Calcutta

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH .... it was the new year and I had diarrhea. The Indians were turning on the music full blast. I was taking the loss of my Tibetan Family very hard. I was stuck with Rosie and Nanina, a French student of Bero's and a German dharma groupie. "It's getting worse and worse, Michael," lamented Rosie. "Ten years ago there was nothing here. Now the Indians are destroying this place," she sighed. But Rosie got me to a doctor. I was saved in the nick of time. Nanina was also sick and spent most of her time lying nude in her room. She asked me if I wanted to fuck her. I said no.

But it was Bero's appearance during his difficult time that inspired me. He was an ox of a man, beefy and huge. My head would swell and shoot sparks whenever he passed me. I followed him to the stupa and sat with him inside the giant monolith's guts; we faced a huge glowing Buddha figure. It seemed to sit in suspended animation. All Buddhist statues pierced you with their weird trance. I began to feel light and free. I heard the Buddha speak: CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE. My rib-cage was smarting. I could feel Summer's subtle body. It was denser than mine. She had a lot of witchcraft behind her. "Don't get lost in a dream world with her," the Buddha warned. "Balance your energies CORRECTLY and CONSISTENTLY, RELEASE MORE!" I could hear the New Year crowds heaving and barging outside. It sounded like empty bottles rolling and clanking away. But in a strange muffled sort of way. I gazed ruefully at the floor. Memories of Bero's frescoes flooded my mind. I saw strange half-clad figures; they tied knots in their heads and had deep nasty stares; these were the wrathful Maha-siddahs, the crazy adepts Jim had so admired. I started to cry. I was disgusted with Jim and at the same time missed him terribly. Jim's weird legacy still haunted me. Summer was on my mind, too. Was she also a new sacrificial victim? Was she also a victim or just another perpetrator of the black arts? Did she abuse her powers and skid off into an illness spiral? My head began to tingle. Bero was getting up. A strange humming entered my ears. Bero was blessing me, I could feel it. Now was the time to plunge into the unknown.

I took a bus to Gaya, a miserable and ugly town, dark, intense, menacing. A medical student who had befriended me at the stupa showed me off to his roomies. These young Indians were obsessed with the dazzling mammon of the west. My Olympus camera and worn-out Walkman were minutely inspected, and I was hosted to a dinner prepared on the premises and served steaming hot. My hosts wanted visas for the promised land. I was noncommittal. I was on my way to Calcutta. My train arrived on time in Gaya. I was in desperate straits. I was running out of money in a foreign land at the very start of a brand new year. My hosts were from Uttar Pradesh and were looking for a hustle. They guided me to my cabin and left me in a Bengali world. The screech of the train pulled me back from my self-imposed trance. I was frightened and now had to face KALI. The black Madonna of India, licking the world's sins with her lethal tongue, making my movements absolutely mad.

No words, no words .... inside KALI'S mouth. I began hearing her haunting refrain .... CHAI, CHAI, CHAI, KOFFEE, KOFFEE .... CHAI, CHAI, CHAI, KOFFEE, KOFFEE. I looked outside my window and saw a wall of thick haze and tropical vegetation. I could see industrial infrastructure everywhere. If Delhi was like Beijing, than Calcutta was like Shanghai. The train crawled into Howrah station. Howrah was a monster. All kinds of noise and squalor, videos and beggars, huge lines and crowds, touts too. I was in shock. I could not afford a taxi and didn't know which bus to take, so I walked across Howrah bridge. It was mesmerizing, zillions of people and moving objects swarmed over the bridge in both directions. The smog was astonishing, like a vision from hell. The Hooghly river was barely visible. Calcutta was madness. I was inside KALI'S belly and a monster was now shaking up and down, first sideways, quick walking, sitting, then crossing its legs, then uncrossing them, then getting up and rubbing its hands, now rubbing its fly, hitching its pants, then slitting its eyes to see everything, then grabbing me by the ribs, and screaming, screaming. This was KALI'S song.

There was no money waiting for me at the bank. I had given my stepmother the wrong wiring instructions. I had to contact her and start from scratch. Money was running out and I was in a hot spot. I found lodgings at a Theravadan temple, just in time. I plunged back into the maelstrom and sent two telegrams. Then I went to visit KALI for she was the queen of Calcutta. Her face was everywhere. I found relief from the heat and noise in the unfinished subway system and zoomed down to Kaligut. Here KALI'S blood lust was satisfied. Priest touts showed me the sacrifice altar where goats were killed every morning. I poured water and flowers over a shiva lingam, a kind of stone penis, and said prayers for the family. I swished around some incense and got slammed for a donation. There was red paste on my forehead. The cry of ravens was everywhere. Beggars roamed in every corner smelling of strange purification. I thought about Brown Eyes. KALI knew how to work with the elements, with blood and water. Here I was exactly one year to the day since my final puja at the Burmese place. I could taste Summer's honeysuckle breath. The world was in turmoil. The hard-liners were gaining ground all over the world. Exotic knickknacks and fast food absorbed my attention as I walked back at night. Men pissed right on the street. Smoke was everywhere. I had survived my first day in Calcutta. KALI was laughing and taunting me, then making love to me, she was now my consort for this nightmare part of my journey. I was really protected.

Black Holes as seen from Calcutta:
Black Holes arose out of pure logical deduction. General Relativity argued that objects could become so dense that nothing could escape from them, not even light. Earth would have to be squeezed into the size of an insane cherry. These dense objects have dense centers, SO DENSE that matter got pressed out of existence! Where did the matter go? Was it sucked into another Universe? Another time?

Another Universe, another time:
I took a bus to Dakineshar to see THE TEMPLE of the Bengali saint. I was now on his home turf at last. The air was different here. The oppressive congestion of Calcutta was gone and I felt a strange feeling of release. This was the Bengali saint's playfield. It was impressive. Pilgrims were everywhere. I couldn't go into the main temple because non-Hindus were considered unclean. But I could feel Mother. Priests were tossing flowers to her. I walked barefoot in a trance. Mother had her ways. Ravens, sadhus, beggars, and burning ashes competed for my attention. Pilgrims bathed in the ghats. The Hooghly river was peaceful here. Suddenly, I stumbled into the INNER SANCTUM. The Bengali's saint's room was now a shrine. I gazed at his bed. The energy was dense, sweet, and uplifting.

Dear Guardian Angel:
I've been in CAL about three days now. It's a nightmare, I know, but the pollution and noise seem to hide a sweet kinda magic. There are a lot of intriguing sights here and people on the whole are very friendly. Just this morning I woke up from a troubled sleep, and I could hear these singing Sufis just outside my window. The way they coordinated their hands and faces with their hauntingly beautiful sounds and tones put me into a deliciously temporary trance. I eat all my meals on the street. It's so ridiculously cheap. What's for breakfast? Sugar-buttered toast, peanuts, mango and banana bits, and egg omelets covered with diced onions. How about lunch? Kebabs on a roll, fried noodles, and steaming white rice, with Bengali sweets for dessert. Brown sugar dumplings swimming in honey syrup .... LADY CANDY. Wash it down with sweet-milk tea, coconut and sugar-cane juice. All for pennies .... oh, how the sidewalks are teeming with life. My camera is snap, snap, snapping. Typing clerks, barbers, and shoeshine boys do a roaring business. One half of the city seems to be selling something to the other half, and vice versa. It just goes on and on .... people have to fend for themselves here. The government seems useless. People who can't afford bicycles become human horses here. It's colorful, fascinating, horrifying, and shocking. I went to the planetarium, but it was something of a flop. I could barely hear the narrator's voice over the crummy sound system. It was that bad, but it was also a welcome escape from the smog. It's so thick here, it's amazing. No, frightening. Almost zero visibility and it attacks you right in the nose and throat, until you start getting a terrible HEADACHE. Traffic jams are heavy too. The police try to guide this mess, but it's a free-for-all. I know there's a hidden order here, there must be. I just haven't found it yet. It's never dull here, it's suicidal here on the surface, but some weird saving grace keeps things from collapsing in this wrathful cauldron, this furnace of WHITE STRESS. The Indians go for the WHITE SOLUTION. Lenin, Queen Victoria, Ramakrishna, they're all good neighbors. ALL IS ONE. Yes, the form and the formless is the way the infinite took shape. The saints understand this well. They love to love us as they laugh and navigate through this sublime duality. I don't care for the crowds and the guards in these realms. Their mute mouths tell me that willpower accomplishes all, and these broken tongues say that willpower is just a combination of light and dark strands of energy. NOW THIS: fuse these strands harmoniously and generate a laser. (Past regrets and future worries dilute the laser.) Concentration in the present is important. It's about discipline, it's about faith. This is so impressive: dark life shot through with light. That's what scares me about this place. Monastic types aren't welcome. Arahats can go home! Even the bodhisattvahs have a hell of a time here. The Messiah is unpopular. No, no it's a different ball game in CAL. Who wears the lonely crown here? The great adepts. The MAHASIDDAHS. They are the apocalypse pilots. They look like rebels without a cause, but they are actually living Buddhas. They are HIGH STRESS masters of LOW STRESS. They scrunch and fuse it into glowing balls of light. These maha-lunatics have found a way to live on the subtle plane as perfect Buddhas with ordinary bodies within their ordinary societies and within their old Universe. They can be women as well as men. They can be great scholars and writers, but often they look pretty ordinary. They can be kings and queens, or merchants, or farmers. Even bums! This airplane ride is not ordinary. It is IMMEDIATE. Did I tell you I got through to my stepmother at the American Consulate? Well, I did. She told me she'd send me some money. I was able to make a collect call at last. She told me none of my telegrams got through. She also couldn't send me much. Only enough to get to Nepal. She said to call her there. Frankly, I don't trust her. In these difficult days everything in my mind is just going BOOM! It's so terrible and hard. Oh, how this year seems to be releasing such powerful energies.

Yours,
Wrathful Determination

Calcutta from outer space:
It seems that India is a freak of history. The British heaved India into the Second Wave too quickly. Uneven vertical development. No horizontal luxury. Second Wave medicine multiplied the population faster than it could provide industrial jobs. Now that the Third Wave is eliminating jobs in the industrial world, India is caught in another numbing bind. The computer reads: DOUBLE JEOPARDY. There is no work in the cities, yet First Wave millions keep on coming to Calcutta. The British brought industrial infrastructure, but also massive social and cultural dislocation to the native population. Profits failed to trickle down, while England grew rich and the natives lost demand for their traditional skills. The average wage in British Calcutta was four rupees a month. Today it is eight rupees a day. Not much improvement when you compare REAL PURCHASING POWER then and now. The British wealth drain was accompanied by DIVIDE AND RULE TACTICS and MILITARY OPPRESSION. Ringleaders of the Seapoy rebellion were tied to the mouths of cannons and sent straight to heaven's gates.
Needless, to say, the Indian psyche feels violated. This particular karma is reaping a bad harvest. As the subcontinent invades London and Birmingham, and the British start to squeeze the tits of their immigration doors, a deeper cause and effect seems to be at work. Our computers are overloading and cannot calculate this deeply concealed chain of determination.

The facts on the ground in Calcutta:
I walked through the streets with a sense of quiet panic. Tibet was in danger, I could feel this. The screenplay had to be written soon. But where? I was now a familiar fixture in my neighborhood. I ate and drank with the toiling locals hidden away in mysterious alleys. I had learned the lessons of emptiness in Bodgaya. Now I was being taught by KALI herself how to FUSE and TRANSMUTE energy. My own fears and confusions were being harnessed and turned into GOLD. This was the meaning of Prague and Jerusalem. I visited the Indian Museum and studied some stone maidens from exotic Kajuraho. I had visited this erotic blizzard of hidden emotion many years ago. I needed no further explanation. Every woman's womb was sacred. Every menstrual flow a holy river. Summer carried a holy temple deep within her, wherever she went. It had been violated repeatedly by two-headed monkeys and five-footed goats. I watched them on display in curiously pickled jars. These biological freaks reminded me of India. I was inside a deformed embryo of a hideous monster. Its body was far too large for its head. I was exhausted. It was sweltering hot outside. The KALI YUGA was floating silently in heavenly formaldehyde here on Sutter street. I could see Summer's new complexion. It was the color of wild roses in this new Hindu cosmology. I was the lord of a Tantric Ferris wheel. KALI danced for me with exotic grace. She had ankle bells and bare feet. Calcutta moaned and groaned under her weight. Would Calcutta survive? Only KALI knew and she wasn't telling.

I tried to find Nihar, the Bengali I met at Tiger Hill. The streets were a hopeless maze, but the taxi got me close enough to Nihar, who was surprised and delighted to see me. His house was under renovation. Nihar introduced me to his family. Nihar's son Babulal was an angry twenty-something with a polio limp and an excited heart. Babulal was out of work and looking for a break, ANY BREAK. I quickly became the main attraction in the neighborhood. Babulal introduced me to his gang. These boys played cricket on the street and laughed a lot. I felt at home. There was warm hospitality here. KALI'S children were OK.
Nihar hosted me with a kalia lunch, fish simmered in a delicious curry. Nihar was a Marxist, but a nice one. A sad mystical glint in his eye betrayed a lost romantic. Nihar had no spiritual practice, but his soft and gentle manners resembled those of a neighborhood priest. Nihar had much to worry about. India was a freak of history. The British had squeezed her like a mango, but Muslims and other invaders had screwed her too. The confusion in Calcutta was almost suicidal. I had visions of a giant Bulgaria. But this Bulgaria had spiritual immunity. There was hope here. The STRESS was WHITE and it was GROSS, but it was LIGHT. Sofia's STRESS was BLACK, SUBTLE and HEAVY. The First Wave family was still alive and well in Calcutta and most Indian cities. The extended family was India's safety-net. Babulal's relatives all lived under one roof. Many of them were urban and sophisticated. "Cal's a tough place," echoed Babulal. "All those people you see selling food and other things pool their resources and live together in heaps inside one room. The rent is high here, you know, and you have to bribe the police and the local Mafia if you want to ply a trade on the streets. All those beggars you see on the sidewalks, they were abandoned by their children. Food is pretty cheap though." I listened to Babulal's talk with fascination. I found the Bengalis a sophisticated bunch, they were go-getters with class. Biharis were considered stupid and transparent. They just wanted money. My hosts in Gaya had all been from Uttar Pradesh. "Oh, those guys, they just want a visa," Babulal laughed. He was right. Bengalis wanted a relationship.

Life was getting tougher in CAL by the day. The population pressures were stressing out the ecology, and solutions to the mess were becoming harder and harder to find. Babulal's contemporaries had no interest in spiritual matters. I had to find a meditation partner elsewhere. Babulal's uncle was OK for this, but he was now retired. I fell asleep next to one of Babulal's gorgeous sisters. The other sister, Chumkyi, assured me sweetly, "Don't worry, treat her like YOUR own sister." I was now part of the family.

The money came through. Only two hundred dollars, but in India that was a lot. The smog was killing me, and a flu-bug brought bad memories of Berlin. I began to plot my escape. I bought a ticket to Veranasi. The Theravadan temple kicked me out and I hired a human horse to take me to Sutter street. I sat in a trance as my rickshaw-puller skillfully navigated through the maze of alleys and crowds of spitting people. Did he do it with ESP on Sutter street? Where the prices were high and the vibes were lousy? There was no trust in this tourist toilet bowl. I felt the energies were shifting again as I browsed through the bookstores and haggled with the tape merchants. Everything here was bootlegged and cheap.
I rented a tiny cubicle and felt utterly miserable. Sutter Street was a noise trap. The Indians had to play their music FULL BLAST at ALL HOURS. It was useless talking to these people. The Indian mind tripped out on sound. It was the ONLY ESCAPE. I took a train to Bahirkhanda, a tiny hamlet lost in the boonies, an hour north from Howrah. Once there, I took a bicycle rickshaw to Horispor. This was KALI'S home off the beaten path. Here one could find the Dakatia temple. Robbers had sacrificed their human victims to KALI on this spot of ground. It was chilling to be home again. A KALI puja was in progress. The place and time felt sublime. A priest was conducting an unknown ritual and I felt happy and very close to him. Women surrounded me and kneeled on the floor. Who was this strange foreigner? Drums were banging a rhythm of snakes. A beautiful young virgin wrapped up in a colorful rainbow sari blew a conch shell. She resisted all my attempts to snap her soul. She was barefoot and moody. I fell in love with her and watched her escape with the modesty and quickness of a wild antelope. It all felt so familiar. There was release here. A new subtle alignment was taking place. The white-haired priest invited me to lunch. He spoke no English, but I felt happy and content. Here was my new father and here was his long lost son. I WAS FREE.

I returned to Calcutta's teeming masses and unconditional misery. It was a constantly new experience like none I had ever had before. This density produced saints. Their bliss was spreading throughout the big world. It was an unforgettable experience. I was being blessed even as my physical and mental health was going. Calcutta was crushing me, fucking me, licking me, and finally releasing me. I took one last bus to Howrah bridge. I wanted to stand in the middle of the vortex. To feel KALI'S hot humid breath blowing inside my lungs. The Hooghly slept in the mist. The dirty sweaty masses of humanity surged forward like an angry tidal wave. I was slowly dying. It was time to split before it was too late. KALI'S witch's brew was killing me. On the bus back to Nihar's neighborhood, I almost lost consciousness. The sweat of the sardined passengers generated a steam-bath. KALI was screaming She was black and she was white. Her ferocious eyes glared at me. "Are you all right?" asked a hidden voice. I turned around and KALI gave me one more surprise. It was in the form of a young psychiatrist. He invited me to tea. "Oh, I can't stand this pollution," I moaned. "We Indians don't have time to worry about things like pollution. We're just struggling to get by, you know," my new friend said. He was handsome; he had dark skin, and a mischievous smile. "What do you tell your patients?" I asked. "Oh, to fall back on their families, it's the only advice I can offer them. I'm doing time in a government hospital. When I finish my studies, I'll see what to do next. May we exchange addresses?" My new friend felt sincere. I scribbled a few words on a crumpled piece of paper.

I hurried back to Nihar and said good-bye to him and his family. I was anxious to leave. The thought of staying in KALI'S mouth even one more hour was intolerable. The taxi ride to Howrah was a nightmare. The screech and howl of rush-hour traffic felt like pipe-organs going to war. The cabby stopped to pick up some passengers during a lull in this cosmic concert. I was sick and I was sweating furiously. Every inch closer to Howrah made me cry. The violent voyage over the rapids was nearing its end. We were finally on Howrah bridge! We heaved and we jerked. Screaming drivers with unlimited energy hunched over their steering wheels and searched for an opening. ANY OPENING out of the cauldron jam. KALI was laughing. She had started it all, and now she didn't want it to end! I found my train. It was ready to leave without me. I collapsed on a seat. My strength was gone. I looked at my wrist. My watch was gone. KALI had taken one last bite.

This page has been by and visitors.