Allen Ginsberg • 15 december 1962

• Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was een Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver. In zijn Indian Journals doet hij verslag van zijn verblijf in India in '62/'63.

14 Dec 1962
Eating a banana yesterday — fine white creamy ripe cheap banana — I said to Peter "Nature is certainly a good cook." Actually I said "Nature is a good cook."
This afternoon sitting in high red stone balcony overlooking Manikarnika burning ghat [een grote locatie voor lijkverbranding] — watching as the body was poled upright so it fell out of the fire by mistake & lay down all black in the dirt — the pole boy's mistake — he poled it up with a great shower of sparks & jumped away blinking to get aside from the blast of heat — then his guru pole man came by, stuck his pole thru the side of the carcass & adjusted it on top of the fiery bed — the head pillowed on black firewood.
Found a room to live in, stone floor with huge doors every-where opening the walls out on 3rd story to trees, monkeys, market below one side, beggar streef to ghats on the other side, many shelfs in the wall for images & books. 43 rupees a month.

Saturday 15, Dec 1962 —
Moved into black & white high 3'd floor room — 9 great doors, three on each side North South West and long balcony my own North and South with chicken wire grill protection from monkey peoples that clamber nearby roofs — bought straw mats, clay pots for storing water, a tin pail — installed bright 100 watt lightbulb & statue wood Chaitanya & Peter his red bellied Ganesh with 3 delicate eyes in alcoves above the doors — listening to transistor radio Peking — shot some morphine-atropine to relax, on a charpoy (rope bed on wooden frame) plenty blankets for cool winter in Benares — a desk and shelfs to hold accumulated mss. and notebooks — feel at home & happy.