Allen Ginsberg - Indian Journals

INDIAN JOURNALS

BY ALLEN GINSBERG

Poetry

Howl and Other Poems

Kaddish and Other Poems

Empty Mirror: Early Poems

Reality Sandwiches

Angkor Wat

Planet News

Airplane Dreams

The Gates of Wrath: Rhymed Poems 19481951

The Fall of America: Poems of These States

Iron Horse

First Blues

Mind Breaths: Poems 19711976

Plutonian Ode: Poems 19771980

Collected Poems 19471980

White Shroud: Poems 19801985

Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 19861992

Prose

The Yage Letters (with William Burroughs)

Indian Journals

Gay Sunshine Interview (with Allen Young)

Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics, Consciousness (Gordon Ball, editor)

Chicago Trial Testimony, 1975

To Eberhart from Ginsberg

Journals Early Fifties Early Sixties (Gordon Ball, editor)

As Ever: Collected Correspondence Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady (Barry Gifford, editor)

Composed on the Tongue (Literary Conversations 19671977)

Straight Hearts Delight, Love Poems and Selected Letters 19471980, with Peter

Orlovsky (Winston Leyland, editor)

Howl, Original Draft Facsimile, Fully Annotated (Barry Miles, editor)

The Visions of the Great Rememberer (with Visions of Cody, Jack Kerouac)

Journals Mid-Fifties (19541958)

Photography

Photographs (Twelvetrees Press)

Snapshot Poetics (Chronicle Books)

MARCH 1962 - MAY 1963

ALLEN GINSBERG

NOTEBOOKS
DIARY
BLANK PAGES
WRITINGS

Copyright 1970 by Allen Ginsberg

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

Originally published jointly by Dave Haselwood Books and City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1970

All photographs copyright Allen Ginsberg

Printed in the United States of America

Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ginsberg, Allen, 19261997

Indian journals, March 1962May 1963 : notebooks, diary, blank pages, writings / Allen Ginsberg.

p. cm.

Originally published: San Francisco : Dave Haselwood Books, 1970.

eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9688-0

1. Ginsberg, Allen, 19261997Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc. 2. Ginsberg, Allen, 19261997JourneysIndia. 3. Poets, American20th centuryDiaries. 4. Ginsberg, Allen, 19261997Diaries. 5. IndiaDescription and travel. I. Title.

PS3513.174Z472 1996

818.5403dc20

Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Dedicated to

Maurice Frydman who said stop going around looking for Gurus, Swami Shivananda who said Your own heart is the Guru, a Mohammedan Baba in Bombay who kissed Peter Orlovsky, H. H. the Dalai Lama who asked If you take LSD can you see whats in that Briefcase? whereafter Gary Snyder chanted the Prajnaparamita Sutra in a cave at Ajanta, Sri Krishnaji disciple of Meher Baba who performed vow of perpetual silence sweetly declaring all was well without his further talk & that silence would be good for America, Asoke Fakir who led the way to Nimtallah Ghat, Swami Satyanda of Calcutta who said Be a sweet poet of the Lord, Gopinath Kaviraj who said What you are doing seems to be well, Kali Pada Guha Roy who replied to my doubt of Poesy as a discipline fit for the Void by saying Poetry is also a Saddhana & Yoga also drops before the Void, Srimata Krishnaji and Bankey Behari of Brindiban who urged Take Blake for your Guru, Dudjom Rimpoche Nyingmapa Lama in Kalimpong who sucked air through his teeth in sympathy calming my fears of LSD hallucination and advised If you see anything horrible dont cling to it if you see anything beautiful dont cling to it, the unknown Nepalese lady-saint at the Magh Mela in Allahabad 1962 who sang Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare so sweetly I remembered it thereafter, Shambhu Bharti Baba who motioned me welcome to sit and smoke Ganja with silent Abhya Mudra in the Burning Ghat at Benares, Citaram Onkar Das Thakur who advised quitting onions meat sex cigarettes in order to find a Guru by repeating the mantra Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru Guru three weeks continuously (and also said Give up desire for children,) which let to conversation on bamboo platform in Ganges with Dehorava Baba who spake Oh how wounded, how wounded! after I fought with Peter Orlovsky.

Allen Ginsberg
May 7, 1968

Dream, after week of unhappiness and mood arriving by Ship on the Shore and walking along vast boulevard by Sea, Street of Lucknow Chickens in INDIA first dream of India huge red and brown night boulevard by water, I walk alone several miles in night along ox-meat market street till I go thru fairyland gate to the Rashbehari Rich Section with modern Apartments on the Seaside a beautiful front street rich waterfront like vaster Chicago I wonder what city Im in, Im deliriously happy, its my promised land (Im writing this in the promised land) the night street has few people, I see chain of lights like Riveria hotel facade facing the ocean Im coming to a big church front at last; its the Sign Christian all India Church fantastic Door, just made for me

in concrete, like a blind one-eyed skull, with Sacred hearts in the bottom concrete declivity as I bend to kiss the S. Heart, I read the Funeral inscription Well its too bad but good-by I feel happy, it is like a sign thru death here for me the cosmic jokes come true in happy way the wonderworld where Man knows hes in a dream I pass on to a square where with big candles the bodies are on display on wooden scaffolds, covered with white sheet & guarded by Army soldiers in White Im amazed by this street display Next I realize this front Street is only the thin layer of money people, but there are great probably cheap apartments for rent here Ill settle down like Gregory in one, with my own kitchen, and a white suit, and live free Then behind these streets must be the filthy hovels Ill explore, Ill walk there tomorrow, I shiver with fear and say, The Bombay seems endless, I never realized how it would feel, first those nites of old city waterfront, then the Great All India Gate to the New City Im in now which goes on miles too heres a big hotel, I enter later & get lost in green lobby-garage Im wandering in India, its like a new earth Im happy I wake Morning in Haifa, my ass aches from a colitis or clap or Amoeba morn light time to get up soon its 6:45 light to write this prophecy by.

Visit to Delhi O Den Classic alley with broken down old Palanquin made by a street charpoy (bed wove on rough wood frame) coverd by miniature tent, with flap open and grizzled thin fellow attending two huge transvestite Eunuchs in red rags & veils who swished up to buy a spoonful and we in an adjoining foyer door, human stable, up the smooth wood ladder to loft-platform in the dark, a small shelf cubicle with the mustached serious cook crosslegged tending a flame in a bottle covered with donut holed cap spinning amber bubbles of O on the tips of iron needles, droplets lifted from a broken teaspoon of black liquid twirled over the fire, near burnt, dipt back in the spoon, twirled & bubbled again till a gnoblet drop is formed, and laid aside for use till the moment it is lifted, fired liquid, and stuck in the tiny hole of door-handled size pipe bowl Inserted with needle to fill the rim of the hole & make a miniature donut circle This held to flame again till bubbled away into smoke sucked in like choochoo train by smoker thru the doorknob & pipestem to lungs & held there deep unmixed with nostril air.