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6. India
Amritsar -
Haridwar -
Rishikesh -
Manikaran -
Pushkar
Bombay -
Goa -
Hampi -
Dharamsala -
Gorakhpur
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Gorakhpur
To reach Nepal I first had to leave the Himalayas and travel by bus down to Delhi; from there my journey would continue upwards again, to Nepal via Gorakhpur. During my 10 hour stopover in Delhi I took the opportunity to watch the movie “Hare Rama Hare Krishna” whose title melody I have heard many times during my journey. Whenever “Dum Maro Dum” played anywhere I got meaningful looks; now the time had come for me to find out why this was the case. Some people in the cinema stared at me and were seizing me up. After reading the english subtitles of the film's preface I braced myself for what was about to come.
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Before the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogy and Shree Bhaghwan Rajnesh got attention from truth-seeking Westerners the Hare Krishna movement conquered the Occident in the Seventies. Based on this background the tragic story of an Indian family in Montreal is being told. Because of insurmountable differences within the family the couple separates. The mother returns to India with their son Prashant, whereas father and daughter Jasbir remain in Canada. Mr. Jaiswal remarries and his new wife lives in the family home. A few years later Prashant, who by now has become a pilot, receives a letter from his father. He reads that Jasbir was rebellious and has left the family; she now lives in Nepal with a group of Hippies. She had stolen 5000 Dollars from her father and ended up in Kathmandu after travelling from London, to Paris, to Istanbul and from there to Kabul. Prashant offers to look for his sister but he cannot find a Jasbir in Kathmandu; instead he finds Janice who is his sister with a new name. Janice has no memory of her childhood and thus does not remember having a brother. As Janice is always in the company of her friends Prashant has to join the Hippies. Of course he falls in love and then he is being accused of having stolen a holy statue. In the 'grand finale' the parents meet again but all that is left for them to do with their son is mourn the death of their daughter Jasbir, who committed suicide by giving herself an overdose of heroin.
A satire about the great attraction of the Indian culture for Hippies – and as usual full of stereotypes! Most junkies never made it to India or Nepal they got stuck in Afghanistan. In India, in places such as Goa there were only a few who were addicted to heroin and they stayed apart from the dope-smokers and 'Yogys'. In Nepal heroin was much cheaper, more widely spread and therefore much easier to obtain. This due to the vicinity Nepal's to China and to the liberal drug policy of the King. Only in 1973 – due to pressure by the US government - the laws became more stringent and also the possession of hashish became an offence. The Westerners who were singing Hare Krishna Hare Rama were followers of Swami Prabhupada and therefore strictly renounced the use of any kind of drugs. Of course there were travellers who were looking for inner peace in Indian Ashrams or Buddhistic monasteries - and some found what they were looking for. This movement however, also made it easy for a few pseudo-gurus.
All in all the movie is biased and shows a distorted view of great period in time, which of course also had its dark sides; to use the chants of praise to the Hindu deities Krishna and Rama as a title for this film is highly sarcastic. The title song 'Dum maro dum' was covered many times over the years, and has succeeded to gain cult status in India and the rest of the world. Notable is the version with the original voice of Asha Bhoshle, the Kronos Quartett and Zakir Hussain released in 2005. The translation would be approximately like this:
"Take another toke – forget your worries - sing Hare Krishna Hare Ram.
What has the world given us - what did we take from it?
Why should we worry about anybody - if nobody cares about us?
Take another toke...
If we live or if we die – we are not afraid - we do as we want.
Take another toke..."
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Train to Gorakhpur
Photo by Ruff Libner
In the train to Gorakhpur the movie and its images of Kathmandu were following me and my pleasant anticipation of Nepal was raised. After an 18-hour journey Indian daily life had me back again. In Gorahkpur at the 'Tourist Information' I was sold a ticket on a Luxury-Bus to Kathmandu and was placed on a Rickshaw which brought me to the bus station. There a local bus awaited me and I was taken only to the Nepalese border.
further
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Travelling didjeridoo
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