Navina remembers her travels to and from India in the later ’70s
The first time
I read My Way the Way of the White Clouds and it touched me so much that I had to go to India – so dropped everything and immediately started the process of getting a passport and visa. When my brother found out, he was very concerned that his innocent young sister would be making that trip on her own, so he set me up with a small group of older women who were going to see Sai Baba.
I remember landing in Bombay and being overwhelmed by the masses of people and beggars. Fortunately the lady leading the group kept us all going in the right direction. Next stop was Bangalore and a visit to Sai Baba.
We got a private group meeting with Sai Baba. He went around the circle answering questions and talking to each person individually. I was last. He looked at me and said, “What are you doing here? You should go home!” And the interview was over.
The old ladies were aghast, but I knew exactly what he meant. So off to Poona I went traveling by train, crammed into a car with chickens and a goat and a whole lot of people, all of whom were very nice to me. Then, stepping inside the Gateless Gate, I knew immediately that, yes, I was home.
Back to the West
I had a standard 3-month visa, but of course stayed 3 months longer… then started the trip back to make money as a forest fire lookout for four months. I had no money left, but had an airline ticket home. A friend gifted me enough money to take the train from Poona to Bombay and get a cab to the airport.
The plane was scheduled to leave sometime late in the evening, but was delayed by several hours. So when I went through passport control it was already about 20 minutes after midnight. When the official was looking at my visa closely, I was afraid he might notice that I had physically written in the new date, but no, he looked at me and said, “Your visa is expired.”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
It turns out the date was that of the previous day, as we were now already past midnight. I told him I would willingly give him the baksheesh he wanted, but that I had no money – except for 25 cents US which my Mom had insisted I always keep in order to make a phone call.
I explained to him that it was all I had, and that he could have it if he really wanted it. Otherwise, if he wouldn’t let me leave, and since I had no money, I would have to find my way to the American Embassy, and they would be pretty pissed off at him for not letting me leave when I had a ticket. He made his stamp, waved a dismissive hand, and said, “Go!”
The flight included an overnight stay in Singapore. The hotel was included in the ticket. However, when we arrived, I found out that the bus ride to the hotel required payment. So I settled down to spend the night in the airport. One of the stewardesses saw me and asked why I hadn’t taken the bus to the hotel. When I explained it to her, she smiled, told me to wait a few minutes, then came back with tickets for the bus to and from the hotel, and also a ticket for a free breakfast at the hotel. How cool was that?
Thus I traveled halfway around the world with 25 cents in my pocket.
Back to India
Four months later, the flight to Bombay was pretty easy, and included an overnight stay in Hong Kong.
Next day our flight landed for re-fueling in Cambodia.
As we taxied in to our gate, the plane was surrounded by three military vehicles and several dozen men in khaki with machine guns at the ready. The pilot came on the intercom and assured us that we had permission to refuel and that passengers were allowed to deplane for 30 minutes, but it was highly recommended to not step away from the immediate gate area. He then attempted a joke and told us that as far as he knew, no hostages were being taken at the airport. Nobody laughed and nobody deplaned. When the plane lifted off again on our way to India, spontaneous applause erupted.
The only fun part was going through Indian customs once again. Several of my friends had requested I bring them tampons, which weren’t available in India at that time. So I had about 10 boxes of tampons in my luggage.
The customs guy opens my suitcase, sees all these boxes, grabs one, opens it and starts shaking out the tampons onto his table. Fortunately they are all individually wrapped. He starts poking one and sniffing it, while yelling loudly at me, “What is this, what is this!” as he grabs another box and dumps them out.
He is making enough noise that all the people in surrounding lines start watching and sniggering. As he continues to demand that I tell him what they are, I ask if there is a female officer available. The official says loudly, “No you must tell me now!” So I start to explain, and show him the explicit diagram on the box. He soon turns purple, turns his back, yells at me to put them away, and stamps my passport, never looking at me again.
Return to the West
A couple of years later, in the Spring of 1981, we were all packing up when we came to know that Bhagwan was leaving. My parents sent me a return ticket, but this time through Europe instead of the Orient.
My brother had wired 50 dollars to me, so I had felt rich, but in fact had very little by the time I left. After several years of love and light living in the ashram it was overwhelming to go back out into the ‘real’ world once again.
On the flight, it felt like the plane was full of gray, heavy, unhappy people. Most of that 10-hour- or-so flight to London I cried. A six-hour layover was scheduled at Heathrow.
A friend from Germany who owned a business had told me that if I ever got to Europe I should call him, so I called from Heathrow. After we talked a few minutes he suggested that I come to Germany. But I had no money. He said it was no problem, to just wait a few minutes and then go to the Lufthansa desk to pick up the ticket he would wire for me.
To get to the Lufthansa check-in desk, I had to go through English customs. Oops. I was wearing an orange robe, mala, with a shawl and flip flops. Entering the hall, I picked the guy to deal with and got into his line.
I get to his desk and he looks me up and down and asks how long I will be staying in England. I tell him that it will just be long enough to get to the Lufthansa desk to pick up a ticket to Germany.
He asks how much money I have. It’s about $20. His eyes get big and he says he can’t possibly let me in since the minimum stamp is for three days and obviously that is too long. So I’m pleading with him that all I have to do is get around the corner to Lufthansa. And maybe he could come with me to see what I do.
He says that won’t work, and throws up his arms and says, “Please give me one good reason to let you through.” So I smile and say, “Because I have a nice smile?”
He laughs and says, “OK, but please don’t screw up. I don’t want to lose my job.” After getting the ticket, I come back around and wave at him. I think it makes his day.
In Germany, my friend was so sweet and totally took care of me. He greeted me with a coat, and took me immediately to get shoes. A few days later he took me to a doctor as I had come down with post-India crud. Then I worked in his business for a few weeks to try to at least partially pay him back. After that, my boyfriend arrived from India and we started working to get him a visa to come to the US with me, since by then we knew that’s where Bhagwan had gone.
Pune 2
Fortunately my trips to and from India after the Ranch were uneventful!
In this article the place names, like Bombay, Poona and Bangalore, are kept the way they were spelled at the time. The same goes for the name Bhagwan, which is now Osho.
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