Jivan Kavya’s (Eva Wells) life story in a film, part of the Campfire Stories, released last night
Eva grows up in a school system that cannot see her restless intelligence or make room for her unruly imagination.
Eva is 17 as the first United Nations Conference on Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1972. The city is filled with activists, protesters and utopian energy. A temporary hippie settlement appears on an airfield field a ten-minute walk from Eva’s home, where she finds “her people” and meets her future husband and father of their son Pramada. Graham invites her to Amsterdam. There the Yes Bus is converted into a home to go East, via Afghanistan to Goa. Eva’s old dream of India sets her off on an unusual trajectory. She lives with her husband, and gives birth in New Delhi. They are immersed in hippie life, consisting of full moon parties, flea markets in Goa and trading goods. Most hippies spend winters in Goa and summers in Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Eva, however, is searching for something more sustainable and spiritual. In 1977 she hears of the Osho Ashram in Pune, India, and is drawn to a more meaningful life. In 1981 she becomes part of the movement’s relocation to Rajneeshpuram in Oregon – an ambitious social experiment where a city is built from scratch and a barren landscape brought back to life, even as deep tensions grow between the community and the people living in the surrounding area.
Today Eva is 70, and she works as an artist, sculptor and a sustainable fashion designer. The longing for deeper meaning that made her join the Yes Bus all those years ago still moves through everything she makes; clothes sewn with care, artworks shaped through experimentation, and relationships built through engagement.
The word “hippie” may carry dismissive echoes, but in Eva’s life it stands for a way of being – bringing peace, beauty and love into the world – something we need more than ever.
campfire-stories.org – youtube.com/@campfire-stories – patreon.com/cw/mattiasolsson
facebook.com/bywells – instagram.com/eva__wells
Related articles
- To be a pensioner in your own way – An article by Anna-Maria Stawreberg in the Swedish Femina featuring also Eva Wells (Jivan Kavya)
- Sitting silently, doing nothing… – Thoughts and photos of her creativity from Jivan Kavya
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