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CHAPTER
TEN For four years after Babaji died, I was afraid to go back to Herakhan to visit because I remembered what it was like going to my father’s grave, back in Toledo, Ohio: weeping and weeping and weeping, and trying to pull my mother away. I think in a way she would have been happy to have just stayed there with his grave and to have withered away if she hadn’t had me and my sisters to care for. And so I thought that going back to Herakhan would involve my being plunged into such inconsolable grief again also.
But finally, five years after Babaji “left,” I had an urgent
need, not only to go to India, not only to take Louis with me again, but
this time to take my son with us. He
was into his 20s, and I knew that once he got married, he probably
wouldn’t have time to travel anywhere with me again.
I wanted him to see the India that I loved.
Tom is a photographer and he has a marvelous eye for the beauty of
form and color, and I wanted to share India with him, to have him see its
beauty before I couldn’t any longer show it to him.
But I was afraid that he wouldn’t want to go if I asked him only
to come to India with me.
I worried he would probably say, No, because he had the same image
of India that most Americans have, that it’s dirty, that it’s poor,
that it’s impossibly crowded, that people are dying on the streets right
in front of you.
So I invited him to take a trip with me first to Japan where his
father had spent many years, and then we would go to India.
He agreed, however his schedule didn’t work out, so it ended up,
after all, that he only had time to meet us for a week in India, and then
he would have to return to Los Angeles.
On the day Louis and I were to meet Tom in New Delhi, our Indian
Airlines plane coming from Nepal arrived in India several hours later than
Tom’s Pan Am flight from Los Angeles through Singapore where he’d
stayed overnight. After we
landed at the domestic airport in Delhi, we needed to go a few miles to
the International Terminal where Tommy was supposed to be waiting for us.
I was getting really tense by the time we finally reached him,
because I was afraid he’d be offended by all the noise and filth if he
had to confront India all by himself.
But we found him crouching on the sidewalk, in a circle with a
whole bunch of Indian fellows, talking with them and enjoying himself
immensely. He’d spent the several hours between his plane arrival and
our plane arrival just talking with people and enjoying himself.
It pleased me that he wasn’t horrified by the noise and the
commotion. Believe me, many
Westerners get off in Delhi, take one look at the whole Indian airport
scene, and jump back on the same plane’s departing flight, canceling all
further plans to stay in India. I
was glad Tom was open-minded.
After a day of taking Tom to the sights of Delhi and another to
show him the Taj Mahal in Agra, we drove up to Haldwani and checked into
the brand new hotel that had just been built—the only building in the
whole of Haldwani, with close to a million inhabitants, that had an
elevator! It also had air conditioning, and the heat even up in the
foothills at that time was almost beyond belief. (When we had been down in Agra taking Tom to see the Taj
Mahal, it got to 135º Fahrenheit!) I
was frantic over the approaching trek up to the ashram.
How could we possibly go up the river bed for twelve miles in heat
like that, with the sun beating down on us?
We went over to see the Shuklas, of course, and Tom was completely
captivated by their three beautiful daughters, and by having them wait on
him as if he were a prince, rushing to get him a cola drink whenever the
one in his hands was empty, and turning the fans on him.
I had never been at Babaji’s ashram in Chillianola, and I wanted
to go there so we agreed to drive there first the next day before coming
back to Haldwani to start the trek to Herakhan.
Only three people were in the entire ashram at Chillianola when we
arrived. It was a beautiful
ashram, but I wanted to get to Herakhan, so we left after only one magical
night under the stars at that quiet, holy place.
On our return to Haldwani, we needed to figure out how we were
going to get up to Herakhan in such heat.
It was still 98oF in Haldwani, and I couldn’t imagine
trekking twelve miles in the bright sun.
Papa Shukla came up with the idea that it was possible to take a
bus along the ridge of the mountains behind the one the ashram was on and
then walk down from that ridge. He
phoned around and got very exact information about how to do that.
He said we would be walking through shady trees, downhill, so it
would be very pleasant, not uncomfortable at all.
And so, the next morning, Tom, Louis, and I boarded the bus.
Louis and I only took along enough clothes for changes for a few
days, so we had very light packs. But
Tom had a heavy pack. He
insisted on taking his sleeping bag and an extra blanket, even though it
was very hot. When I tried to
convince him to lighten his load, Tom said, “No, we’re going up in
mountains, and Mom, I’ve camped out much more than you, and you’re
forgetting, I did the whole John Muir Trail, and it gets cold up high.”
So, he insisted on taking along his entire backpack and sleeping
bag.
When we were leaving Haldwani, Papa Shukla asked, “When do you
think you’ll be coming back?”
And I said, “Well, one day to get there, one day to stay there,
one day to come back, so we’ll be back in three days.”
And then he said, “Are you sure?”
I just wanted to go to see the ashram, see how it was without
Babaji there, and then come back. So
I joked, “If we’re not back inside of three days, you’ll know that a
miracle has happened, and Babaji has returned.
If that happens, come on up! Join
us!”
And that was about the last thing I said before we got on the bus
to go on the ridge to go to the ashram.
As Indian buses go, the one we got on had everything: We were seated five on one seat that’s built to hold
presumably just two people. There
was a crying baby who got sick. And
it even had the bags of grain. I
never understand where they’re going or where they come from, but
they’re almost always in the front of a bus, great big bags that fill
the aisle and need to be moved whenever someone gets on and off.
Eventually we got off the bus.
In front of us, getting off of the bus, as well, was a most
amazingly beautiful woman, wearing a deep saffron yellow sari, with her
hair wild and uncombed, barefoot, looking like a female Shiva, looking
like a small, feminine Babaji. She
was smiling at us and then running ahead on the path, then waiting for us,
and then running ahead some more. There
was nothing below us other than Babaji’s ashram so she was apparently
also going down to the ashram and knew where she was going.
I found the going fantastically hard, so eventually she went out of
sight from us. We never saw
her again. She wasn’t at
the ashram and no one there had seen anyone matching my description.
This “hour or so stroll on a cool shady path through the trees,
down the mountains,” which is how the whole adventure had been
described, turned out to be something tortuous that went on from ten in
the morning until close to five in the evening!
We had no water, we had nothing, just the three of us with our
packs. It was hot!
It was dusty! And
furthermore, it was so steep that we kept having to zig-zag back and
forth. We covered an immense
extra amount of distance going down that mountainside!
Even so, I still puzzle over taking so many hours to get down to
the ashram, when we later went back up so quickly.
When we finally arrived, we found ourselves on the porch of the
so-called International Guest House.
Standing there was Prem Baba, with his chillum!
So the first thing that happened was that he and I embraced and
laughed and cried and pummeled each other, and then Louis and Tom greeted
him the same way.
Eventually I pulled out the chunk of hash Billy had given me years
before—the day I heard that Babaji had died—and gave it to Prem Baba,
as Billy had asked me to do. I
also pulled out a joint and asked him with gestures if he wanted to smoke
it, but he indicated No, he preferred smoking his tobacco-charris mix in
his chillum. So we sat together and each smoked a different mix.
We really couldn’t communicate very well because he doesn’t
have any English and I don’t have any of his language, but I feel a
great true love for him, and somehow I think he enjoys me.
Eventually, we were found by an Italian woman who registered us and
gave us a big room all for just the three of us.
She told us there was almost nobody else at the ashram.
Our arrival in Herakhan was especially marvelous because Prem Baba
had just made a great big bucket of a greenish kind of milk mixture of
datura and sugar called bhang. I
don’t know what else is in it. I
was told it’s sweet and milky, and when you drink it, you get high.
There was going to be a party down at the riverbed and the bhang
would be served there.
We three went down and threw ourselves in the water to cool off and
to get cleaned up.
I was so tired I dreaded the idea of climbing back up the steps
from the river bed to get redressed, then coming back down again. But just then a female voice said, “May I serve you, Mama,
may I get you your clean clothes?”
I said, “Oh yes! My
sari and my blouse and my petticoat, they’re right there on my bed!”
And so that person ran up the 108 steps and then came back down
with my clean clothes, and I was able to get dressed in nice, clean,
pretty, dry Indian clothes for the party.
My heartfelt thanks go to whoever it was who served me so
magnificently. I never
learned her name or saw her again, either.
After I had my first swallow of the concoction that Prem Baba was
serving to everyone, I didn’t want to drink more of it because it
definitely was made with milk and milk bothers my arthritis.
I decided well, obviously, no one was going to be upset if I pulled
out a joint, so that’s what happened.
I got myself loaded on marijuana while everybody else got loaded on
that drink, and a fine time was had by all.
I thought, “What a great way to be greeted!
What happened to all the sorrow I was afraid of, what happened to
all my grief? Here I am.
I’m looking at the beautiful tomb that they made above where
Babaji’s body is buried in a coffin filled with rose oil, and I’m
remembering Him fondly and happily, but I’m not crying!”
I found going to Aarati was a joy and a pleasure, without any other
negatives coming in. I
wasn’t afraid of being late. I
wasn’t afraid of doing the wrong thing.
I finally seemed to know how to behave.
I was exuberant, ringing the bell at the beginning of Aarati,
pounding and making noise with the tambourine and the castanets, and just
absolutely enjoying it. I thought, “How good of Babaji to give me a place where I
can go and feel totally surrounded by love and by memories that I love to
remember, without feeling any grief at all.”
What a magical place Herakhan is!
Om Namaha Shivai.
Many changes had taken place since Louis and I had last visited.
For example, our room had beds in it, actual charboys, the roped
frames lifted from the ground that poor Indians use as beds!
So Tom had a “real bed” to spread out his sleeping bag on.
It was colder than I had expected, and though I found the charboy
and the one thin blanket that I was given better than nothing, I certainly
coveted one of Tom’s good blankets.
I tried to convince him to let me use one since he had a thick
sleeping bag, but Tom wasn’t going to let me have any of his stuff.
He kept teasing me, saying, “No, this will teach you, Mama, to
listen to me next time.”
Anyhow, we had a really pleasant stay overnight.
I showed Tom around the ashram and was amazed at how happy I was.
I had cried with Prem Baba a little when we first arrived, but
standing in front of Babaji’s tomb (for He was buried, not cremated)
didn’t make me weep at all!
Luckily for me, Tom spent the second night with Prem Baba and
someone else in Babaji’s cave, so I was able to use his sleeping bag and
get warm.
The morning of our third day, we were preparing to leave the ashram
to climb the mountain to get to the ridge to meet the bus for the bus-ride
along the ridge back to Haldwani, but we were getting a late start, by
about four hours. The Italian
woman had told me that she would fix it up so that I would have Babaji’s
horse to ride up the mountainside. She
said it was so hot it wouldn’t be good for me to have to work so hard to
climb, and also Babaji’s horse hadn’t been ridden by anybody since He
died, and it needed some exercise, it was getting too fat and lazy.
So I was patiently waiting for her to get Babaji’s horse
`saddled.’ I knew our
dutiful patient taxi driver would wait for us at the bus station, so I
wasn’t hassling over leaving so much later than originally planned.
Meanwhile, Tom wanted to take more pictures on the other side of
the river, on the temple side, so he went down and over, promising to be
back inside of a half hour.
Then suddenly down the mountainside came Papa Shukla and one of his
daughters and one of her cousins!
They were all excited because they sincerely believed that Babaji
had returned and that that’s why we, Louis and Tom and I, had not met
the driver and the car at the end of the ridge on the early morning bus
ride.
I thought such innocent faith was touching, really touching.
But I also felt bad because how was Papa Shukla, who I think is a
little older than I am, to get back up the mountain?
It’s steep! And his
walk down had to have been as arduous and difficult as mine had been, even
though it took them only an hour or so, not a whole afternoon as it had
for Tom, Louis, and me. Of
course, they weren’t carrying anything, and that probably helped them
move more quickly.
I thought, “Well, I don’t want Papa Shukla to die of a heart
attack. He’s a lot slimmer
than he used to be when his wife was still alive, my last trip here, but
still he’s a man, he’s old, and he’s a little overweight.”
So I decided to give him Babaji’s horse to ride.
I figured it wouldn’t be too bad for me to walk because at least
I wouldn’t have to carry anything, because Mr. Shukla would have it up
on the horse with him. I told
him he should ride the horse and I would walk.
But he remonstrated that he couldn’t let me walk, and we were
arguing about it, “No, Papa,” “No, Mama,” when Tom came up saying,
“Mom, you’ve got to come across the river with me!
There’s someone over there I want you to see, and you’re the
only one I can ask to do this.”
But just at that point, the Italian woman brought another horse up,
a brown horse. She said that
now I could still have Babaji’s horse and Papa Shukla could have the
brown one. So we were
essentially all set to go.
I told Tom, “I really don’t want to go through all the hassle
of climbing all the way down and going across the river to meet someone,
whoever he is. Does he say he
knows me?”
Tom said he had asked and the person said he didn’t know me.
So I said, “In that case, there’s no sense to it.
I’m glad you had a good time with that person, but if you’re so
energetic that you can run up and down the stairs and across the river in
this heat, back and forth, go take pictures, okay?
I’ll see what he looks like when they’re developed.”
And so Tom left to photograph the man across the river and told us
he would catch up with us on the trail.
The “saddle” this time was better than a folded burlap bag, but
it still was just a cloth pad, and my feet still had to hang down the
sides of the horse until we knotted a rolled-up shawl and I used that for
stirrups. Papa and I got on
our horses, and Louis and the girls walked alongside, and we wended our
way up. After perhaps 40 or 50 minutes Tom caught up with us.
All-in-all, strangely enough, it took us only a few hours to get to
the road at the ridge of the mountain.
When we arrived, a very kind woman came out of her hut and dipped a
bucket into a well, offering us the water to drink.
Years before, my father died of heart failure after having suffered
with typhoid fever for a year. So
I knew better than to drink well water that hadn’t been treated,
especially when it looked a little brown around the edges of the bucket.
Hot and thirsty though I was, I didn’t want to drink the water.
I also didn’t want to offend the woman offering it to me, but she
put the bucket in my hands.
Then something unexpected happened: the bucket started to slip out
of my hands, and somehow or other it spilled all over me.
That was just marvelous! Suddenly
I was all cool and the dust was being rinsed off.
So I started laughing, and she laughed and gave me another bucket.
With her permission, I threw it on Louis.
And she gave me another bucket that I threw on Tom. Then Louis and Tom threw a bucket on me and we were having a
great time. The Shuklas
didn’t get involved though.
I was surprised to see the car and driver up at the top.
I realized with great relief that now we didn’t even need to take
the bus back to the dam site!
In fact, come to think about it, we could have taken the taxi all
along the ridge in the first place! I
still don’t understand why we hadn’t been told about that road on
previous trips to the ashram.
After a few minutes, when the heat had dried out our wet clothes,
we all got into the taxi: Papa, the two girls, and the driver in the front
seat, and Louis and Tom and me in the back seat.
As crowded as we were, the car ride on the ridge was a definite
improvement over the bus—although I’m still glad we had had the chance
to show Tom what a ride on an Indian bus is like.
Everyone back in the Shukla household was a little disappointed
that we came back. Just like
everyone who ever knew Babaji, they were really hoping that He had
reappeared.
It could have been that day.
Why not?
The next day, I realized I
was out of grass to smoke so I asked Vinay if he knew where there was a
tobacco store in Haldwani that might be selling marijuana leaf that I
could purchase. He said,
“Yes, but why do you want to go to the store when it grows all around?
We have lots of it behind the sweet shop!”
And I said, “Really? Could
I have some?”
And he said, “But of course, Mama, there is an entire field of
it.”
And sure enough, that was true.
Behind Papa Shukla’s sweet shop on the main street of Haldwani,
there was a big field. And
right within sight and reach, lots of marijuana was growing!
Papa gave me a grocery-bag size plastic bag and I started pulling
off leaves and buds from the plants, stuffing them into the bag.
Tom was next to me, laughing over seeing so much pot growing
openly, when I saw a man in a soldier’s uniform coming toward us from
the far side of the field, about an American city block’s distance away.
I thought, “Oh, my God, maybe Vinay thinks that it’s legal and
I’ve been told that it’s legal, but we’re all wrong.
Why else is this man in a uniform coming toward us?”
I insisted that Tom take the bag and go put it in the car and stay
there. If this man had seen
what I was doing, at least I didn’t want Tom to be in trouble—it was
bad enough that I was going to
be in trouble.
As the man continued to come closer, Papa Shukla went across the
field to meet him, shake hands with him, and then bring him back, right
toward me.
As they came closer, the man called out to say he was Captain
Such-and-Such, and the news had gotten around town that I was an American
doctor, a college professor, visiting the Shuklas, and he wanted to meet
me! We shook hands and
exchanged small talk, then he excused himself and left.
It had nothing to do with our picking a bagful of marijuana!
I later joked about my initial apprehension with the Shuklas who
said, “But Mama, we told you it is OK.
We’re sorry you were worried.”
Vinay’s wife, Asha, and her niece and one of her daughters had
decided that they wanted to come along to New Delhi with us.
So we drove back with Asha, her daughter, her niece, and the driver
in the front seat, and Tom, Louis, and I in the back seat of the car.
On either side of the road, all along from Haldwani to New Delhi,
except for perhaps the last fifteen or twenty miles, marijuana grew!
I joked with Asha that if Indians could figure out some way of
lifting the international embargo against marijuana, they had enough there
so they could become the wealthiest country in the world again.
Several months later, back in Los Angeles, I finally found out why
my son had wanted me to go meet somebody across the river at the ashram as
we were leaving.
I was showing the slides I had photographed of Herakhan, when I
realized that I had just looked at some slides of the temples which I
didn’t recall having taken. I
also noticed that standing in front of one of the temples was a person
dressed in a long white dhoti who looked exactly like Babaji!
There were at least a dozen slides of this person who looked
identical to Babaji!!
My son came over to visit while I was showing the slides, so I had
the chance to ask him about them immediately.
“How did you take pictures of pictures of Babaji?”
I asked, thinking that that’s what Tom must have done.
“They weren’t pictures of pictures.
They were pictures I took of the person in those pictures. That’s why I wanted you to come across the river just when
we were leaving the ashram, remember?
I was taking pictures of this man who looked exactly like the
photos you have of Babaji, but since I never saw Babaji when He was still
in His body, I couldn’t be sure, and I wanted you to come over and
identify the person I was taking pictures of.”
Who was there? Babaji
or someone else?
On my first and second trips to the ashram, I used to see a young
man, in his early 20's at most, who looked very much like Babaji. I was told that sometimes Babaji joked and called that young
man His son. Was that the
young man who was there during our last trip?
Or was Babaji?
I’ll leave it to you to decide Who the pictures Tom took were of.
It has been eight years since I was last in India. It seems like yesterday.
The magic still touches me whenever I think about India and Babaji.
I’ll close this little book of reminiscences of Babaji and other
miracles by saying the words Babaji told us to say throughout the day, the
same words Puji, the Italian, said that marvel-filled day in Pallea. As he was offered the chillum, he closed his eyes, raised the
chillum to touch his forehead, and said, “Om Shiva.”
Bhole Baba Ki Jai!
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