Sumatra, 1995 – Part 1

It had worked. My mother listening to me and hearing me when I said I needed to go back to India in the hope of finding a way out of the deep, dark whole of depression I was in, and agreeing to help me with that, had worked.

Pushkar, then my two month sojourn in Diu and the clouds had finally lifted.

I headed back to Pushkar from Diu with no real plan.

I came out of the guest house I was staying in one morning and walking past the entrance was Leanne from Galway! A mad coincidence, I had no idea she was even planning to head to India let alone Pushkar, and let alone when I was there.

Leanne had been my saviour when I had run away to Galway in late 1993 having fled India after breaking up with Jenny.

This was early 1995. Had it been only a year or so since I was here on my way to the Himalaya to become a sadhu?

Was it only a year or so since I changed course and headed back home to begin the journey towards suicide?

Suicide.

I have held back from using that word, there is a shame and a fear attached to it. By not using the word is it possible to pretend it never happened?

No.

Is the fear that it could happen again?

Yes.

Yet, I know it won’t, I am in a different place now, a place I began my journey toward back then in India in 1995. A place that is safe however tough the going gets. I am safe, and I will keep myself safe.

So, there was Leanne, and what a perfect coincidence, what a symbol that redemption was underway.

I was no longer the crazed lost man she had met in Galway in late 1993, I was now on the road to recovery.

I was still following a winding path, still not knowing my direction, but I was no longer desperate, I was in a state of freedom, more able to handle the unfolding.

Not found, but also not completely lost.

I stayed in Pushkar for a couple of weeks, enjoying hanging out with Leanne and her travel companion, Brian.

They finally moved on, and shortly after I decided to move on too. I was living very cheaply, still had some money and was in no hurry to return to England.

I headed back to Delhi for a few days, and having decided to go to the hill station of Dharamshala, bought a train ticket to Pathankot in the Punjab, just a 3 hour bus ride away from my ultimate destination.

Dharamshala is where the Tibetan government-in-exile is located and the location of the Dalai Llama’s official residence.

Life felt pretty good.

I was still deeply wounded and there was still a long journey ahead but in contrast to the deep shadow, the deep darkness I had been living under for the previous 18 months all was very good.

Macleod Ganj, the main centre for accommodation in Dharamshala , didn’t appeal that much, so after my first night I packed up my things and ambled the 45 minutes or so to Bhagsu Nag, a small and very pleasant village where there were plenty of hardy travellers to hang out with. I got a room in a farmhouse for next to nothing.

I met some good people and had a lovely time, in no hurry to head home while the money lasted. I was planning on staying until mid-May when it would start getting too hot.

I fell in with an English guy called Kevin Halcrow, 10 years my senior. He lived in George Town, Penang Island in Malaysia, and would spend most of the winter season in India. He was a mysterious figure, and I never quite figured out his story, but he was engaging and loved to go hiking in the hills, scrambling as he would call it, as he was a fan of going off the main paths.

I joined him one day, and after a steep climb on a path out of the village we stopped for a rest and a cuppa at a chai stall before hitting the more rugged slopes for a scramble.

We were swapping stories of our past and somehow we drifted onto the subject of schools and  family members. I was telling him about the schools we all went to  “… and Geoff, my eldest brother went to a small obscure school called Stanbridge Earls…”, Kevin interrupted “… what? Stanbridge Earls? I went to Stanbridge Earls”.

I was very surprised, as this school had a very small intake and specialised in educating boys who were struggling in conventional schools.

At this stage Kevin and I were on first name terms only, not knowing each other’s surnames, so I was even more taken aback when he said “… your brother’s name was Geoff? Not Geoff Ramseyer by any chance?”.

Well, I was stunned. I told him that yes indeed our surname was Ramseyer, and it turned out he had been at school with Geoff all those years ago.

How mad is that? A random chat, at a small chai stall, an hours walk outside a small village in the Indian Himalaya and I meet someone who was at school with my eldest brother in the mid-1960s, at what was probably one of the smallest schools in southern England.

He asked how Geoff was these days, and I told him of his death 20 years earlier. “Oh, I’m so sorry, he was a nice lad”.

We raised our chai glasses and toasted the memory of Geoff.

This created an instant bond.

I had told Kevin some of my story and how this was to be my last trip to India, and I would be heading home in a couple of weeks.

He listened and then said “I believe you when you say this is your last long trip away, that being the case you can’t go home without visiting Lake Maninjau in Sumatra, it is the most beautiful place in the world”.

I decided to follow his advice and go, somehow I still had enough money. I look back on that time, the ease and flow of it was remarkable, even now I can bathe in the joyous simplicity of it, life can at times be sublime, and things can simply unfold without the mind intervening and getting in the way. I felt at peace.