Letter 2.57

I'm convinced now that the magnificently sculpted mountains have strongly influenced the people here, so that their minds become better sculpted. Everyone out here -- the Indians, the freaks, the lamas, Tibetans, and other oddities -- seems to be on well-directed trips (of different velocities and varying rates of cycles per second) trying to find a level at high altitude. The openness of the Himalayas is an open invitation to spread one's wings, drop one's burdens, and join the eagles in the sky. So for the three months of Vas (rainy season) retreat I'll be living on Crank's Ridge, where I feel very much at home. The mountains -- let alone the rest of the fairyland trip -- may help me to live in peace, to be as straight as I can, and to cool my head. That, at any rate, is what's on the menu for this Vas. We shall see how well I fill my plate.

Lama Govinda will be leaving shortly for a year or so, lecturing at, I believe, Southern Methodist University (he's been invited by the Methodist Church), and Suññata Bahaji is in Denmark at present, visiting his ailing elder sister (he's somewhere about 85 years old), so we're a bit short on Big Names at the mo, but Baba Ram Das (Richard Alpert) is down the footpath at Kausani -- about 8 miles toward Bageshwar -- and, locally, we have the Ven. Buddhananda (Ronald Boughan), a recently ordained former Intelligence officer for the British Foreign Service, who, says, with a sinister and confidential grin, that he still keeps a hand in the game. (Did you meet him when you were out this way? He lives in Snowview.) Then we have Win Chamberlain, the producer-director of a film called 'Brand X'. (I've never heard of him or his film before, but apparently it got good reviews and a bit of attention in some of the more ethereal segments of North American culture: have you heard of/seen it?) and an intimate of Timothy Leary. We also have Leary's ex—wife, a lanky Swede married to a Harvard grad student doing studies in Tibetology (he'd been a Tibetan monk for four years in -- yup -- New Jersey), so it's not surprising that rumors maintain that Leary Himself has fled from Algeria (where, I'm told, he was being held prisoner by the Black Panthers -- politics makes incredible bedfellows) and is hiding out either in the Kumaon hills or in Scandinavia. (Neither of us, of course, will believe a word of it, will we?) And then… but enough: you are now aware that the spiritual-pharmaceutical fringe is very biz in these parts (at the mo).

I've been to see Lama Govinda several times, and shall see him a few more times before he splits. He's a fine old man, alert, friendly, with a good head, fine vibes, and lots of undiscovered vitamins. He came from Germany together with Ven. Nyanaponika (of the Forest Hermitage and Buddhist Publication Society fame) and Swami Garibalda, who holes up near Jaffna. All three, at one time, were Theravada monks at the Island Hermitage. It's interesting to see, after thirty years, what each of them has done with his life. Certainly Lama Govinda -- scholarship and other diversions aside -- has been making some good use of his time, and has profited by it. He manages, nonetheless, to enshroud himself in a few romantic veils (stitched in secret by his wife?).

If I can keep the body together (which will require reasonably good health) and shitting at the proper rate (which will require some funds), there will be nothing to stop the mind from holding together and shitting at the proper rate. 'Monks, whoever eats and drinks needs to shit and piss' And again: 'There are, monks, these four foods: solid food, whether coarse or fine, contact second, thirdly mental-intention (mano sañcetanā) and consciousness as fourth'. Your tract on defecation was good. What about the void in the bowels after the movement? If it all comes out in the end, when does the end come out? As for contact (consider the sensory-deprivation experiments), mental-intention (i.e. time-structuring) and consciousness, what they produce (i.e. shit) is worthy of consideration. So too is it worthwhile to consider what they are, which, in the present terminology, is that they're itches produced by the mosquito bites of the mind. Shit is what happens when we scratch them. Thanks for pointing that out. Dhamma is a spiritual calamine lotion. It is also a mental flit bomb. It's for eliminating the cause of the itch, and not for finding a better way to scratch, There are no mosquitos on Crank's Ridge -- except the ones we bring with us.

Om Hūm,

V.

Letter 2.56

No, my handwriting is not a strain on my eyes. I didn't even think it particularly small. I‘ve a little book of texts, etc. that I've collected over the years. Intended for use while travelling, I wrote as small as possible to get in as much as I could, and that's really small. I used a Parker 21 fountain pen and it took a lot of care to write, especially since much of it was in Pali. Anyway, that's how I learned to write small and legible. Perhaps, I'll nest take up thumb-nail sketches.

Perhaps it is the rarer atmosphere that makes kite-flying difficult. I'd ascribed it to my lack of skill. Two nights ago the mountains were visible at sunset for the first time since the rains began; then at dusk huge fires were lit everywhere in the valley, and on the Ridge, and on the distant hills, celebrating -- I think -- the Hindu New Year (at Autumn Equinox?), and yesterday, for the first time since Nepal in '66, it was possible for me to see the mountains all day long, and this morning -- about 10 AM -- there's still not a cloud in the sky. Not a breeze, which makes me suspect that I can now retire my kite (a large diamond shape, which I made myself).

No, I have no interest in writing books. At present I'm concerned with another art-form, one admittedly less salable, but much more satisfying, which is called meditation, and might be looked at as turning oneself into 'a work of art' -- i.e. making oneself more pleasing to be in the presence of -- and this takes up most of my time. I sometimes pick up a paint-brush, however, and see if I can coax the color and line into something resembling a thanka, a Tibetan religious painting. This requires delicate work and fine concentration.

As for the Cranks of the Ridge, there seems to be little space left on this aerogramme, but, perhaps, special mention should be made of Buddhananda, who I stayed with briefly when I first arrived. He's a fat old Englishman ordained earlier this year after his retirement from the Intelligence and Security branch of the British High Commission, whose mind is still warped by his past: he's always pulling off little 'coup d'etats' to 'keep in practice', such as picking the lock of a door when he has the key in his pocket, and he knows the intimate life of 250,000,000 of India's 500,000,000 population. He tells, in the strictest confidence, the same stories to everyone he meets, even casual strangers. He has a black heart of gold. He's lived on Crank's Ridge longer than most of the Cranks.

Letter 2.55

As it’s a 20 minute walk from Snowview -- the next estate going into Almora (and, apparently, the end of the line for the postman) -- the postman will sometimes come out here to deliver mail, sometimes he will drop the mail off at a tea stall to be brought up (hopefully) by anyone coming up this way, and sometimes especially in bad weather -- he will simply throw our letters away, and then, not having anything to deliver, save himself the 40-minute round trip. He will also open letters and steal anything worth stealing. He is quite open about all of this apparently he doesn't even consider it improper conduct -- a sort of bakshish for his trouble, I suspect -- and this being India, there is, of course, nothing to be done. Taking this creative postal service into account, we should, perhaps, design our correspondence accordingly -- if that's possible. Perhaps, we can come up with
our own Enigma Code or something.

Right now it's about 8 AM and I've just finished my usual breakfast -- two chapaties -- made in the fireplace -- with home-made jam (plums in season) and tea and am sitting on the verandah looking to the NE, where about 100 miles away rises the snow peak of Anapurna in Nepal, the third or fourth highest mountain in the world. The Kumaon hills where I am are atleast 30 miles south of any of the great Himalayan peaks, but the north wind brings the sharp taste of snow and glacier past us down to the plains, another 50 miles. Clouds from the valley below (about 2000 feet down, at more than a 45° angle: the base of the valley is still nearly a mile high) sweep westward, sometimes obscuring the sweep of the ridge opposite; but the clear blue sky -- almost as deep blue as the purple knife-sharp shadows of the mountains -- remains clear, and the mountains themselves are never quite obscured by these vagrant clouds. Shafts of sunlight through a haze some miles away break onto a huge silent cloud sitting like a sea in a valley several hills off, and the top of this sea-cloud is blindingly white, while the hills around it sparkle with a preternatural green: the pine forests cover the higher reaches of the hills, while the lower halves are sculpted with brown-and-green rice-field terraces broken by dots of white houses and ribbons of silver-brown rivers.

In the mornings I do whatever tasks need to be done -- washing, sewing, cleaning, cooking, etc. -- or sit quietly. I try to work slowly, with awareness of the present, so everything takes longer (but the great lesson of India is patience) and thus gives me more satisfaction. I'll probably go for a walk soon -- through the hills, in the forests, or find a rock to sit on or a tree to sit under for the rest of the day. Towards evening I'll make my way back to the road -- a glorified footpath really -- that runs along the ridge on which sits the hill on which sits the cottage in which sit I -- and will usually meet one or two other Cranks of the Ridge, who have, probably, been doing the same thing, spending their day in their own quiet way, developing their own amity and inner peace, and we may just smile and pass each other, or talk for a bit, drink tea at one of the shops that sprout (like a leaf on a vine) along the side of the twisting footpath. We watch the sunset. Sometimes we watch each other. Always the mountains giving an extra dimension. (How would a two-dimensional person living in a picture feel if he could look out and see the three-dimensional picture frame?) Perhaps Kumaon is like a picture -- it is certainly like a fairy land, or perhaps Alice's Wonderland -- in three dimensions and looking at the mountains that frame this picture is like looking into a fourth dimensional perspective. That may not seem rational or sensible; but neither do the Himalayas.

Today seems to be a peculiar mixture of clouds and sunshine, giving the air a vibrant luminescent quality and making the surroundings appear (when they appear) as if they were painted with DayGlo colors. Not a breeze; unearthly still -- hardly kite-flying weather (though I have a small kite ready for a windy day; it's a big sport in the East -- though for me it's just a means to soar). The monkeys made one of their rare visits here this morning; they seldom come so close to the leopard run, which crosses the Ridge about 1,5 mile south of here. A leopard took a cow from Snowview a few days ago in broad daylight; they are usually only about at dawn and dusk. They won't go near a person if he has a light.

In the evenings, I sit quietly smoking a hookah -- the coolest possible way to take tobacco -- and read, or study Hindi, or watch the stars.

Conditions are rough here, and comforts are few, conveniences non-existent; but, by making each moment as graceful as I can, I try to make each day an act of grace. If I can succeed in that I shall be content to accomplish nothing else at all.

Letter 2.54

Going north out of Almora there is a steep climb along a paved road for about 1,5 miles, until coming to Chota Bazaar ('Little Market'), which lies at the foot of Crank's Ridge. Turning off the paved road one enters upon the Ridge, a horse-shoe-shaped protuberance (visible from Almora and blocking the north and view) perhaps 6 miles long. The dirt road-jeepable in good weather -- then makes a huge arc along the top of the Ridge, and it is sometimes possible to look down both sides at once -- steeply sloping hills (often more vertical than horizontal) of pine forests (which are tapped for turpentine) and deodars (a tree similar to the pine) with grassy fields and long-trod footpaths, during the rainy season (now) brooks well up out of the upper slopes and cascade down to the valleys thousands of feet below, where minute villages are nestled among the terraced rice-paddy fields that slope upwards to the forest line. Since there are few thorns, bushes, and other obstacles I can wander among the slopes freely clambering over stone walls which separate fields, wading (and bathing in) icy streams, sitting on rocky outcroppings or at the root of a tree. Except for an occasional boy tending his herd of cows, buffalo or goats, and for the prematurely yellowed and wrinkled village woman who passes by carrying a basket on her head laden with pine needles, straw, or vegetables, there is no one about.

Although there's a lot of farming in the valleys, these high foothills of the Himalayas are still wild: in the day I can watch eagles soaring above, their wings quivering for balance only rarely, and at night I sometimes hear the yelping howl of packs of jackals or a solitary wolf. And on the topmost peak of Crank's Ridge -- perhaps 7500 feet (Almora is 5600 feet) -- is the Kasr Devi temple, an ancient complex of low stone structures where I can sit, in sunny weather, soaking it all in. And, of course, when the skies are unusually clear for the rainy season, I can look north, to the snow-peaked mountains 50 miles away, and be always astonished at how much higher, and more massive, and icier blue white they are than I remember them being the last time I saw them: the most prominent peak, Nanda Devi, is over 25,000 feet high, and although over 50 miles away it is easily capable of sending icy blasts of wind (and, perhaps, more subtle emanations not only far beyond Almora, but even, in the southwest, to Rishikesh, the Hindu holy of holies, a hundred miles off. The details -- the minutiae of life -- here are always surprising; a wonderland. The mountains, the hills, valleys, flowers, birds, clouds, fogs, and sunsets all strongly and strangely affect the people who choose to live at this height (altitude an attitude?).

The road also has its influence. Beginning at Chota Bazaar it continues far, beyond the Ridge, and the knowledge that it carries on into Tibet already gives it a certain mystique: On clear mornings the massive fortress-like mountain called Trisul (in Tibetan: I don't know the Hindi or English names) is visible in the far northwest, pure white with peaks at each of its four corners, nearly 100 miles away, but still dominating its quarter of the horizon, and Trisul is in Tibet itself, the forbidden (and forbidding) land.

The road, running along the top of the Ridge, sometimes seems like the Razor's Edge, worn blunt, but also -- since daily there is a certain amount of going up and down the road -- being nearly circular I find myself in a position reminiscent of an ant that runs endlessly along the rim of a cup, ever retracing its own steps, and -- since everyone else on the Ridge does the same thing -- I always meet people on road and we stop to wave our tentacles at each other over a cup of tea, or to just talk briefly before hurrying on to circle the rim of the cup once again.

There are many Westerners here doing various Things -- Hindu Things, Buddhist Things, Tantric Things, Freak Things, or simply quiet things -- and many very cool heads among the Indians as well, and also some very peculiar congruencies and incongruencies: perhaps in another missive I can describe the local fauna who live north of Chota Bazaar, and you will understand why the area is called Crank's Ridge.

A cottage has been rented for three months; a three-room affair with 3 patio with a fine view to the north; it's on one of the hills atop the Ridge, but off the 'main' road, so all is quiet with few visitors. (I call it 'the Mole Hill' because I want to make a mountain of it.) It has a stone floor and a slate roof and is a rustic mixture of colonial and native styles. Our landlord, Major B. Thomas Chodhury, is a well-off wog -- i.e. a native who has tried to get into the (former) colonial power-structure by adopting English ways: he vacations in a big house just above the cottage; but since hels usually in Delhi -- as he will be for the next two months -- we have the use of his fine large unkempt gardens, as well as the rest of the (non-commercial) estate for Rs. 40-/month -- a bit less than $6. With a few bits of furnishing -- a large rug in the main room (where we mostly live, and which is about 14 feet by 12 feet), straw mats, etc. -- it’s quite cozy, particularly with a roaring log fire in the fireplace. Water is not much of a problem in the rainy season -- we have 4 gallon tins brought up from a tank not far below now -- but when the rain stops we'll have to have it brought from a mile away, the nearest spring, where it is enriched with minute particles of mica (a lot of the stone hereabouts is mica, which glitters beautifully in the sun, but is ugly for the guts) which have to be carefully filtered out: the water shortage is what keeps the population sparse in this area: aside from a few other Westerners living on another part of the estate, our nearest neighbor in any direction is a 20 minute walk -- that's over to Snowview Estate.

It's afternoon now, and I'm sitting on the porch, The day's light sprinkle is over; the sun shines on the hedges and deodars, and I can look out onto the far end of the Ridge and the patchwork slopes leading down to the valley -- a few bits of houses, sprinklings of trees, a few fields, pasturage, light green, dark green, dusky and russet, and onto the next few ranges of hills, deeply etched with shadow and stippled by forests and fields, and then mountains of white and grey cumulus clouds mass high to obscure the sight of white and blue Himalayan crags which, perhaps this evening, will become visible again, One of the semi-wild dogs hereabouts wandered up, sniffed around, and wandered off again -- they live on gleanings from houses and shops on the Ridge -- and somewhere distant is the sound of a woodchopper, and in another direction, also distant, some children are shouting and laughing. A farmer came a while ago and sole me a kilo of peaches for 75 paise (about 1O¢). Soon apples will be in season. Two eagles soar over the valley now, one at eye level, and everything sparkles in the thin air of nearly 1,5 miles high. Time passes very slowly in the mountains, and the scent of the pine cones linger in the day, the coals of the fire linger in the evening, wisps of valley-riding fog linger in the morning. Perhaps I shall linger here a while longer.