After several delays and diversions I was heading up to Kalcutta and Tarapith, locale of the most horrendous ordeals I'd had the year before. Of course I had some apprehension, but also some excitement about revisiting the intensity of these places.

My visit to Tarapith actually resolved many of my apprehensions. Kalcutta didn't do it for me much though: I'd spent so much time there the year before, been to all the major temples. And it was still a very big, very smelly polluted city. There was an air of familiarity I enjoyed, but returning to Shudder St. I knew I only wanted to be there a few days. A flurry of memories good and bad. Some of the scammers and pushers and crazies were still there, others had died or otherwise moved on, and some fresh ones had moved in to the territory to pray or prey on the new wave of tourists. I caught up with Raja and a few other locals I liked, then went off to see Kali at the famous Kalighat Temple.

It was like visiting an old friend - a very intense one- Her 3 great red eyes still glaring out from black form. The temple was quiet in the wake of Diwali and I was able to make my prayers before Her without too much pressure, including one for Hakser and his family in Kerala and their situation with industry encroaching on their land, as he had requested of me.

I wanted to see my Aghori guru Khanainath, but the number I had for his work was disconnected. I could trek out to try and find his house in the forests of Andul again and he might be home, but remembering all the dramas I had with that the year before I reconsidered. Perhaps on the way back through after Tarapith?

 The very next day I went to Tarapith. Again the sensation of relief as the rickshaw-pedaller took me out from Rampurhat station through rolling green fields and forest towards the small holy town. Again he (though a different man) tried to charge me way too much for the journey and I argued with him, though this time with more humour.

Tarapith is an incredible place. There is a softness about it, a gentle powerful spiritual vibration which pervades the town and its temples. I was enraptured by this once more, and it quickly overcame the vestiges of the more difficult ordeals I'd had there before. I went to the central Tara temple and prayed to Her red, black and silver visage, so severe-looking with tongue extended from reddened chin, yet so nurturing and compassionate in aspect, in vibration.

Then I was off to the Smashan (cremation ground) behind the main street. The beauty of the place awed me once again- the entrance shrine containing Tara's crimson lotus feet, which people lined up to touch and do puja with (many offering incense, candles, flowers and washing the feet with alcohol then water...); a circle of Tantrics -all adorned in bright red- near the shrine doing homa (fire worship), their mantra japa silent and only distinguishable by the casting of resins into the flames on each silent 'Svaha', the focused vibration and the tremble of lips.

Through the woods therefrom I wandered, nodding greetings at the dreadlocked sadhus and red or black-clad babas in their tealight-lit bamboo huts twixt the trees.

Eventually I made my way to the mounds and the burning-pits at their apex. I felt the still-warm embers and subtle residues where bodies had burnt there earlier that evening, petted a stray dog who warmed herself by the coals.

No sign of any familiar faces- no crazed joyous Ananda, and my enquiries next day revealed he had indeed moved on. It was about midnight and only a few stray bum-sadhus lurked in the pagoda near the pits. I avoided them, not ready yet to deal with the anticipated entreaties for money for whiskey. Instead I wandered down to the waterside, did some yoga and pranayama by the cool river, then back up to the pits where I meditated for a little while before retiring to my hotel.

When I got there I discovered I had somehow lost the key to my room. They couldn't find a spare one amidst the random debri in their lobby draws. Fortunately it was only a crappy little padlock and the boy there smashed it off with a few blows of a crowbar, then charged me for a replacement padlock from across the road immediately. All sorted, I relievedly went to sleep.

The next day however while wandering the streets I realized I had forgotten to lock my room altogether. Hoping my belongings hadn't been stolen I began to make my way back, cursing myself. How ridiculous, I thought, that the day before I had lost my key and now this!

Then I awoke in my bed, sweaty, the mid-morning sun seeping into my room, still between the worlds as I checked that keys and padlock were intact.

Despite this strange start my second day in Tarapith was bliss. After breakfast chai and fruit I walked up past the Kali Temple- stopping for a visit -it was closed but the adjacent Mungalini Tara Temple was open so I performed a short puja offering incense, then wandered on along the track that led out of the town and into villages - mudbrick and thatched houses scattered midst the trees. 'Jai Ma' I returned to a person I passed. Further on a little goat kid echoed the cry plaintively, 'Maaaa'. It seemed the whole holy town resonated with Mata (Mother) worship. Cows would low a deep 'Maaah', goats a warbled treble 'Ma-a-aa', while humans covered the mid-range with their constant ecstatic cries of love.

I diverted down to the river which ran parallel with the road, and after some asanas in the sun and a delightful swim, sat to meditate under a shady tree.

Two beautiful figures, one male and one female, appeared clad in orange robes and drapes with extravagant jewellery some distance along the red-dirt beach. I watched them dance and twirl around each other, while a cameraman and assistant followed their movements. They were miming and mouthing to the music being played through a small portable sound-system, and it was comical yet touching to see an Indian video-clip to be made in this way here, in the middle of nowhere.

A few other villagers watched also, bemused and distracted from their swims or their laundering in the river.

I performed a long session of pranayamas and felt wonderfully happy with the resultant energy boost and the simple pleasure of being in nature again.

Much refreshed I returned -via lunch- to the smashan. It was still broad daylight but the pyres were burning. I wandered up the mounds and stood with the doms watching the grisly spectacle with a peculiar detachment, accustomed by now to the casual attitude to death in this land.

Something seemed to shift that day. Attitudes towards me as the only foreigner there were markedly hospitable. Several times people I talked to paid for the chai I had already ordered and drank. I felt like I had become at one with the land and the people once more. These north-eastern regions of India- the land of babas and sadhus, shakta-worship and tantrics, resonated with me so much more than the south. Too bad I was leaving in only 4 days or so!

I needed to leave Tarapith the following day to begin working my way back to Mumbai for my flight, so it seemed a slim chance that I would be able to obtain a kapal (skull-cap bowl) at the smashan that night. Considering my experiences with and after the attempt there the year before, I was reticent but also willing to explore the possibility without raising too much expectation.

Soon after dark a fresh body went on and I sat and meditated while he burned. There was no epiphany or great spiritual resonance with the man's soul as the year before on Kali Puja night, simply a continued appreciation of the mortality of the flesh and the immortality of the soul, as I watched his skin and meat char and drip in black and purplish globs from his face and shoulders. Sweat and ash coated me as I performed my pranayamas and mantras. My focus was less this time and I took a short break to piss, drink water and stretch by the river towards the end. When I returned to my position near what was left of his head, I quickly slipped back into trance. The doms ('untouchables', the caste who deal with disposal of bodies) thwacked and pummeled the remains of the corpse with their bamboo sticks relentlessly now, crying, 'Hari Bo!' and 'Jai Ma!' exultantly as they compressed the vestiges of the torso and limb-bones back into the fire.

I remembered vividly what had happened the year before when one of them had struck the skull at the conclusion of my recitation of a powerful MahaKala mantra -it had split off perfectly from the rest of the head and laid in the embers as if offered to me by the Gods, but I had hesitated unsure of the ethics or etiquette involved in retrieving it. When I'd eventually reached out for one of the dom's poles and to my surprise he'd passed it to me, the kapal crumbled at my prods, having remained too long in the flames.

Though I had chanted the mantra again I had no expectation of a repeat of the miraculous opportunity, yet a while later the top of the head did seem to separate -though not so cleanly- from the rest of the skull, but it dropped into a morass of flames and wood and I couldn't see where it had gone or whether it had remained in one piece. At that point I surrendered the idea of obtaining a kapal this trip.

Then the flames died a little, the doms poked the wood around and I saw the skull-cap, sitting amidst glowing coals. It was only the very top, not so perfectly bowl-shaped or ideally severed, but it was a kapal nevertheless, and just a small portion of the brain sat in a gelatinous blob on one side of it. Last year I had been ready to eat the whole mess that had spilled out onto the bone bowl proffered to me, but this time it seemed much more palatable to fulfill this aspect of the traditional Aghori ritual of kapal-aquisition with a mere mouthful.

Determined not to make the mistake of hesitation again, I grabbed a bamboo pole that was lying by the pyre and with its end dragged the artefact from the embers. I was in a strangely calm space of disbelief as it now sat at my feet, but before I could bend to retrieve it, the doms moved in and peered at the skull-cap, then began shouting at me in Bengali and shaking their heads. I responded with a confused entreaty which they could understand no more than I could understand theirs, but though they must have been familiar with such Aghori practises there and had had no objection to my presence throughout the burning, they pushed the kapal back into the fire and broke it up with their sticks.

I was astounded. I'd thought the year before- and the sensation of loss had remained with me- that I had missed a profound opportunity by hesitating and not taking the kapal apparently proffered to me by the Gods or Fate, but now I wondered, if I had succeeded in retrieving it before it crumbled, would the same thing have happened then as now? So how was one to ritually obtain such a fetish, as a foreigner?

And yet, everything had not felt just right as last time. There had been no real resonance or even awareness of the departing spirit, the sadhana had not been as focused, the timing less particular... and last time there were other Aghori around who I knew and the doms knew. Perhaps I did miss an opportunity? I'll never know for sure.

That everything had not seemed quite right this time anyway quelled any disappointment I might have otherwise felt about the situation. And in my trance I merely thought, 'The timing is not right.' There can be no rush in such attainments...

I almost didn't return to the Tara Temple before leaving Tarapith, not wanting to line up for an hour or so again to see Her despite the meditative anticipation gnosis involved. However I suddenly felt an urge to bid Her image farewell, and went into the Mandir late that night.

To my surprise I was before Her very quickly. To my even greater surprise it was not the silvery visage which greeted me but the ancient great black stone which it normally covered. When I had first come to Tarapith I had been fortunate (or led) to see this on 'the one day of the year it is uncovered for the public', the anniversary of the finding of the stone and thus the foundation of the temple, a day I had chanced to arrive upon without conscious awareness of its significance in relation to the locale.

Now there seemed no apparent reason for the extra unveiling. I had enquired about any particular occasion or holy days during my brief time there this year and been told there was none. So strange it was then that I saw the mystic black stone of Tara again then, now knowing its significance. And this time they were even much more amicable to my presence as a foreigner, satisfied with my 50 rupee donation rather than demanding more, and even explaining just to me the iconography of the black stone in English. A priest pointed again to each section of the natural formations on its surface as he had done with the prior Bengali explanation, and revealed what it represented. Thus I was able to decipher more clearly how Shiva was in the rock as well as Tara, and that it was more like a full tantric union between the two than the mere suckling at the breast I had read about -appropriate to the esoteric nature of this holy place and its tantric pilgrims.

Jai Ma Tara!

I left Tarapith sadly the next morning, realizing what a healing journey my revisit had been. I had suffered greatly after last year's visit, a seeming consequence of sadhana there on Kali Puja night and the subsequent dogbite on my foot which later became infected and combined with two weeks of relentless obstacles and ordeals in the wake of my visit, left my soul scarred and my faith in the Great Black Mother hanging by a meagre thread of surrender. Yet returning now, with nothing bad happening to me, and feeling an ever deeper love for and from Ma, being swept up in Her divine grace and cosmic compassion, energies exemplified here in Her holy place, I knew -experientially rather than just theoretically- the mask of severity was but that of the teacher, the initiator, and I felt whole again. Jai Ma!

The journey back to Kalcutta was not an easy one however, yet the ordeals involved seemed simultaneously as humorous as they were consternating:

Remembering last year's debacle with the slow train from Rampurhat, I'd checked the night before with the hotel owner about train times and been assured the fast direct train to Kalcutta was at 10am. So I asked the room boy to wake me at 8 but he didn't, so at 9.10 I was still trying to hustle for a rickshaw to Rampurhat at a decent price. I had to settle for almost decent and as we rushed off I realized I now had to stop at an ATM before the train station. It was manic and we just made it to the station with 5 minutes to spare. Relieved I asked for a ticket and was told no the direct train was at 9.30, but I could catch a sequence of connecting trains to Kalcutta at 2pm.

Aaaarrrgh!

But then with only a glint in his eye to suggest he might be deliberately exasperating me, the ticket man told me when I was about to storm off that the 9.30 direct train was late anyway and I could still catch it.

Both confounded and relieved I bought a ticket and waited another hour or so for it to roll in, at which point I was told by other passengers that it wasn't a direct train at all, I had to change at some other small town. Aargh again. India is not known for consistency.

It took the four hours it should have taken to get all the way to Kalcutta just to get to the changeover train, then I had to wait for the next. Only general trains along these routes, no sleeper carriages for tourists. When it came in most of the carriages I scanned were packed out. Then I found one with only seats lining each side and a large empty floor space in the middle. Great, I thought, some room, and went in and sat on this vast floor. It smelt a bit funny- the usual tobacco, chai, piss and diesel scents but also something else quite pungent I couldn't quite place. And the floor was very grimy. Ah well the train was about to leave so it would do.

Unfortunately I soon discovered the source of the stench. Fine for a few stops. Gaining a seat, I did some reading, having learnt not to do pranayama on trains after fainting from fumes on a long journey once. Then at the third stop suddenly hordes of men with large metal buckets on both ends of bamboo poles over their shoulders stormed onto the carriage, arranging their buckets on the vast floor space around me and tucking their poles behind seats or threading them through hand-loops in the ceiling.

Each bucket had a checkered teatowel over the top of its contents, which were wobbling mysteriously beneath, apparently gelatinous and semi-liquid. And the smell of rancid milk products increased, though these weren't quite as off as the old residue already in the carriage. As the train shuddered off again on its jolting journey, the buckets began to judder and their contents slosh. A few teatowels slipped open to reveal white chunks of goo, and whitish water was spilling here and there onto the floor. A staring man on the other side of the carriage (foreigners were rare on trains like this) gestured at them and explained, 'Curd'. Wonderful.

As the train rolled on more and more and more white water began to spill from all the buckets and slosh around the carriage, and soon it was lapping my bare feet, cold and particularly repugnant when chunks of cheesy white goo slipped between my toes. Then the grumpy man next to me started to chain-smoke bedi cigarettes. I must have looked a bit disgusted, as the man staring at me from the other side of the carriage demanded, 'Relax!'

Suddenly my annoyance and weariness cracked and I began to chuckle at the sheer absurdity of it all. The staring man on the other side of the carriage grinned at me and told me again that I had a great hairstyle.

Fortunately I found out there was a stop before Kalcutta I could get out at to go straight to the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple, which is on the outskirts, so I didn't have to go in to the centre then back out at least...

Dakshineshwar Kali Temple was still magnificent, full of energy and life, so worth the return. Again I prayed at each of the Shiva-lingams in their twelve individual shrines before lining up to visit Kali in the central high dome. Whenever I cut the muscle under my tongue a little bit more to further my Kechari mudra (pushing the tongue up into the back of the throat to stimulate the hypothalemus and other glands during pranayamas) practises, I perform a longer Sanskrit mantra dedicating my life to Kali and Her clan. I had neglected to do this for a while with all the travel, and it seemed an apt time to renew the practise. With the nail clippers (oddly most effective for this tough muscle) I'd brought especially I performed the simple operation outside Her shrine -looking in to Her beautiful black form as I offered my prayer- then smeared the blood on a sacrificial stand where others were offering incense. Jai Ma Kali.

Next day I was off to Varinassi. My trip was drawing to its conclusion, and I was grateful to be able to return to this wonderful city again, this time in a state to be able to better deal with its intensities, to follow up on some new leads now I wasn't half-crippled with an infected foot (my last visit). I wanted to find the aghoris here, visit their ashram I had heard about.

I met my old friend Vijay- as by now expected- almost immediately in a random laneway of the labyrinthine city. He was glad to see me in health this time, and we chatted over Varinassi's famed lassis. He helped me out with finding various things I wanted to buy before leaving India, then sent me off to the Aghori Ashram under the bridge I had heard about, while he went to dine with his family. It was right on the edge of town, reachable only by crowded taxi-van after booking my ticket to Mumbai (for my flight back to Australia) at the trainstation halfway. Disappointing then to find that the Aghori-baba who ran the place was away in Madhura Pradesh for several more weeks.

I was very surprised at the look and feel of the place, having imagined some dark haunt beneath the bridge littered with bones with demented Aghori sadhus chanting feverishly in the candlelight. But it wasn't really beneath the bridge at all but on the far side of it from Varinassi town, and it was a quite ordinary-looking group of modern buildings, very neat and clean, where apparently pilgrims or aspirants could stay for free at the guru's discretion. I chuckled to remember the comments on Aghori 'not being neat' of the yoga master in Kerala, and wondered what he would think of this place.

I was given a short tour by a courteous elderly gentleman. The only thing I saw indicating any kind of variance from Orthodox Hinduism was a small mural painted on the side of a large rock formation in the grounds dedicated to Shiva: The Blue God squatting naked, with an erection pointing towards the yoni of a squatting Shakti figure facing Him. This was radical for modern India, but otherwise the ashram seemed to be quite conservative, at least in outer presentation.

My guide offered to show me the hospital next door also started and funded by the absent Aghori guru there, but considering the dubiousness of Indian transport I decided after a chai I should head back to meet Vijay by the Harichandra Ghats.

It wasn't an easy trip but I still got there early so sat and silently meditated on the corpse burning there, until Vijay appeared to take me to the other Aghori Ashram (within the town) as that night was the big weekly puja night there.

This place was a lot more lively, though equally inconspicuous in presentation except for the giant concrete skulls on either side of the great gateway.

Inside it looked like a fairly typical modern Hindu temple or ashram, clean and vibrant. Except many of the typical-looking concrete God-figures had skulls in their hands or beside them- even Ganesh- a constant reminder of mortality.

The aariti was intense. About a hundred people- most looking pretty conservative with short hair and casual clothes -were gathered to pray, chant, meditate. We were all in front of a metal grid, which formed a transparent wall to a room where the priest tended the sacred fire which had been burning non-stop for centuries. He wasn't initially there and as we all waited I asked Vijay this aghori baba's name again. I uttered it silently, reverently, and he immediately and quite suddenly appeared -also looking surprisingly conservative unlike the statue of His dreadlocked long-bearded skull-bedecked predecessor in His lineage, the infamous Kinaram.

The puja began and I was absorbed in a tumult of vibrating gongs and bells. Then there was chanting, the energy rising and so potent. I was swept up in the bliss of it, which continued long after the group lapsed into silence.

On the way out Vijay took me to a stall near the gates with Aghori literature. I bought a few small pamphlets, which I have enjoyed. They seem mostly focused on 'cleaning up' the image of Aghori in the public eye, presenting it as the genuine and compassionate spiritual path it is. Nevertheless some of the more extreme practices and appearances of Aghori are hinted at in the texts, with clarification as to their purposes beyond mere sensationalism. Though there is an obvious degree of dilution for public image, there are also some profound insights in the booklets.

Later that same evening I meditated near a burning corpse down by the Harichandra Ghat. Probably because of all the tourists in Varinassi, the bodies here were enwrapped and covered in wood so not as visible as at Tarapith. The doms didn't seem to mind me being quite close, sitting in stillness. After a while another onlooker asked what I was doing, I told him meditating, he kept trying to talk to me, very curious though with rudimentary English- and eventually revealed he was the brother of the burning corpse. I had become accustomed by now to the casual attitude most Indians have to death even of kin, but it is still a shift in consciousness when the relations of the living give a personal perspective on what until then was only another burning shell to me.

There was a mysterious man, black clad and pointy-bearded with a jackal-like stealth of movement, also meditating on corpses there, and sometimes moving in to rub ash on his forehead from the smashan pits. He seemed very internally absorbed and I had no wish to disturb his meditations, as he apparently had no wish to communicate with me.

Behind the smashan and around the corner, however, I met another Aghori baba -Anilram- who was most welcoming of my company. He was sitting around a sacred dhuni fire near the Ganges with a circle of misfits and vagabonds. He was happy to meet me and we discussed the Aghori path once it had become evident that we shared it. His English wasn't great but we managed to communicate quite well. He was, as he stated, 'a simple man' but profoundly spiritual, obviously happy to share his vibrant energy with the common people daily. He produced ganja for them on their request but did not partake himself when the chillum came around, which impressed me as so many would-be sadhus seem to be just using their 'traditions' as an excuse for nihilistic overindulgence rather than conscious use of substances as tools in actual spiritual practices. I also passed, wondering what I might learn from this man and preferring to be straight for the experience. After a few hours it felt right to confide in him my quest for a kapal and he said he may be able to help me, 'but not tonight'. I told him I was leaving after the following night and we agreed to meet again the next evening. Of course I got lost in the labyrinthine laneways on the short but convoluted late-night walk back to my hotel, but it didn't bother me much this time. I just kept doing my pranayama and eventually worked it out...

The next night- my last in Varinassi and really my last in India this trip other than the long train trip to Mumbai to catch my flight back to Australia- was an intense one. After extensive yoga and pranayama then wrapping up various mundane missions in the day time- presents for friends, organizing luggage, etc.- I made my way down to the Ganges again. Anilram and I again sat around the dhuni for many hours, his attention divided me and the others there yet I managed to learn some things. I drew a portrait of him with his trident and kapal- a shaded pencil sketch he was delighted to receive, for I had managed to capture something of his intense yet very gentle spirit. My book 'Conjunctio' was passed around the fire, the more sexual images receiving shocked yet surprisingly (for modern Indian society) un-offended responses from them and also curious passers-by who stopped to peer in at the excited pointing and laughing.

Anilram offered me a new Kali mantra, which I was not to speak aloud. He recited the lengthy and complex Kapal mantra for me, which was indeed the same one that I had painstakingly translated into English-letter syllabics from Khanainath's repeated utterances the year before, and had still not learned thoroughly.

It was not possible for him to help me obtain a kapal that night -mind you trying to clean and prepare it for transport through customs etc. in a short timespan would have been tricky otherwise anyway!- but promised me that next time I came to Varinassi he would help me obtain 'a very good kapal'.

He offered me a patra of Indian wine from his. I had not drunk from a human skull-cap before and it was a profound experience, to clasp the smooth polished bone in my hands after performing patra mudras (learnt in Kamakaya the year before) over the sacrament, and taking it to my lips.

We ran out of water and by 4am were all quite dehydrated from sitting around the fire. There were no shops open at such a time, but someone went off with an empty plastic bottle and returned with it full, drank, passed it to Anilram then I. As I swigged a big mouthful he said it was Ganges water. Ah well, I shrugged and continued to drink. I'd had sacramental sips before with no harm despite all the dead bodies, bathers, shit and rubbish that go in the holy river daily, but several mouthfuls was another thing again. It was a decision I only regretted two months later, when the Hepatitis A that had gestated inside me all that time suddenly kicked in and wiped me out for a month. It was a purification of sorts and I learnt a lot from the disease before (and from the process of) getting rid of it, but it was a damned awful experience and one of the main reasons why it has taken me so long to finish writing this journal after returning to Australia.

 At about 5 in the morning I went back to my hotel and after some focusing pranayama spent a few hours tattooing my arm. It became evident that I would not be able to finish the entire Kali image I had spent days progressively designing and redesigning there, but I wanted to at least start this image of the Black Goddess in Her homeland. Before heading for the train station at dawn, I got two of Her arms etched, one holding a blossoming lotus, the other a white crescent sword, whose sharp tip meets the bulging vein in my inner elbow where moonths later nurses injected needles to test my blood when I became mysteriously ill.

I have experienced somewhat of a rebirth after that extended period of sickness, de-motivation and low energy. Now a new awareness of health begun from necessity in the healing period adds to the vigor attained from continuing pranayama practices, butoh dance and suzuki physical theatre training further catalyzing a new awakening into the most embodied artistic and magickal trance practices I have yet to experience.
 

 Some more pictures of the (wrap-around!) new Kali tattoo, which I completed over the first week or so of beginning to earth back into my homeland, are now up at

http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/pic.htm

Jai Ma Kali!