his forehead and a garland of flowers which he then placed at the shrine to Ganesh. Ganesh was Jonathan's favorite of the gods and I bought several woodblock prints, images of Ganesh, which we kept on the walls wherever we stayed. At one point in Kathmandu I actually became concerned that Jonathan was going too far with his adoration of Ganesh and could easily imagine his Irish Catholic mother's reaction.
In the beginning, he couldn't resist giving coins to all the begging children on the walk from the hotel despite my warnings that it wasn't a very good idea. Eventually we would be followed by a small army of them, right up to the door of Gaylord's where the doorman would chase them away. It got so bad that Jonathan finally stopped handing out the coins.
6/5/88
Naini Tal
As the weather turned steadily hotter, I thought of traveling to Kashmir but the constant political turmoil in the region had me somewhat concerned for Jonathan's sake, so I decided we would go to the hill station, Naini Tal, instead, since it would be a place new to both of us and we could enjoy exploring it together. The town nestles on one side of a narrow lake and both the walk around the lake and trails in the surrounding areas provided ample and interesting excursions. We took a suite in the largest hotel in town, another relic from the British years which looked like it had been imported from an English seaside resort. It had a statue of Dorothy and the Lion from Oz in the front garden which turned out to be an appropriate omen; nothing in Naini Tal seemed to be Kansas anymore.
Every morning I would pick up the antique telephone and repeat the same ritual. "Two teas, please". "Two tea?" "Yes, two tea." "Two tea?" "Yes, two tea". "Together or separate?" "Separate." Repeat from the beginning. This dialogue often continued until I was getting quite irked, especially since it went on day after day, and it was typical of the bizarre nature of the town and its inhabitants, something I was never able to quite figure out.
But certainly it is a beautiful place and the steep climb up to the Post Office and the walk along the top of the ridge overlooking the lake in the valley below was wonderful, ending at a new luxury hotel on the outskirts of town where the food was excellent. One day, returning from lunch there, we came across a group of small one-roomed houses. Over the door of one of them was printed "Panther's Cave", on a nearby wall was the admonishment "Panth, give up tea".
6/13/88
New Delhi - Kanpur - Agra
We returned to Delhi and to our routine there. Then I hired a car to drive us down to Kanpur to visit Deepak's family. I hadn't heard from him in some years, but decided to gamble on the family still being at the same address. I had met his older brother before, and he was there to welcome us and introduce us to the parents. Deepak was in Kashmir. I left some money for him with his father and suggested Deepak be asked if he would like to travel to Nepal with us. I did hear from him, but he was living a very ascetic life in Kashmir and did not even want us to visit unless we went "clean"; my reply was less than kind. After a pleasant visit with the family, we drove to Agra and a very luxurious room in the Clark Shiraz hotel. It was incredibly hot the next morning when we went over to the Taj Mahal but there was no question, it more than lived up to its awesome reputation.
6/28/88
Kathmandu
The flight on Royal Nepal Airlines to Kathmandu was wonderful and it was a great delight for me to be back in that beautiful valley. We went to the Hotel Manaslu and I asked for the glass-walled room on the third floor which had been a conservatory when it was a private palace. In 1972, I had envied the people wealthy enough to stay in it and was determined that it would be our headquarters for the three months I planned for our stay in Nepal. They were very apologetic, but the room had not been used for some time, so it would need to be worked on before we could have it. After three nights in another room, we moved into that magical space. The walls were shutters of square panes of glass. At the far end, the view was looking out in the direction of Everest and although it wasn't visible, some of the even more dramatic peaks near it were. One wall looked out on the roof terrace where I had sat in 1972 reading Krishnamurti every morning, the other gave a view of the Royal Palace and central Kathmandu. I've never known a more special room.
As before, there was a very dedicated young room boy, Saran Lama, who would bring our tea each morning and was always willing to go buy us anything we wanted. So we often stayed in the room all day and began work on a large scrapbook which reminded me of the lost notebooks from the first visit. Saran Lama would bring us two of the large bottles of excellent Nepalese beer along with toasted cheese sandwichs to finish off the day, and we added quite a few more cassettes to the tape collection.
Early one morning, before dawn, I awoke feeling the bed literally dancing across the room. Without thinking, I jumped up and ran out of the room, joining some Japanese tourists who were out on the terrace in the rain looking terrified. When it seemed there was no immediate danger, I went back inside to find Jonathan sitting in the middle of the bed, whiter than a sheet, smoking a cigarette. We had participated in the great Earthquake of 1988. Fortunately it had been distant enough that no major damage was done in Kathmandu but the city was in something of a turmoil for some days as rescue efforts were organized. I asked if there was any way we could be of assistance but they would not allow foreigners, other than medical personnel, to travel to the more affected areas so we could only read the reports in the daily newspaper or listen to stories reported by the hotel manager and Saran Lama.
Even though they do not officially use the Gregorian calendar, the Nepalese considered 8/8/88 an auspicious day. I had postponed a visit to Swayambunath, the huge Buddhist stupa on a hill overlooking the valley, until that day. We set out early, agreeing to make the journey on foot. After walking through central Kathmandu and crossing the river, we stopped for an early lunch at a beautiful small hotel near the base of the hill and then dodged monkeys playing on the long, steep staircase to the beautiful complex of shrines and temples surrounding the large stupa. We agreed to walk around it eight times, with each circling dedicated to a person who had been important in our lives. There were many people making that circuit under the huge eyes that look out in the four directions, amid the sounds of temple bells, the smell of incense. It certainly made 8/8/88 a forever memorable day.
The old Hotel Manaslu was deserted and the smaller, far less grandiose building which was to house the new one was ready for guests but they kindly allowed us to remain in the old one until the end of our visit. When I next visited Kathmandu, nothing remained of that former palace and its magical glass-walled room.
9/26/88
Bangkok - Tokyo
The new law in Nepal limited visits by foreigners to one three-month visa, so we reluctantly left Kathmandu and flew to Bangkok, having already agreed to continue our journey by visiting the western part of the United States. Bangkok was unbearably hot and sticky, we did little there but move from one air-conditioned space to another. Then we flew to Tokyo for only a brief stop and got on a plane to fulfill Jonathan's lifelong dream, to see America.
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