Now when the party is over and I´m so tired I like to watch the old photographs I found from the basement. It seems like yesterday but it was long ago. I was young and strong and heavily overdosed by drugs. I decided to beat it from Helsinki heaven where nothing ever happens. I flew to India and decided to stay there the rest of my life.
India´s economy was not booming yet. Finnair had no direct fligts there. India was hot, dirty, chaotic. I just loved the mess, the buzz. Of course the fact that I could buy without prescription all the possible drugs helped me to settle there.
After some months I needed change. Next direction was Nepal. In Katmandu I waited every day for my man. He was never early, he was always late. He introduced himself saying:
- I´m not rich. I´m just little rich.
- Good for you, I answered and then we disappeared to secret holes of Tamel district.
My man was sort of gangster. He was the member of local mafia and wanted me to join the AK-47 club. Because I was not ready for that he asked me to do a little favour for him by smuggling dope in my pack over the borders. I just smiled quietly and he was angry for my lack of co-operation.
After business talks we continued whatever we where doing there behind the closed doors in the heart of Asian darkness...
In the mornings I watched the Mt. Everest form the roof of my hotel. There was people all over the world in that spring in Nepal on the way to the peak of extraordinal. May is the best month to try to climb the Everest. In that year only 11 climbers died during their adventure.
After I had finally returned from Nepal to India somehow I ended to Darjeeling at the other end of Himalayas. Place was just opened for foreigners after gurkha guerrilas mutiny. Up there above the clouds was very quiet. When I visited one tea farm the boss of it said:
- We are still carrying the weapons when we move.
On the way back to Delhi I stayed in the ancient city of Varanasi. I met there my guide who asked me one night to come to have a dinner in his place. Somehow I was not hungry but beer was ok.
We went to the Musical Temple to meet Ravi Shankar´s cousin Rishiguru. He took his daily dose of brown sugar and asked his band to play ancient Indian music. Then he spoked me over to buy tabla drums. Rishiguru promised send them to me to Europe. I even paid for the iron box. Drums never game. Music was terrible; kind of brain wash music.
And then I moved in India form place to another. India had over one billion inhabitants and I really felt the power of masses who had nothing to lose. I suppose most of them still haven´t..
And when my money run out I started to work as portrait photographer. Oh boy, how the Indians liked to be in pictures with their families. Bad thing for me was that they simple didn´t have any money. So income level was nothing to mention.
I followed the river Ganges to east coast and ended up to Calcutta. I don´t remember clearly what happened there because of all the substances I took that time but I guess I met there interesting people. Kind of freaks, but I suppose that´s the way of living there for some upper castes.
Summer months in India are extremely hot. Most of the time I stayed inside and smoked cigarettes. Only reason to go out was to take a trip to ligueur store. I bought two large bottles Indian whiskey each day and started lose the reason slowly.
After I finally reached the state of delirium everything was easy. I started to enjoy living with the freaks like me. But of course I don´t remember much of those days, don´t want to remember, don´t want to speak. I have only dreamlike chaotic visons of the Indian people and places.
That was one hell of the trip which lasted several years. I don´t have any clue how I ended back to Europe. Now I´m completely different and have only hundreds of photos to remind me that it´s the thin line between reason and madness. One day you can pretend to be an normal person in Helsinki, next day living on the fast lane in other side of the world in Calcutta.
Now I can laugh to all that. Those who stay alive from their junky days can easily laugh to everything. You know, it wasn´t me. It was someone else from the wierd collection of western ways of going wrong...
When I watched the old photos I found lyrics to my Calcutta song which was never composed:
Calcutta by night
I came from ancient Varanasi
escaped my little devadasi
In the morning sun
I walked across the great nation
sleeping on the sidewalks near Howrah station
Hot wind was raging from the swamp
human horses were pulling the burden
as long as their short life
Dealers of the Sudder street were selling the basic dope
(they make it very good on the hills of Punjab)
Soon I saw fourteen million human flies
and I understood that something went wrong
in the upstairs skies
Maybe there was something good left
to make this song
Hey mister, do you want to fuck?
all kinds of pussies
ready to duck
Chinies, black from south
narrow from Nepal
or do you after all like flabby?
Calcutta by night is very happy
Nearby the main street every night
they sell, they buy
Many young dreams disappear
in the brothels of the bystreets
I watched them, I touched them
I was writing my life story with my sad pen
One girl costs you a hundred in money
is there something wrong?
she is happy, she is sunny
Have you ever tried
with two at the same time?
Many men have been feeling better
like on the magic tour with the Panboy called Peter
They are raping the memory of a Victorian queen
every night in the Maidan´s dark jungles
Tonight, the third and even fourth worlds lie disgraced:
tomorrow we´re faraway and saved
Overdose just needs a little planning
Your central nervous system then
goes on the blink
and your breathing stops
in a wink
