Sign-In
Cart
India: : A Love Story
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781734620009
Publisher: Dancing Elk Press
Published: Jun 28 2020
Pages: 350
Weight: 1.13
Height: 0.78 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
I'm riding a late-night taxi through the streets of Bombay, sidewalks littered with hundreds of bodies, all the way to the curb. This must be some kind of plague, but nobody told me. Deep down, I'm possessed, despite my fear. So begins my love story with India.
This narrative records the complex, sometimes funny, sometimes agonizing relationship of two Americans, each drawn deeply by Vedanta into a marriage of East and West on many levels. Their love affair and marriage, in which a passion for India is the driver and fulcrum, opens a wide window on American life, culture, and counterculture, beginning in the late Sixties and extending into the millennium.
In Part One, during a Fulbright year based in Malwa studying khyal with the master Kumar Gandharva, I enter an underworld reflection of life in America, immersed in India's smells and sights as well as the inexhaustible sound-world of North Indian vocal music. My newly awakened sexuality is swallowed by the mythic substratum of Hindu goddess figures during a period of instinctive celibacy. Intrigued by an invitation from Maurice Frydman to join the fellowship of the undeceived, I begin a lifelong effort to practice Advaita through self-inquiry as taught by Ramana Maharshi.
I expect to reach enlightenment in this lifetime. She tells me this the week I meet her. In part two, I return to India with my wife Judi, a medical doctor and yoga teacher who is skeptical, reluctant to share the India experience with me. But as we hop between ashrams, she, too, falls in love with India. In the end, we are banished by the head swami, who tells us to go home, have children, fulfill our work, and serve our parents. We can return after we complete our householder duties.
When we return to India in the Nineties, the tables have turned. I, once totally smitten, am dismayed by modern India, whereas Judi is ever more deeply enthralled, throwing herself into Sanskrit and taking a teacher, who names her Geeta Jyothi. As our sons leave the house, she begins long winter ashram sojourns, contemplating vows of monkhood which threaten our marriage.
This memoir has the potential to interest a wide audience of seekers: those who throng the spirituality section in the West - especially India freaks, their children, and the burgeoning readership of South Asian writers, particularly middle-class Indians who remember the curious phenomenon of the Amreekan hippy-saddhu. I believe it will appeal to the followers of Ram Das, Ramana Maharshi, Swamis Chidananda and Krishnananda (Sivananda Ashram), and Vinoba Bhave-characters all-but especially of Kumar Gandharva and Sunderlal Bahuguna (Chipko), remarkable figures with whom our lives become intertwined.
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover