BMT & Company - Anjuna '73
Extract from a work in progress “ORIGINALLY…” .
GOA
“I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But for one brief Shining moment
That’s how conditions were”.
(apologies to Camelot)
Swarming is a natural state in organisms, be they bees or people. We all recognise the motivation of a Memorial Day march, the football crowd, the Mardi Gras Parade or the gatherers at a Khumba Mela.
By the time the nineteen-seventies were under way, we baby boomers thought we had invented swarming. We kept getting away with the most outrageous stunts, like swarming through the streets to oppose a war that our elders had initiated.
I was working in New York City, but the East was still calling… there had to be more to life than this. All winter I went down the elevator, into the subway, up the elevator and into the office in the morning, and reversed the procedure in the afternoon. Sure, I had seen the Stones at Madison Square Gardens, watched transfixed like the proverbial spot-lit rabbit at television broadcasts of the Watergate conspiracy (on every channel, all day!). A journey down to Maryland had resulted in a memorable 4th of July Beach Boy’s concert at the Washington Monument. I had hung out at McSorley’s Pub on the Lower East Side after seeing Jacques Brel’s show, drinking mugs of dark beer and munching on raw onions and crackers while the potbellied stove pumped more dust into the massive cobwebs overhead. The input seemed intense, even for a young Aussie. My plan was to go back to India. I kept hearing stories on the grapevine about some bloke who was called “Eight-Finger Eddie”, living in a place called Anjuna Beach in Goa.
One of the best things about travelling is that you can stop. I knew a mad German called Theodore in Portuguese East Timor, who had arrived from Kupang in 1970 in a leaky Zodiac accompanied by a one-eyed sea eagle with a brass neck-ring. He stopped. The concerned local cops took away his spark plug. I didn’t tell him about brave Captain Bligh’s whaleboat journey through the Pacific to Timor. The German lived for a couple of years in an old gun emplacement bunker on the beach at Dili harbour, using the sea-eagle to catch his dinner. He used to rent out floor space in the bunker to backpackers; I know, because I stayed there. The cost was thirty cents on entry; it didn’t matter how long anyone stayed.
I planned on stopping in India. The West had become overwhelming and many of us knew enough of the East to remain unintimidated. One vital requisite was a robust constitution. An interesting collection of like-minded people from all over the world ended up in the same place at the same time while trying to get away from all the other people. Swarming amongst human beings is a funny thing. I imagine the scene on the goldfields during the rush was similar.
After a circuitous route through Egypt and East Africa, picking up unwritten introductions, information and some sense of traveller’s credibility after all that time working in N.Y. Fat City, we hit Bombay.
Dipti's House of Pure Juice.
At this time the cost of living was much as it would have been in Paris in the ‘thirties’. It was the sunset of the Raj and some people lived semi-permanently in second-class colonial hotels with afternoon silver tea service delivered by what seemed to be a butler. Here I saw the last of the old colonial remittance men (all straight out of Kipling) rubbing shoulders with the first of the hippie Raj (all scripted from Mitchener’s Caravans).
Boat from Bombay to Goa.
There was a small, curiously familiar colonial coastal steamer down to the enclave of Goa. We entered Port Panjim and encountered a coastal strip of riverlands where the food was good and the old ramshackle Portuguese 17th century housing was cheap, especially in a land where it would not rain for another six months.
Mapusa Market '70s
Around the campfire - Anjuna 1973
Eight-Finger Eddy did exist. I was told the missing two fingers provided his pension. He had gathered a group around him who met at night to eat from the enormous pots of rice and vegetable subji in the surrealistic ruins of the porch that was all that remained of a mansion. There was always food. Those who could afford it rented the whitewashed houses along the palm-scattered beachfront. Those who could not, built huts from woven palm leaves.
A community developed that was not based on any sect, but rather on a mutual unspoken decision to encourage harmony. We all knew that it could not last. Surprisingly, the core of that community did exist for some years. It was inspiring to return after what seemed a lifetime away on some other adventure and find the spirit still living amongst those most transient of peoples.
Anjuna Beach Bums 1973
One of the major factors in the Goan experience was the democracy. It was a subtle socialism, so many people lived in a scattered village of a few square kilometres. No one owned property; they were tenants under a benign system where $35 a month paid the rent and some help from the Goan family, who continued to live in the rear rooms of the house. The floors were sealed with dried cowshit mud, the pigs ate the refuse, no-one had electricity, but everyone was cool.
Mama de Mello's pig.
As I said, these were a curious bunch of travellers. A number of the Americans were like Sadhu J., still probably officially a draft-dodger in America. Sadhu J. had been in India so long he lived on a few rupees a day and ritually never slept twice in the same place. I doubt if he ever went home. In the group were Algerians and Argentinians, people from California and both Carnarvon’s and all three Aberdeen’s. Many of the couples were cross-cultural marriages; misfits in both societies.
Rapidly an almost medieval image developed. Exhibiting perfect post-harvest behaviour, people seemed to reach back to comfortable memories of a common past where to spend a morning flirting with a pretty girl at the local well while drawing the day’s water was a fine and honest thing to do.
Franny and Freddie.
“It is a dance we do in silence, far beyond this morning’s sun
You in your life, me in mine, we have begun.
Here we stand and without speaking draw the water from the well
And stare beyond the fields to where the mountains stand so still.
And it’s a long way that I have come, across the sand,
To find this peace amongst your people in the sun,
Where the families work the land, as they have always done,
Well, it’s so far the other way my country’s gone.”
“Lady of the Well”, by Jackson Browne, sung often on Anjuna Beach in the early 1970s by Franny & Freddie. (I still have their cassette tape, recorded in Bombay).
At evening the fires spotted through the glades illuminating the small white houses, made a view evocative of timeless rural Europe. At Christmas the candlelit Catholic, Portuguese, Christian altars at every crossroads seemed to compound the view.
Portugese House - Anjuna c1974
The communal meal at Eddys’ Porch was a focus, even for those who cooked in their own homes. Afterwards there was music with guitars, drums and an open fire, with stories told late into the night, and more music.
That is not to say that everything was peachy. There were intrigues and infidelities, disappointments and mundanities; hygiene was questionable, and yet healthy children were born. So long as most were fed and housed there was a dogged obsession with continuing the experiment. Of course everyone knew that it couldn’t last, but so long as it did no-one wanted to upset the balance. Surprising changes occurred in people. A quiet dormouse became quietly confident as her role developed within the community. Strangers began to trust, opening up to talk about what really mattered to them.
At the time I copied Aldous Huxley’s words from ‘Island’ into my journal….
“No Alcatrazes here.” She said. “No Billy Grahams or Mao Tse-tungs, or Madonnas of Fatima. No hells on Earth and no Christian Pie In the Sky, no Communist pie in the twenty-second century. Just men and women and their children trying to make the best of the here and now, instead of living somewhere else as you people mostly do, in some other time, in some other home-made imaginary universe. And it really isn’t your fault. You’re compelled to live that way because the present is so frustrating. And it’s frustrating because you’ve never been taught to bridge the gap between theory and practice, between your New Year’s resolutions and your actual behaviour”.
“For the good that I would” he quoted, “I do not, And the evil that I would not, that I do.” ”
Freak Family - Goa 1974
It didn’t last. Time has a way of moving on. The moneyed drifters started to arrive, and then the electricity was connected to the beach. In came new swarms; the gays, then the jet-set, the dealers and the drug money.
At breakfast one morning I saw Allejandro, our two-metre Spanish version of Hanuman the Indian Monkey God, wearing half a kilo of silver wire wrapped around each bicep. He was arguing with a fierce gang of new arrivals, tough Geordies from Newcastle in the U.K. One of them suddenly pulled a gun. I was close enough to see the pearl handle. Allejandro simply stood there with his hands on his hips and mocking eyes. The gun misfired. Allejandro laughed, spat at the English boy’s feet and walked away chuckling. He knew how lucky he had been.
I knew something too. It was time to move on. Materialism was replacing the magic.
The self-elected “Mayor” of the community published his declaration…
Bombay Brian - 1977
November, 1977
Goa
Theme:
Goodbye paradise,
Hello Coney Island,
Enter the Dragon.
AN OPEN LETTER TO EVERYONE
Due to the general, steady trend of degeneration in the quality of personalities as well as the overall environment over the last 3 years, I Bombay Brian do declare the Hippy Raj is DEAD !
Anybody, who should happen to think or say that the “Goa Scene” is anything but a “Amateur Nightmare Hot Bed Lunatic Asylum” are themselves Bogus and really don’t know any better, don’t count and deserve what they get or ask for…….!
Any scene, that is run by untalented, unenlightened “3rd rate goons” is not worth its while and should be avoided by the wise….!
Anybody, that thinks or even hopes that “New Faces” will produce a Renaissance of new or different tricks and attractions are mistaken… The “good old days” are gone and will not return. Everyone is “chasing” or trying to duplicate 1974, which is impossible, especially under the present conditions.
Anyone, who tolerates this “jive nonsense” that prevails in Goa is a Loser….!
Many of these “goons” believe that the only problems in Goa are:
1) More and new electronic equipment and gadgets are required.
2) A “New Location” for the Garbage Bazar (Flea Market) is needed.
I personally can assure you that when Goa was the “ Highest and Hippiest” scene in the world, that neither of these two nefarious activities were present or active.
Some morons call this “Progress” but in actuality, it is Destruction…..! That is, destruction of the “Status Quo”…! And that status quo was what made up the Raj…!
Some people are so uninspired, they don’t like the night, and they can’t see the light of day.
Thank you and Good-Bye,
Bombay Brian Esq.
P.S:-
Who will clean the beach now? Maybe someone will import from Hong Kong an automatic beach cleaner, that will sift through the sand and suck up all that toilet paper, food wrappers, tin cans and old newspapers, etc. that constitute the make-up of Anjuna Beach.
B.B.
I tell the story to illustrate that there ARE shining moments in life and the world and that evil is only part of the equation. For a while these people had found a refuge when it was needed. For a place where nothing material had been created, so many people still talk of what they have learnt from the Goa experience.
Blond Peter – still reading at the Well!
Peter Thomas lives in Nambucca Heads, a most beautiful rural part of Australia & works selling rare books & photos when he is not watching whales or dolphins or living a family life.
this story is copyright peter thomas 2011.
Thanks for publishing this! It was a great read and brought back memories of my own travels thru India & the Far East.
I love how personal the article is and how it is accompanied by Peter’s photos and the quotes & comments.
Many thanks to you and to Peter!
John
Heh, hey. Yes, I was there.
I was there on Eddie’s porch in the early seventies.
I was there when the flea market was first conceived.
I was there, on that beach, at sunset, when the bright red sun dipped into the Arabian Sea.
Peter’s article is true, although it must be noted that there were circles and circles within circles. There were those who were well-known amongst everyone, like Sadhu Tom, Sadhu George, Bombay Brian, Amsterdam Dave et al.
…and there were those who were unknown, living small lives in the peace and harmony on the edges of the society of which Peter speaks. No-one ever speaks of this side of Goa.
I lived straddling these two worlds. I knew the ‘names’ and I knew and hung out with many of the quiet, often poverty-struck, often highly spiritual men, women and families on the edges of that society.
It was a great and wonderful time – a time of magic… and we knew it, even then, though, for us, it was just life as we lived it.
Ray,
What perceptive comments.
I agree with you about those in the circles and those who kept out of the spotlight.
I also moved between the circles and the periphery, as most did, the time was fluid and the circles were too. It was the fluidity that attracted me originally.
There was a man in an Arambol hut who was in retreat, drawing a Rolling Stones record cover. There were some who frequented the Feni bars at the inland crossroads beyond the rice-fields. There were those in Dr Kaushik’s Ashram in South Anjuna – I wonder who recalls his talks?
Even to walk 10 metres back from the Beach music at full moon was to find small houses and groups of people with a different muse.
It was the diversity that made it work, a day’s wanderings could present a dozen new scenarios, including solitude.
I am so pleased that we shared the magic, and that we have not forgotten. I wonder how many more stories there are, away from the spotlight?
LOVE LOVE LOVE♥☆*♥¸.•*¨`*• ·¨*♪ ♫ •.☆ ♥ ♥ ♥
Very well written look back at a unique time and place!
I also was among the fortunate few hundred who lived on Anjuna Beach the winter of ’74/’75! Those daze were filled with beach culture, shopping for necessities, wandering around, socializing, sharing, full-moon parties, lots of hash and LSD, fabulous times and near total FREEDOM! It was sort of what BURNING MAN originally aspired to be…
I have been back to Anjuna a few times over the years since 1974, mostly to see long-time friends, like Eddy(RIP), Vidal(RIP), Tiki, Gil, etc.
No doubt, Anjuna is nowhere near as idyllic anymore, Anjuna back then was truly the “hippie paradise”, especially for this, then young, man from Berkeley/San Francisco, the prime and original, hippie breeding ground. What fun we had!
I am not so sure that first picture is me but it don’t matter I like being that skinny, there was before the flea market and after the flea market, I was there for both, I remember more of the before than the after and that’s the way I like it and the circles in the circles.
spin out of one spin into another three or more days later spin out again back to your porch, house or hut, go make the rounds a couple of bongs here, a pipe or two or three over there, late in the season when most people had left the quite time of the year into late May early June, nice article and a great comment by B.B. Cruz My friend Bombay Brian
IS that Lenny Bruce in the freak family picture? Bottom right bad photo shop…Peace and Love, never forget it
it is not from early Goa but when Goa started to change
notice printed by Gowt.Press Panaji-Goa – 11/1981
DOS AND DONT FOR FOREIGNERS
You are advised as the following in the general interest of all including your welfare during your visit to Goa
1 Do not keep your valuable unattended during your stay at
the beaches.
2 Do not get induced by drugs and inform us in confidence about the drugs, if contacted and requested. The information etc. will be kept secret.
3 Follow traffic rules strictly. Do not ride on the motorcycle fast and use helmets while on the motorcycle.Your motorcycle is meant only for two pesons and not more than that. Keep your valid documents, driving licence, passports, etc. in your possession while driving motorcycle or any vehicle.
4 Kindly approach nearest Police Station on Panaji Police Station telephone 4642 or Police Control Room telephone No,3400 if you have any immediate problems to be solved
5 Check your visa and expire date of the same well in advance
6 Do not move stark naked on the beaches
7 Do not keep your passport in the custody of undesirable people
8 Do not tamper with writing on your passport, visa etc., as it amounts to offence under the law of this land.
I too have fond memories, Bombay to Goa and back, weaving in and out of many scenes, and stories with precious memories amongst which I treasured an ephemeris given most generously by yours truly.
And who thought that I would end up living in Australia then? We still have it, my mother and I used it frequently. Now with digital tables it sits on the bookshelf.
All the best, and love Noorel
Been there in Goa, on the road to the Resort in Vagatore, lived in a shabby compound, 3-4 small units, no water, no mains – life was different from now. I returned to Goa since for about 20 seasons or so and:: I still like it!
BoM!
Daniel
Yeah, me too! Me too! I was there, too! Only in Baga, you know. We were considered “bourgeois” compared to the scene in Anjuna. And I used to think that the Anjuna people were racist and pains in the ass.
Things are still the same after 30 years. None of the old expats will set foot in Baga as it is “ruined.” Just spent two months and rented a room from Ulysses my old ayah’s son. The beach is built up from Baga river to Fort Aguada with beach shacks. It is full of British package tourists and Russians and Indian tourists. There are big container ships on the horizon waiting to dock in Margao. There are parasails and fishing boats up closer. On the beach there are Karnatakan girls selling manicures and beads. There are hundreds and hundreds of sun beds and massage wallahs.
I loved it! The fishermen who used to be DIRT poor now all have cell phones, businesses and laptops. Who am I to say anything. Just hope they figure out the plastic bag issue.
Becky Lee
I think we are all (practically the whole world in fact) still learning from the Goa experience and as Rebecca said, It is still there and still beautiful and magical, although just as the rest of the world, it has been and will be changed.
What about those who didn’t give up and continued living there or the fact that now you can meet third generation free spirit kids on the beaches who call Goa home and are still living the dream.
The magic never dies…..
thanks so much for this article . keep it up . and thank you tarot ray for the t-shirts from the OLD DAYS . wish i still had some of the ones i bought from you . rock and roll
So proud of my husband / partner in life – such an evocative picture told of a precious period in time. xx
Will written Peter! As for myself I can just say I have wonderful memories of Goa in Baga beach, sitting in a small house, no electricity and cooking Indian food with one stove, with kerosene for cooking gas.
Guess who was my first dinner guest, Bombay Brian, Eight Finger Eddy and Blind George and of course Jeffrey Robinson! It was 1970.
That time you can just lie down and see the beautiful stars and no noise and no electricity! Sometimes I wish to turn the clock back and all the wonderful parties that we gave! Those memories will always be there.
Of course everything has changed to the worst, the whole world has changed. We have to be thankful that we were able to have the opportunity to be able to go to Goa or India for so many years and I am still coming here, there will always be plus and minus in any place in this planet!
India has done wonderful for all of us and we must cherish that and not always thinking about negative things – you have to go with the time. I can just say I grateful that we can still come here to Goa. At least for now and we only live day by day! Thank you again Peter for the story. Tiki
Thanks for the look back of an incredible 12 years of my adventurous insane time of life
First arriving in early January of 1968, I thought “what a marvel”.. Mary Oberne strumming guitar around a friendly fire and Eddy doing his finger dance, while naked we strolled the Garden of Eden.
Two years later the number swollen from fifty to five hundred… five hundred INTERESTING people though … I found it bordering on anonymity.
One year later five thousand (or so it seemed) and so many strung out on being hipper than thou, lots of nasty drugs, I had no clue it would get even larger and slicker and eventually end up co-opted by our own home grown capitalists.
I remember there was a curse laid on Adam and Eve…if they yielded to the forbidden fruit they would have Eden taken away from them … I guess it really is a very old story after all.
Very well written, Peter, and very right on. Specially what you say about us thinking it could not last. This is probably the main reason we enjoyed ourselves so much.
This feeling for me lasted many years and I could not even think about missing out on any time from september to april of every year. It was only when the Panjim bridge collapsed, just as tourists were starting to invade our paradise, and that we got a five-year reprieve,that I knew for sure that the universe was working our way.
In the photo of the Bombay to Goa boat, I think it is one of the rare photos of Blue.
Love to you, brother
I was lucky to be a kid in Goa back in early 1971 when I was only 7 years old. Me and my mother lived in Calangute for a few months until we heard how all the “cool” people were in a place called Anjuna.
Paul, Alehandro, Eddie and others were an early influence for me and although I went back to the states to live with my dad for a couple of years, my mother came & brought me back to live in Anjuna for another 3 years until she passed away and I had to go back to the states for good to live with my dad.
I was lucky to live in South Anjuna from 1973 to 1977 and continue my friendships with some great people like Eddie and met more great friends like Jack, Tom, George, Dave, Xavier, Alan, Joanne, Laura etc. I missed these friends over the years as I assimilated back into western culture and almost forgot my hippie kid years.
I am so lucky to have gotten to go back and visit some of my friends and be back “home” where despite having cops on moter bikes chasing me yelling “what is your problem” and non-stop para-sailing on Baga hill and the rest of it all, it is still home and still magical.
Thank you Peter for the great article. Ommmmmm
mathiew are you Steevi’s son?
I turned 20 at the end of 1968 in Goa it was a magical place time and people !!!!! The boat ride from Bombay was the only way to travel and arriving in Panjim was so exotic It became my winter residence for many years I ‘m an old women now and so grateful to have been priviledged to live in such a beautiful place !One thing about the Hippies we knew how to spot “paradise” before anyone we had good taste!!!
I’ve arrived on the first pic in article, so to say, what we called “indian village”, wigwams, shacks of all sizes….so many names…so much experiences… I HAD to stay there EVERY New Year 74-78.
Best part of my life. This is only beginning now…all kinds of witnesed memoria comin out..not to be lost. No Holliwood scripter could possibly invent some of these amazing true life stories….and to me, song still goes on… I am waiting for my man, 26$ in my hand…..
Great story Peter! I read it already a while back, but my connection then was too slow to leave a comment. Reread it now. I am looking forward to your book, and I hope to see you in Goa some day. We would love to offer you food and shelter
Thanks for all the comments, it is great to see that the essay has touched a nerve.
I sent an enhanced photo to BMT and he is warming to the idea that it is him in front of the “Indian Village wigwams” – hey, I remember taking the picture ! Thanks BMT for spotting Lenny Bruce in the bad photoshop – I didn’t have a photo of 8 Finger Eddie and it seemed appropriate.
@ Noorel: hi! it’s great you still have the ephemeris.
@ Jacques: Great to re-connect – I have more pictures of Blue and will post them on theflowerraj as an album soon.
@ Ninoslav and Matthew: a Goa Kid and a veteran -honoured
@ Oystein, thank you for the offer, which I might take up in 2012 – can’t wait !.
@ Paul G: what a great observation – of course it is The Old Story – we were trying “to get ourselves Back in the Garden” (Crosby, Stills & Nash). I have warm memories of Mary OBerne and mother Maji.
(p.s. There is more on this theme on:
http://psychedelicadventure.blogspot.com/2008/11/goa-is-state-of-mind.html )
Unfortunately, Blond Peter’s story about Goa has some inaccuracies. It should have been edited and “proofread” before publishing it on the Flower Raj.
I previously mentioned this to Nico and thought he would pass this on to Peter for corrections. One point of contention is: I was the only one who said, “It would not last”! Most people thought it would last forever! How naive! Actually it was finished by 1975. The heyday was 1972…! After that it went quickly down hill ! I was the first and only one who said it is over and I gave up my house on the beach and left. It went from Anjuna Beach, to “Angina Beach” to what it is now, “Goonball Beach” ! In all reality, India as a whole was finished for the Hippies by 1980. There are still some people who think it is OK and go back to “Goona” every year or live there semi-permanently but that is because they are “brain dead” and have been in India too long.
They really do not have a clue and are “afraid” to look for a new home or another place that is not soooo commercialized and filthy dirty. The Goans allowed this to happen and they went from nice “laid back” people to the greediest A-Holes in India. Tragic but True!
I moved on and made another life for myself. If I can do that anyone can. Well, maybe not ?!? Om Shanti, Bb
Small Correction! The Heyday for Goa (Anjuna Beach) was from 1971-1973.
There were still a few decent yrs. left before the “Hippy Raj” as I called it, collapsed! But collapsed it did and today you would not recognize the place. I still say, the first nail in the Goona cross was that awful, “Flea Market”! The concept of a Flea Market is sooo “Un-India” they would never have come up with this idea on their own.
Today, it is the major attraction of “Goonball” Beach. It produces a mile (kilometer) of backed-up traffic and pollution on the single narrow road to the end of that beach. What a mess and a horrible scene now!
Paradise Lost…! Bb
Lovely bit of writing/remembering!
Such great comments, including input from Brian ! It is wonderful to see that he has retained his edge, salaam to the creator of the term “Hippie Raj”.
In my travels I have discovered that members of the Goa tribe have found new places, new worlds to discover, as they discovered Goa.
The philosophy continues wherever they are – many members of the tribe have established colonies all over the world that survive and grow with strength and individuality.
The spirit lives on in hundreds of places around the world, in thousands of minds and hearts. They do not miss the past or regret that it has gone. It hasn’t, the spirit is still with them !
(Some would say……how else do you think they first came to planet Earth ?)
Hi Peter,
I found out about the Franny/Freddy/Jeremy recordings from mutual friends in India. It was Franny that brought me to Anjuna – and those recordings brought it all back to me. It was a life that just happened to me. One day I was in London, becoming a dancer, and the next twenty years, I spent in Goa. Franny was my first love.
There is a dance we do in silence
Far below the morning sun
You in Your life
Me in mine
We have begun
And here we standing without speaking
Draw the water from the well
And stare beyond the plains
To where the mountains lie so still
Thank you for sharing the FlowerRaj days….
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has sown
Go on ahead and grow some seeds of your own
There were dancers
And then there were ‘the dancers’
Jacques Lasry danced like a sufi, in those white robes he used to wear, he seemed a man possessed by a devine force, even when he wasn’t tripped out, and his eyes sparkled with light, and laughter.
(Excerpts from my script)
Greetings to you all! Great stuff! Thank you. Would like to add my geriatric questions/comments. Is Blue still alive? Did he survive jail, I was not allowed to bring him oranges the last time I tried in ’77. Glad to hear you are still alive and kicking, Brian (Marines still salute Gurkha officers, don’t they?).
If the Buddha’s and Hindu teaching are correct, things change and so much the better. So, I don’t agree with you, Brian. Things change in the material world but not so easily in our heads, we are still probably the same eternal optimists, and live our dreams in other places, spaces.
Congratulations to all of you who survived, what good fortune we enjoyed to have experienced those times of love and unity, they are still there for those who care.
Bom Shankar
I live in Mill Valley now just 15 minutes north of San Francisco and from my deck I can look across miles of redwood trees to the bay and the boats , the bridges and San Francisco herself. Its not Goa but I have a sense of peace and fulfilment nevertheless.
We can not go back to those old gardens of long ago. I have a new garden filled with roses and rows of delicious veggies. I’m not 27, I’m 67 and in the secret places of the heart is found what we have always been looking for, beauty, love, understanding, sharing, growing wisdom and hopefully the peace that surpasses all understanding.
Tonight I will raise my glass of rich, red wine to all my fellow travelers, some still here and some who live only in our memories. I drink to our youth … weren’t we beautiful … I drink to our future … may it be free of pain … and may we one day reclaim our beautiful garden. paulguerin@yahoo.com
I Lived in Anjuna from 70-81 and it was great all of these years.
It turned downward in 82-83 when electricity came to our village. This was the start of the downward trend… It was a lot cooler using car batteries, candles and oil lamps then electricity and if you were of the high class your house kitchen had a well outside your kitchen window…
Such a great time…
Like your article Ray and thanks for everything, now when I am much older I understand and see things different.
Yes, I love Goa; we heads, freaks, did not discover Goa, we just came there before tourists and made our paradise and coexist with Goanis.
The greatest characters I saw in Goa Like Johny Cairo, Alehandro, Paco, Poker Klaus and many other that been around every season.
I have a memory of the stage and Anjuna R ‘n R band, music in the air while we dance or exchange and share charas and Acid, not sleeping for days around New Yea, being too high to care about our bodies.
Remember John Mills playing tapes, Eight Finger Eddie dancing until the morning, and cleaning the beach after parties. Beach was clean, we had no electricity but candles were OK, wow pig toilet was great.
Now we have plastic that is all over the fields, Calangute tourists (They have rights too), Rich kids from rock aristocracy and why not? As my friend Nino said Party still goes on and in old days I’m still waiting for my man with 26$ in my hand and what about movie – nah no actor could play Goa characters necause they been or still are larger than life.
By the way I still hear the sea waves whispering Eight Finger Eddie’s name and the beat goes on in a global chain of magic places from Amsterdam to Phnom Penh or Laos via Goa. LOL brother travellers.
Such great comments.
I encourage anyone who remembers Franny & Freddie to listen to the audio digital posting of the original album recorded in Bombay in 1974 and just posted on this Flowerraj site in the “MUSIC” section.
I have been carrying this cassette for 37 years, I hope you enjoy it !
Thanks to LP Rvivalists in Sydney for the conversion and Nico at Flowerraj for the posting liason.
And it is here:
http://theflowerraj.org/audio/fb1/frankie-boy-tapes-2.php
Love & Peace & Rock ‘n Roll!
All things must change… but we are still here and there and in the spaces in between.
Peace and love
Very interesting! When did the Goa scene start? I first set off for India with 5 quid in 1965 and didn’t arrive till that wonderful summer of ’67 but didn’t arrive in Goa until 42 years later!
I did meet Eddie on the houseboat in Benares when I first arrived but don’t recall him mentioning Goa at the time.
I spent the winter in northern India, Rishikesh, Bijnor, Kasmir, Benares, Bareilly, and when I heard there were 10,000 tripping hippies in Goa all partying on the beach, being an unsociable bastard I decided, counterintuitively, that it was time to “escape to Pakistan”, where I spent the next 10 years in the Northwest Frontier – and never regretted it!
Nice one Sean…
I also departed UK Spring 1965 & worked in a Copenhagen soap factory to get a few paise together to head East.
Lived in India until April 1970 & never got to Goa until late 1969, I was such an arrogant kid, thought the hippies were lazy bums & had burnt our nice Sanskrit scene down…
I’ve revised my opinion in the intervening decades, especially after contributions like this one from Peter Thomas (Blond Peter). The Goa scene may have been hedonistic but might be none the worse for that. Some of the kidz of the oldest inhabitants are great too, born there, still live there, speak Konkani & Hindi, love the country & now have their own children they are bringing up in Goa.
After fomenting revolution for several years in the UK in the early sixties and with the help of the Beatles, turning loads of people on with psychedelics, I saw things were really beginning to take off, the job was done, society was ablaze with revolution. I decided it was time to quit and head for India to seek my spiritual roots there. As it were. And … to escape from the excesses of UK scene … so when the trickle of intrepid overlanders became a torrent of exuberant hippies insensible to the local culture I was, in a way, very happy to see my revolutionary efforts (and those of my mentors and collaborators) were so successfully bearing fruit. The great sixties enlightenment and wholesale rejection of materialism and conventional morality were arising in people everywhere. But it was time for me to move on again, so many were already falling by the wayside and so having got my fill of being with the Saddhus and chillum Hinduism for western hippies I felt the call of the Muslim lands to the northwest where a man was a man, you were accepted and respected as an equal even if you had nothing worth ripping off and where the air was cool and the charas fresh, just something new. The call of the hills. It was the spring of ’68, I fled from the burgeoning heat of the plains to head for the wild frontier and the high mountains of Chitral. The begging was different, you never need to beg in Pakistan – people offer you food, chai and charpoi before you can ask. But maybe I’m getting too off-message here, I just dropped in to ask when the Goa scene first began. In the winter of 67/68 I heard there were already 10,000 hippies there partying over Christmas and new year. It was karma that this just put me off. It seemed like more of what I’d come to India to escape from. And my best friend and mentor Kevin Rigby was getting back into junk on the roof of the Crown Hotel in Chandni Chowk. Escaping to Pakistan actually made me, I never had to beg again for the rest of my life. Up till now, anyway. So far so good. So, where should I post my shit? And what would you like to hear about? It all seems so pathetic to me.
I only came to Goa in 1969 after four years elsewhere in India; that winter there were no more than at the most 500 “hippies” “travellers” and we all lived South of the Baga River on Calangute & Baga.
But really others like Rebecca (Dolma, Mary Oberne’s daughter) who was born there in 1969 and still lives sometimes in the house where she was born, she would know.
That sounds more reasonable. Ten thousand sounded way too many. When we got there in India the beats and the freaks were few and far between. In Benares there were just 8 or 10, all on Eddie’s houseboat with the Mataji to show us the ropes. I contributed my piece of Afghan hash and she whacked it into two with her cleaver and made up cillums on the spot with a most impressive ritual. I think I first heard the label’hippie’ later on in Haridwar or Rishikesh when the Beatles turned up at Maharesh Yogi’s late in 1967 or was it early ’68? I remember going to Delhi for mail at the GPO Poste Restante and finding there was a sudden flood of uncool newcomers scandalising the populous and getting us all a bad name. When the cops started doing spot searches in the streets of Delhi, it was time to go. In Pakistan they’d haul you into the police station for chai and a joint.
I also was with Mata Dharam Das (“Mataji”) on Ganga Mai at burning ghat (Manikarnika) & then houseboat, winter/spring 66/67. She taught me a lot. We met Richard Alpert (pre Ram Dass) and David Padwa on the boat; she took one look at him and screamed “LSD WALLAH!!!”
She’d heard about acid from Jasper (Ram Giri); here are some photos of her:-
http://photos.theflowerraj.org/v/people/in_memoriam/mata_dharam_dasi/Mataji2.jpg.html
http://photos.theflowerraj.org/v/people/in_memoriam/jasper_newsome/personal_photos/Mata-Dharam-Dasi-Family-India-60s-1.png.html
http://photos.theflowerraj.org/v/collections/coll_michael_mann/
Jai Mataji, rest in peace, Hari Om Tat Sat.
My mom and Eddie were the first two “hippies” (I put quotation marks because the word hippie I don’t think had been coined yet). They got here early in ’66 & by ’67 there may have been a handful of freaks (as they called themselves) living in Colva (South Goa). In ’67 mom & Eddie moved North. Him to Anjuna and her to Baga. Even at that point there were maybe 10-15 in ’69 when I was born; mom said there may have been 20-30 people here. 1971 was when people really started to arrive. By ’73 I would say maybe 500 but it was still small enough a scene that even if you did not “know” the person you knew their face.
So you see Sean you should never listen to other peoples bullshit! You could have come to Goa back then and seen a place with mostly local people and a beautiful paradise of white sand beaches fringed in palm. Oh well!!
I still love it here! Dominos pizza and all!! I am sure the day I was born (Jan 1969) someone said to me “you should have come yesterday! Goa is finished now”.
I love my India! Jai Hind!!!
Thanks Rebecca, it’s good to hear the truth at last. Nevertheless, I’m glad I went where I did, I always prefer the mountains to the beaches, Tibet, Nepal, Afghanistan and Swat. Even so I enjoyed Goa when I finally made it 3 years ago, I met Eddie once again and we all had a great time. I’m planning on visiting South India this coming November, are the beaches good at that time? Where would you recommend? My friends here say Gokarn, to the south of Goa is a good place to chill these days.
Ah, Jasper! I bumped into him and Ganesh Baba a few times in the winter of 67/68, and went to Temple Alaknath in Bareilly for a spell, but in the end it wasn’t my cup of tea.
You always find what you need to, what you seek, in Mother India and I never regretted hitting the road to get there in ’65. So grateful! and I always love to go back.
“Where are you going, mister?”
“I am going by this road ….”
Thanks, Nico, just saw you post about Mataji, and the photos, the first image I’ve seen of her when I hit the houseboat in August 1967.
I’m so happy to see her again! She has stayed with me every since those few days I spent there after arriving in India as a raw recruit, for the first time. I’ll never forget the aplomb with which she ran that houseboat with Eddie as her right hand man.
I had a piece of Afghan hash which I offered up to Eddie since they only had ganga to smoke. He handed it to her. She held it up and appraised it critically, then put it on a block of wood and smote it in two with a hand-held cleaver with a curved blade. She figured it would make two chillums. The chillum she placed on a primus stove burner with a hot flame until it glowed red hot. Meanwhile breaking up the hash and mixing it with tobacco and/or ganga. When the chillum cooled down after being burned out, she tied a long thin piece of cloth around her big toe and reamed the chillum on it, up and down to polish the purified inside wall. I still remember it to this day. The I was showed, after it was filled up, a burning coconut fuse applied and a safi wrapped around the lower end, how to hold it between my fingers and take a big draw, blowing out a long tube of smoke.
The we had a whip-round to buy food in the bazaar and coo dinner. She was cool as a cucumber, that Mataji. After heading back to Delhi I never saw her again.
Thanks also for the clues I’ve found here to Australian John (MacInerny). He also took me under his wing in Delhi and showed me the ropes of survival in India. I had a few rupees still to buy food and he turned me on to chapattis and dhal, 25p extra for dhal fry, one anna per chappati, you could eat well for four annas with the free dhal. He showed me around in Delhi and again, I never saw him again and often wondered what happened to him.
After that I stayed in Rishikesh, Haridwar, met Jasper there with Ganesh Baba, then got into a trip in Delhi signing traveller cheques that had been stolen or sold unsigned. After getting chased out of the Red Fort at knife point I quit and escaped to Kashmir, which led me to go back to Teheran, where I bumped into my original travelling companion Kevin Rigby, from whom I’d been separated 6 months earlier crossing illegally from Germany to Austria at Salzburg, where I was jailed for having no passport and deported.
We headed back to india again to complete the journey, but I didn’t meet any of those guys again for ten years, when I bumped into Eddie sitting on the bus to my place it Swat. He stayed with me in Madyan for a month with his girlfriend, forget her name, it was easter 1977, it was the last time I saw him till I finally made it to Goa and Anjuna in 2009. My wife and I had dinner with him and met Jesse Edwards, one time styled ‘the Mayor of Kabul’ who has now settled not far from where we live in the South of France but that’s another story.
So thanks again for the memories of the Mataji, and Australian John.
Sorry! Sean! I don’t know south Indian beaches to well. My memory is loads of human shit! But things must have changed a bit even down there(giggle)!
I love the photo of my auntie Blue on the Bombay boat! He is one of my all time favorite aunties! Thanks for so many good memories Nico!