Later, I stopped in to see Swami briefly. He says he is better and is coming back to Belur tomorrow. Returned to Belur after visiting Guha’s apartment and meeting his wife. They had a copy of [Burroughs’s The] Naked Lunch and reproductions of a Van Gogh fruit tree and a Rouault.
At supper, Prema and Arup were eating as much as they could possibly manage, because their fast begins tomorrow morning.
Prema says he feels that no one should take sannyas until he has been “smashed” (I think that’s the word he used; anyhow he meant, until the ego has been smashed). He feels that his conflicts with the women at the Hollywood Center—particularly with Usha—were a form of disciplining by Mother Kali.
January 5. Today I feel fairly well. The shits have continued until now, but this morning’s stool was thicker. What distresses me is my dullness. I feel nothing, nothing but the dull senseless urge to get the hell out of here. Such is my longing to do this that I’m not even nervous about the flight; a sinister sign. I feel only partly alive. Jacked off this morning, and not because I really wanted to—just out of meanness. I’m mean and sullen.
Reading Tolstoy’s Resurrection, after finishing Balzac’s [La] Peau de Chagrin, a pretentious bore; Balzac is such an ass (no pun intended!)fn524 Tolstoy’s indignation is always fun, even when all else fails.
In the morning, Sadhan Kumar Ghosh, who wrote My English Journey, P. Lal, Jai Ratan and Kewlian Sio came to see me.fn525 We talked in the guesthouse dining room. P. Lal writes poetry (a bit soppy), is tall and big, quite handsome though with a cast in one eye, married and a college professor. Ratan and Sio write short stories. Sio is a Catholic and some kind of a Chink. Neither of them talked. The other two were sort of teasing-flattering, in Indian style. They wanted to know how I had come to be able to write such beautiful prose. What was my secret? Ghosh’s book is quite amusing and bright, but it has a vicious attack on queers.
Swami came back in the afternoon. He has a swelling on the side of his face which he is trying to reduce with hot compresses.
January 6. A terrific wailing and drumming burst forth at about 4:30 a.m., announcing the Big Day. (Prema calls this “snake-charming music.”) After that, there was kirtan till breakfast. Jacked off as a protest and went back to sleep.
Found Swami worried about his face. He has told Prema, “I want to have my mahasamadhi in India,” so Prema is worried too. Arup fell asleep—which is strictly against the rules during the sannyas fast—and dreamed of pork chops.
The Math grounds were crowded all day. They were patrolled by thin-legged police in shorts; a whole encampment of them have moved in. Thousands of devotees were fed on leaf plates. Loudspeakers shouted. Kirtan singers wailed. One of the Swami’s sisters came to visit him, with a tribe of grandchildren. The little girl and the baby boy had their eyes made up—darkened with kohl to protect them from the glare of the sun. A line all day on the stairs to view Swamiji’s room.
In the afternoon, there was a meeting. Despite his poor health, Swami presided and spoke. I spoke too—my last speech on religion, I do trust, anywhere.
When we got back to Swami’s room, he held out his hand and asked me to massage it. I did my best, telling him that I’d never massaged a hand before. He answered, “Why can’t you do something for Swami you never did before?” He was in his “baby” mood. He kept dozing off but wanted us to stay in the room with him. Of course one had the suspicion that maybe this was a kind of inspired playacting. Wasn’t he perhaps in a high spiritual mood and giving us the privilege of serving the “It” which had taken him over? I hate this explanation because it sort of embarrasses me; but I don’t discount it. In that building, with Vivekananda right next door, it made perfect sense. In that atmosphere, the edges of personality get blurred, and Swami becomes a little bit Brahmananda-Vivekananda-Ramakrishna.
Swami said to me this evening, “I can’t believe you’re going, Chris.”
Nikhilananda (in a good mood at breakfast this morning), “This is the country of self-destruction.”
The countess and Mrs. Beckmann are exultant—because they had been present at a special puja in Vivekananda’s room at which he had been “fed.” Also, a little, because I hadn’t been there. Women attach extraordinary importance to such occasions. I can never quite believe in this kind of religious enthusiasm—but that’s merely because I seem incapable of it.
The guesthouse gate is locked tonight, so I’m excused from going out to the Kali puja in the temple, as I’d unwillingly planned to do.
January 7. Woke with a sore throat to the noise of snake-charmer music over the loudspeakers. But this poor old snake couldn’t rise. However, I did get up at 7:30 and went to look for the new swamis. I met Arup first, near the Leggett House, by the pandal in which the monks have been eating. He was embarrassed and delighted when I prostrated, and hugged me. He is now Swami Anamananda. (Anama means The Nameless One; this is a kind of side-reference to Arup, which means The Formless One.) Arup looks absolutely marvellous in his gerua. The gold flame-color brings out the blue of his eyes and the fairness of his wrinkled skin. He looks very tall and very old and spiritual; the abbot of a monastery, at the least. And it is with the benevolence of an abbot that he raises his hand in blessing, and murmurs, “Bless you,” whenever anyone takes the dust of his feet.
I walked with him toward the office, and presently Prema came by, in a group of other new-made swamis on their way to beg alms. (You are supposed to do this barefoot, but the real point is not to wear leather on your feet, so Arup was allowed to compromise by wearing rubber sneakers.) I ran out to him and prostrated and he hugged me warmly; the onlookers were much edified, I felt, to see us Westerners playing the game according to their rules.
Prema is Swami Vidyatmananda. (Vidya is knowledge itself; vidya-atman is the soul of knowledge. To all intents and purposes, Prema could just as well have been called Vidyananda; but some other swami has that name already.)
Then it was time for Aranyananda, Ranganathananda and Shashi Kanto to leave. Nearly all of the swamis (including Prabhavananda) had been present at the sannyas ceremony during the dead hours of last night. Ranganathananda wanted me to come back to the institute with them and see a documentary film on Vivekananda, but Aranyananda whispered in my ear, “Not worth the candle.” (How typically Indian to use this faded slang!) So I declined. I gave Shashi a great big hug, which surprised and delighted him. I prostrated before Aranyananda and then hugged him. But he was a couple of degrees cooler. He really is quite a cool-blooded creature.
Later I went in to see Swami. He was being massaged by his attendant, a tall athletic and attractive young swami they called Ramesh. Swami said to me, “You see—I massaged Maharaj, so now I get massage!” Then Prema came in from begging alms, with his cloth full of damp tepid food. Both Swami and I had to take some. I nearly gagged on mine, and I noticed Swami took very little, though he remarked that this food must be very pure!
Then Gokulananda came in with two of his college boys. Swami began telling the boys they should become monks. “I tried to think lustful thoughts in Maharaj’s presence, and I couldn’t. I tried deliberately. But such an experience will not be possible again until the Lord comes back.” “Run away from home,” he told one of the boys; then, turning to Gokulananda, “Swami, get him a railway ticket to Madras. Otherwise, he will get married to a little girl—” Turning to the boy, with a kind of inspired affectionate teasing tone, “Yes—you will get married, and then you will say, I got married because my mother cried!” Then he added, “Write to me when you join the monastery—not before!”
Then Gokulananda sent the boys away and started to ask Swami some personal advice. (It was Swami who persuaded him to join the order.) So I went out of the room. Vivekananda’s room was open; a swami was cleaning it. I went in and prostrated and prayed, “Give me devotion to you, give me knowledge of you—even against my will. And be with me in the hour of death.” And I prayed the same for Don. Then I touched my forehead to the bed. I went o
ut on to the balcony where Swami first met Maharaj, and prayed the same prayer. A swami was bathing in the Ganges below, pushing aside the floating water hyacinths before he immersed.… Later that day, I brought my beads and touched them to the spot on the floor of the balcony where I guessed Maharaj and Swami must have stood.
Talked with the countess before lunch, about the bitterness of the masses in this city. At the Great Eastern Hotel you are not supposed to tip; but the management doesn’t pass on the service charge to the help, and they are so mad that they’ll only bring you one shoe, etc.
She also said that the Parliament of Religions was attended only by rich bored people who had nothing else to do.
I felt lazy in the afternoon, so I stayed in my room instead of going to Dakshineswar with Al Winslow and Carlson. (Winslow actually put on his trunks and went swimming in the Ganges!) Then I packed and sat with Swami, who was feeling much better. But the doctor want[s] him to have his lungs x-rayed when he gets to Madras.
Suddenly, it was time to go. I had said all my goodbyes—to Madhavananda sitting listless in a steamer chair; to Yatiswarananda in a half-lit room, too dim to read in, with earsplitting music coming from a nearby loudspeaker so that you had to shout at him; he must have nerves of steel. I talked to Prema, who is very happy about everything. He plans to stay in India for at least a year, as a troubleshooter for the order, getting projects organized, etc. He says Arup says he’ll go back to Hollywood, eat his three meals a day and lead a spiritual life. “Like Elder the pumpkin cutter in the Gospel,”fn526 Prema commented. He is just as sour and bitchy as ever; it is strange to hear this bitchery proceeding from those austere-looking lips. When he complained that his dhoti keeps slipping and Arup remarked that his doesn’t, Prema said, “Perhaps you have more so and sos to hold it up with.”
Rather to Prema’s dismay, Swami has ruled that henceforth he must be called Vidya, and Arup Anama. But I doubt if this will stick. Too many people are too used to the old names. (Incidentally, what a very real austerity this name changing is!)
Krishna volunteered to come with me to the airport. Also Gokulananda, maybe prompted by Swami. There was a big delay, because the kirtan was still going on, and Krishna had left his tape recorder running on the musicians’ platform. We waited for them to stop and they didn’t, so Krishna finally had to remove it in front of the whole audience. But we had gallons of time anyway.
Then, as we passed the office, Nikhilananda was standing there with a group of swamis. Nikhilananda ordered Gokulananda out of the car and thrust a swami from Singapore into it—all this in Bengali without a word of explanation to Krishna and me. Nikhilananda had also forbidden Al Winslow to come with me as he’d wanted to. I think this was sheer love of bullying, but this was no time to protest.
When we got out to dreary Dum Dum, I persuaded Krishna and the swami to leave me alone, fairly soon. For some stupid reason, I didn’t hug Krishna on parting. I ought to have—I know he would have liked it. Krishna said, with a grin, “I suppose you’re going to write all night?”
January 8. We took off from Dum Dum about twenty minutes after midnight. The plane, BOAC, had come from Sydney and there were a lot of Australians on board—large beefy men in white shirts with sleeves rolled to the elbows, as if for cricket; they had brick-red faces, and gave a collective impression of cockney Scottishness. It was deathly cold on board; and, though I had three seats to lie down on, I couldn’t sleep. Because of my cold, the descent at Karachi was horribly painful. The mucus seemed to get into my ears, and I was, and still am[,] rather deaf. They didn’t make us get out of the plane, thank goodness.
Now we are airborne after another landing, around breakfast time, at Damascus—a city in a desert, and made out of desert. Brown mountains in the background, with some snow. Bracingly cold outside, even in the sunshine. At first, the officials didn’t want me to get out and merely walk around the plane; they wanted us all to go to the transit lounge in a bus, and buy things, I suppose. But it was so wonderful inhaling deep breaths of the thrillingly clean air—the first air since Tokyo—and there was even something exciting about watching the cleaners at work; the modern counterpart of changing horses at an inn. Baggage being lifted down through the trapdoor; shit and dirty water and towels being carted away; fresh food arriving in containers. Two uniformed Britishers, maybe pilots, pulled some kind of a plug on a long stem down from the lower surface of the wing. A mechanic then brought them a jar of water which they examined very carefully, like doctors examining urine. It looked beautifully clean however.
We are scheduled to arrive in Rome at 11:00 a.m., their time. And Gore and Howard will be waiting for me, I hope, like the Two who come to conduct the dying man into his new life.…fn527
(That’s the end of the diary. I stayed in Rome two nights, with Gore and Howard, at their apartment. On January 10, I flew to New York and stayed with Don at the Hotel Chelsea. On January 23, I flew back to Los Angeles, and have been living at home since. Don stayed on in New York to draw various people, some of them for Glamor magazine.)
February 11. Don returned home in the evening of the day before yesterday. As Dorothy, who came yesterday, said, “The household is completed.” And we were truly all delighted to see each other. When Don isn’t here, my life simply isn’t very interesting. He creates disturbance, anxiety, tension, and sometimes jealousy and rage; but never for one moment do I feel that our relationship is unimportant. Let me just recognize this fact, and not bother about making good resolutions. He will behave badly; I shall behave badly. That’s par for the course.
I have had to omit all the things that happened in Rome, New York and since I got back here. Maybe some of them will come back to me. For instance …
There was a minor earthquake while we were away. According to Dorothy, it sounded “like as if the Chinese were coming.”
Wystan telegraphed me to say A Single Man is “by far the best thing you have done.” To Don, however, he added three criticisms. (1) That George stays far too long in the bathroom. (2) That there is too much made of the homosexuals’ right to be regarded as a minority, in the same category as the Negroes and the Jews. (3) That Wystan was shocked when George thinks that he will “make a new Jim.”
As far as I can make out, criticism (1) was based on the fact that Wystan never stays long in the bathroom; (2) arose out of Wystan’s feeling that my upholding of the homosexuals was indirectly anti-Semitic; (3) meant Wystan refuses to believe that this is my own attitude toward human beings.
Wystan told Don on another occasion that he thinks I dislike Chester because I am anti-Semitic. Not a word of this to me, of course. His most startling dictum this time was that the only art form truly appropriate to the nineteenth century was opera, and that therefore Verdi and Wagner are greater than Dickens, Tolstoy, Degas, Tennyson, etc.!
I have frittered away eighteen days since my return (as if I had so many left!); and I still have lots of mail to answer. But now I will get down to work. My first job is to go through my diaries and find all references to Huxley, and then construct my article for the memorial volume.fn528 This isn’t a waste of time, because this is all research for my own autobiography. Then I want to consider the idea of a short novel based on Prema taking sannyas. More of this later.
What a wonderful life I have, really! How very seldom do I do any thing I don’t want to do. My only afflictions at present are ill health. Right now, I’m troubled by what may be the remains of my Indian stomach upset. The muscles keep twitching and the gut aches, off and on. I’ll go see Dr. Allen as soon as I have the time.
Don is busy designing the jacket for the English edition of my novel. The deadline is February 14.
February 18. They have definitely taken Don’s driver’s license away but Ben Alston thinks he can get it back, after a re-hearing of the case; he is chiefly being punished for not having attended the first hearing.fn529 Meanwhile I shall have to drive him around, and this is bound to lead to friction. Yesterday, he told me I
was behaving too well, because I didn’t get frantic when he kept changing his mind about where he wanted to go.
Perfect weather, though cold at nights. We have had a very happy time since he got back; but now there are storm clouds. Was he right to have cancelled the Phoenix show? What is he going to do next? How about painting?
I am skimming through my journals looking for references to Aldous—there aren’t nearly enough of them—before I start my article on him for the memorial volume. This idea of Methuen’s that I shall do a book of bits and pieces is also very stimulating; and it’s the kind of project I can easily work on in the midst of writing a movie script. (Let’s hope I get one to write! Both Burton and The Loved One are still possibilities.)
March 8. All this time has passed, and yet there is little to report. I have been offered an appointment as a Regents’ Professor on the UCLA campus, which makes me respectable, I suppose, and would bring in $10,000, and would be quite convenient, because I could do it next spring, from this house, with very little sweat. Shall probably accept.
Nothing from Burton or Tony Richardson about the movies. Have just finished revising the final typescript of Ramakrishna and His Disciples; so it should finally get off to Simon and Schuster and Methuen. Now there is the Huxley article.
Don still without a license. Yesterday, for the first time, he took a chance and drove to the gym.
Still this icy wind and brilliant weather. I’m sick of the cold. Also, I have a worryingly prolonged attack of pyloric spasm. Am taking pills for this. If it doesn’t get better, Allen wants to x-ray.
Last Monday, we bought a T.V. set. It is rather a joy. At least, one can toy with the idea of seeing this or that movie, and you know there is always entertainment if you’re bored stiff.
March 13. This morning, I read Don some poems of de la Mare. He liked “All Hallowe’en” the best. A bright windy day after yesterday’s rain. Yesterday I saw Dr. Allen again, and convinced him, almost against my own better judgment, that I’m really all right. I don’t know if I really am, but I do know that I want to be. I want to work with Tony Richardson on The Loved One. Part of me at least is full of springtime vitality.
The Sixties Page 45