hands as they played the instrument, her exquisite face as she constructed a musical piece, the faces of other people who walked by, animals in the fields, donkeys in particular. He sketched more churches, fences—the stone ones which separated the fields—and he sketched flowers and herbs. He drew fishing boats, their nets and paraphernalia in great detail, all the while enjoying the special music offered by Barbara. His favourite sketches though were of her.
They became close during these weeks. He presented his new love with a drawing nearly every day. She was appreciative and brought him flowers and ouzo. Having been on the island much longer than he had, she knew where to get the best brew. Next door and downstairs from the post office, there was a tiny Ouzo and Raki shop. The owner made it himself at his home not far out of town. It was by far the best ouzo around.
They made love nearly every day. He asked her to travel with him, but she refused. He tried to persuade her continually, but she stood her ground.
‘I must return to Germany,’ she would say. ‘I need to study music and to make it my life.’
He could see that the two of them would be able to get closer given the chance, but every time he raised the question of travelling together, she said no.
Before summer was over they parted company, Barbara returning to Germany as planned and Alexander sailing off to Santorini. For days after they went their separate ways, Alexander was devastated. He had hoped she would join him even if only for a short time. But it was not to be. They didn’t even exchange addresses, not that Alexander had one, but she would have, and he’d neglected to ask.
On Santorini Alexander continued his exploration admiring the steep cliffs of the main town, the island’s volcanic history and the picture postcard architecture. After a few days of being morose he shook himself out of his misery and started getting back to his normal self. He had toyed with the idea of starting to read Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, mainly because it was a smaller book than the others Polychroni had given him, so he settled down one afternoon and began to read it. He didn’t really get into this one, but he knew it must have some importance so he battled on. Perhaps his mind was elsewhere. His thoughts often returned to the times he’d had with Barbara, but in time, he thought of her less often. One day he remembered that he had told his mother weeks before to write to him here. He immediately ran over to the post office where sure enough there were two letters from her waiting for him.
He opened them excitedly and read all the news of the family, the ups and downs, the increased summer trade of both family businesses, his sisters’ exam results, all sorts of interesting stuff. He was overjoyed to have received the letters and immediately went back inside the post office to call home.
His mother reminded him that he’d said he’d phone more often. ‘Yes I’m sorry, I will,’ he promised.
‘Where are you going to next, darling?’ his mother inquired.
‘No idea Mum,’ he lied. He didn’t think she could cope with knowing he was off to India, best to leave that news until he arrived there.
A few days later that’s where he was heading, leaving Santorini on another ship, back to Athens to arrange a visa and off to New Delhi before the end of the week. While in Athens he visited the Acropolis and of course the Parthenon, drank ouzo in Syntagma Square each afternoon and was sad that he was leaving when he eventually boarded the plane to India. He had absolutely adored the Greek islands and he thought the mainland was pretty good too. His best memory though was of his time with Barbara.
India became a true eye-opener immediately. Everything was so different from what he had grown to know in Europe. Landing in New Delhi at midnight provided Alexander with various challenges. He was still only 19 and the lack of organisation, the dirt, the way the people spoke English and the fact that it was midnight confronted a tired Alexander tremendously.
Luckily another traveller offered to share a taxi with him. The man knew exactly where he was going and told Alexander that there were hotels of all description and price range within a minute or two walk of where he himself was planning to stay. They travelled together to the centre of town and sure enough Alexander found an appropriate hotel right across the road for 20 rupees a night. He fell into bed enormously tired and slept for ten straight hours.
It was even hotter than the Greek islands when he climbed out of bed next morning. Without air-conditioning his room was almost unbearable. He ventured out into the foyer and asked the man at the front desk where he would suggest a good place to eat. The man suggested a restaurant on the next block, so Alexander sauntered off in the direction he was told. It was a good choice, but sitting there beside the road with the hustle and bustle of New Delhi and the incessant horn blowing, the scene began to drive him crazy. So this is the land that the great Mahatma Gandhi called home, he thought, a little unimpressed. It was hot, humid, noisy and dusty. After the cleanliness of the Greek islands, it also seemed very dirty.
It wasn’t long though before he fell in love with the place. He regularly took out his sketch-pad and drew what he saw. At first it was the architecture that beckoned him to put pencil to paper, but in the months that followed he drew all sorts of things: men pulling rickshaws, women in colourful saris, the sacred cows in unexpected places and close-up details of the striking faces of the inhabitants of this enchanting country. He was expanding his repertoire enormously.
Alexander spent the next year in India. He turned 20 in Pondicherry and was there at the birth of Auroville in February of that year when 5,000 people descended on the area from 124 countries with the dream of creating a new consciousness and a place to call home, free of government, crime and even money … a different world indeed from that which the British had wanted to create in India, a little Victorian world in a foreign land where they subjugated the people.
By this time he’d read all the books which Polychroni had given him and at Auroville passed the remaining ones on to other people, sometimes swapping them for other extraordinarily good reads. To have read the works of authors like Hermann Hesse, Krishnamurti, Khalil Gibran, Plato, George Orwell, Dante Alighieri and Aldous Huxley in locations like the Greek Islands and India was extraordinary in itself, but to have done so at age 19 and 20 was remarkable.
In Pondicherry he read extensively. He became immersed in Indian culture, reading up on the life of Mahatma Ghandi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and others. Everyone knew of the works and life of Ghandi and Nehru, but few knew of the outstanding contributions to philosophical thought presented to the world by Radhakrishnan. So respected and revered was he, that the renowned English scholar H.N. Spalding insisted after attending lectures by Radhakrishnan that he initiate a chair at Oxford University in honour of Eastern Religions and Ethics. But these three great thinkers were not the only ones Alexander studied. Swami Vivekananda had written: ‘We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary; they travel far.’ Nagarjuna, whom he also read carefully, was considered to be the most influential Buddhist after Gautama Buddha himself. There was also Sri Aurobindo who lived and died in Pondicherry where he developed a method of spiritual practice called Integral Yoga. Alexander devoured books at an astonishing rate.
He spent months in the region and fell in love with the French colonial architecture. He spent long hours discussing complicated subjects with people from many countries and diverse backgrounds. He studied yoga and meditation in several locations throughout India and when he went across the border into Nepal for a short time, dabbled in mysticism and Buddhism. He’d grown his hair long and started smoking lots of ganja with other like-minded people. Returning to India, their music became another potent ingredient in his existence. The sitar was his favourite, but the unusual sounds of the snake charmer’s pungi, the bansuri and the pulluvan pattu were all exotic instruments that captivated Alexander especially when under the influence of drugs, which in time, got a bit of a hold on him.
He took journeys to the south of Tamil Nadu to Kerala and further to Goa on the west coast, always open to conversation and continually finding places of solitude where he could meditate, which of course in India would be hard for some, but not for him.
One evening in Goa, a town known for its alternative folk and alternative ways, he was offered LSD, but it was