55th Rishikesh India Reunion

From January to April 1970, Olga Campbell, David Cox, Gordie Hamilton, and I traveled to Rishikesh, India, to attend a teacher training course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his ashram in Rishikesh, on the banks of the Ganges River in the foothills of the Himalayas. 

Last week we celebrated our 55th Anniversary of that wondrous TTC. Back then, it was as unchanged and ancient as it had been for 10,000 years. 

The moment we breathed our first Indian air, we intuitively related to the explosion of scents and colour and sound: the saris and turbans, the reds and oranges and whites, the chapatis & dhal, the smell of a thousand spices and a billon bodies churning the noisy air; the cows and carts and sound: the saris and the turbans,

the reds and oranges and whites, the chapatis & dhal, the smell of a thousand spices and a billon bodies churning the noisy air; the cows and carts and bicycles and rickshaws and cars and psychedelic lorries and brimming, belching diesel buses, all erratically competing for space in the narrow, shop-lined roads; the palm trees, the endless crowds, and in the background, the mystical music of sitars and tablas and agreeable chatter of Indian languages.

We went native, wore dhotis, drank chai and sugar-cane juice from street vendors, ate with our hands, crammed into creaky taxis with ten passengers galloping down drunken roads with no lines…It all felt major Deja-vu, as though we'd time-tunneled back to the Old Testament — like a Vedic Marty McFly. 

Made us believe in reincarnation. We were home, in love, wearing big grins, under the magnificent mayhem of the irresistible Indian sun.

~ John