"Hello. This is Michael Anthony Cicchi."

"Hello Mr. Cicchi, what can I do for you?"

"Yes, I purchased a ticket to fly from Denver, Colorado to Calcutta, India  on the 13th of March and I have not received the ticket yet although I made the purchase over a month ago."

"OK, give me a moment and I will find out what happened to your ticket. Do you have a booking number? Wait, your ticket is right here on my desk. I will send it to you right away. Is there any thing else I can do for you?"

"That is all I needed but someone told me that I will be accosted by many greedy, insistent touts and beggars who will make it more difficult to enjoy walking places. Will this be the case?"

"This is Kali Yuga and life is in a low quality condition through out the world. It may seem like it is worse in Baratam (India) but that is only because the population is immense there. You will never be alone there and I suggest that you stick to the ISKCON VAISNAVA temples. You can live in the temples and travel with the devotees. Since you will be arriving into Bengal during the festivities of Sri Chaitanyas' appearance day, you will easily find devotees with whom you can share a taxi from Howah Station to Mayapur."

Hearing in my mind:

Aum tat savitur varenyam Bhargo devasya dimahi Dhiyo yona pratyodayat -Gayatri Maha Mantra Hari Krishna all glories! 🌹🌹

During the first days I was traveling through India, it seemed to me that all business men were using falsehoods and exaggerations to make as much profit as possible. I even wrote that "Vedic civilization has come to an end. The vaisya (merchant class) often acts worse than the sudras (labor class)." In Kashmir (I visited Srinagar for 5 days), the search for money was pervasive but it is more patient because the merchant families will invite you into their home, feed you, befriend you, then wait one or two days before trying to sell you a rug or carpet. They would explain very clearly to you that they can ship anywhere in the world. 

It really was not as bad as that. Being in this country for the first time is occasionally conducive to culture shock. One cannot imagine how different India is from anywhere else except for India. I had not even been to any first world Asian country before (think Singapore or Brunei). When I first left the airport, walking from the airport to the streets, I was completely disoriented. I could not tell if it was dawn, dusk, or maybe even midday. There was an orange or beige dust in the air that seemed to reflect a sunlight that could have been intensifying or diminishing. I just stood there outside of the airport looking around at the dusty air and feeling the heaviness of the humidity. I continued to stand there until a Vaisnava bramachari, dressed in the signature saffron colored kirta and dhoti of the ISKCON devotee approached me. He asked me if I was going to Mayapur. I told him that I was going there. He then asked me if I would like to share the cost of a taxi there. The devotee negotiated a decent price for us to pay and I paid my half. I was fortunate enough to meet someone who had traveled extensively in this country. 

While we were in the taxi, it was hard to tell if it was fortunate to have gotten into the taxi with the devotee because it was one scary ride. It was as it we were running through a gauntlet of approximately 70 miles of pedestrians, bicyclists, donkey carts, goats, lone cows, noisy horn honking cars, and noisier horn honking trucks. We were rapidly passing through all these things which were all out in uncountable numbers while, at the same time, motorcycles were passing us and we were having to swerve out of the way of oncoming vehicles that were doing the same thing. 

If I was tired and sleepy from the overseas plane trip, there was still no way I was going to take a nap in this taxi. I intensely watched the road in front of us while looking around at everything and everyone we were dodging and passing with unnerving speed. Bengal is the fourth most populous state of India and this road between Calcutta and Mayapur made that quite evident. It started to get dark after we left Calcutta so it was dusk when I stepped out of the airport. Well,I would not have been able to do much sightseeing on the way to Mayapur anyway because the road itself and everything I saw on the road completely engaged my attention. 

I was probably walking too fast at times. I remember when a young man walked up to me and started to walk along side of me. No speaking or any kind of  communication was exchanged between us. He just  started  walking with me. He was wearing sandals and at one point he stubbed his foot on some kind of prickly plant which caused him pain and he started to limp but he continued to walk with me. In retrospect, I am sorry that I continued to walk at the same fast pace. I should have slowed down for his convenience or I should have stopped so he could tend to his foot but I did not do either. Eventually, he veered off into another direction and I continued along the Ganga. My feelings at the time were that he interrupted my solitary quest and he should not have been there but now I feel that this was wrong and should have helped him. 

Farmers plowing with oxen and people walking with cows or goats were always and everywhere to be seen. One group of men told me to sit with them for talking. They were sitting under a large lean-to. They spoke very little English but we were able to understand enough of each other for a short, simple conversation. Besides asking me the usual questions about where I was walking from and where I was walking to, they also asked me if I was a monk and if I was able to be with girls or not. They told me that they could bring me into the village and I could find a girl there if I want one. I told them that I was a Vaishnava Brahmachari monk on a pilgrimage so I could not go into the village with them. Once they knew the long distance that I was walking, they told me that I would have to cross to the south side of the river because the walking path on that side of the river is more conductive to long distance walking. The 4 or 5 men there were laborers who were just relaxing in the shade of the lean-to so they were happy to lead me to the location where I could board a small ferry to the other side of the river. I did not have to pay the ferry man so I do not know if they paid the fare or if they just talked to the ferry man and had the agreement that I could cross for free because I was a monk.

Agra

The bus ride from Allahabad took about eight hours to arrive at the ISBT Agra bus depot which is on Bhagwan Talkies Road, located about nine miles west of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was the reason I wanted to visit Agra. I had no cameras for taking photos of the places I visited on this journey. Therefore, I have no photos of my visit to this gorgeous location. I have only what I remember in my mind. I remember being afraid to walk all the way up the walkways on both sides of the long reflecting pool leading towards the monument. There were touts and venders of postcards and trinkets standing on the walkways between the main road and the Taj Mahal. They were young boys standing in various places looking directly at ME! I looked at the beautiful Taj Mahal then I looked at the boy who was closest to me then I walked towards the left of the walkway into the Taj Mahal gardens. I sat on a bench in the gardens. I relaxed on the bench after walking through the gardens. I wanted to sit on the grass to have a picnic but there were no other personages on the grass. That told me that the grass may not be used as a picnic area. Eating snacks at the bench proved to be quite relaxing with one of the most magnificent and recognizable landmarks in the world looking down on me. I was sitting just beyond the Forecourt and the Great Gate. The predominant image that remains in my mind is eating the snacks while admiring the iconic architecture and idyllic landscaping surrounding me.

After I finished my picnic in the Taj Mahal gardens, I went over to Taj East Gate Road and a motor rickshaw driver approached me. He wanted to bring me to a hotel and I told him that I am staying at a hotel just down the street. There are several hotels within easy walking distance to the Taj Mahal and I chose a small one on West Gate Road or Taj Western Gate. This is in the neighborhood south of the west gate of the Taj Mahal.  The rickshaw driver followed me and told me that he would give me a ride around town for shopping if I paid him a small price. RED FLAG. I knew he would want to bring me to places where he could receive some commissions. Even so, I thought about it while he drove along the road following me and I decided to let him drive me around if the price for the ride could be made reasonable and I was not expected to purchase anything I did not want. He told me that the ride would be only a couple of rupees so I told him that I wanted to buy silk pajamas (These are not sleeping pajamas like those in our country, but rather, the loose fitting long pants that look like our pajamas in the west but are worn outside in public throughout India. They are tied with a drawstring at the waist). That made him happy and he told me that he would charge me just a couple of rupees if he could bring me to a certain shop where he would receive just a small commission if I bought some pajamas. He also told me that he would meet me every morning if I needed a driver each day; he would be my driver during my stay in Agra ( just great, what did I get myself into)?

After I checked into the hotel I chose, I let him drive me around Agra and then he drove me to the shop he was telling me about. The shop he brought me to is nice, organized, but small. There is a large white topped table in the middle of the room with many colorful fabrics on shelves up and down the walls of the room. The tailor was friendly and spoke English. He first tried to talk me into buying a full suit but he was not too pushy nor overly insistent. He quickly resigned himself to my desire  for 2 pair of pajama style pants made from silk fabric. After I looked at several types of fabrics of several colors, I chose 2 types of silk. Both were shades of beige although one was a shiny type of silk and the other was more of a cotton looking type of silk. The tailor took my measurements and told me to return to the shop in two days to pick up the finished product. 

After I left the shop with the motor rickshaw driver, he again asked me if he could be my driver during my visit in Agra. I thought that it would be a good idea because I did like him and he would be easily able to bring me back to the shop to pick up the pants. I told him that I would agree to that but I am not interested in visiting tourist sites. I was interested in some good restaurants and West Gate Road area. For now, I just wanted to return to the hotel and relax. 

The next morning, my motor rickshaw driver friend was waiting outside of the hotel (they do that a lot).🤔 I decided to let him bring me to an area where I could choose a place to eat breakfast and to walk around for awhile. Although he tried to talk me into letting him take me to other sites, I told him that I was not interested in other sites that day. This day was for relaxing. He must have understood that I would not want his services much because, after I was finished with breakfast, he was not outside the restaurant where I ate. I do not know for sure but I suspect that someone else hired him for his service. This left me free to just explore around West Gate Road. 

There are a few mosques in the neighborhood. I passed by the Fatepuri mosque and the Barah Khamba mosque. Walking along South Gate and Miyan Nazir Roads, I passed by a Jain Temple, a post office, and a police station. Of course, there are also several Hindu temples in the neighborhood such as the Dauji Ka temple. There are many shops in the area but I did not want to buy anything else besides the silk pajama style pants that I had bought yesterday so I did not go into any of them. I did walk towards the west along Agra Road that follows the course of the Yamuna River here and leads to Agra Red Fort and Yamuna Park. The Agra Fort Railway Station is across Gwalior Road from the Red Fort grounds. The Red Fort is very impressive and imposing. It is really a walled town.  Mughal and Maratha rulers lived here. It is a UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE. It was renovated by Akbar the Great when he was emperor here around 1600. Just like at the Taj Mahal, I did not enter the interior. Walking around the grounds is all I was interested in this year because I did not want to deal with touts or stand in any long lines. Also, this trip was supposed to be more a pilgrimage than a tourist vacation. 

The next morning the motor rickshaw driver was outside the hotel again. At least I would have an easy time returning to the tailor shop to pick up the new silk pajama pants. Everything was in good order. We arrived at the tailor shop and my order was ready. I paid what we agreed I would pay. After we left the shop, the rickshaw driver brought me back to the hotel so I could check out and leave for Vrindavan. After I finished checking out of the hotel, the rickshaw driver asked me if he could drive me around Agra to do some sightseeing. Since I had decided to walk around Agra for awhile, I decided that it would be worth two or three dollars if I had a place to stow my duffel bag while exploring the city. I was able to leave the bag at the hotel so we could visit some temples and restaurants. At the end of it all, I just did not feel like dealing with the bus or train to New Delhi then to Vrindavan so I told my driver friend that I would stay in Agra one more night. We went back to the hotel where I had stayed but the driver asked me if we could pick up the bag and go to a hotel of his choice. He told me that he would bring me to a better motel that is clean and cheap and in the morning he would be able to bring me to the train station or the bus station for New Delhi. I was trusting him by this time so I agreed to this and he told me not to tell the hotel staff what we were doing; "Just pick up your bag and say goodbye." We arrived at the Tourist Guesthouse Agra on Buddha Vihar Gwalior Road. It is a very basic guesthouse, small, and well kept with a cozy patio in the back. I also paid only about $8.00 to stay there so I imagine that my driver friend did keep his word. 

New Delhi

When I arrived in New Delhi, I was surrounded by busses, travelers, taxis, and rickshaws. I passed by all of that and walked towards Connaught Place because the guide book I had listed at least three decent looking hotels to choose from that are located at Connaught Place. Also, that neighborhood is within very easy walking distance from the bus terminal where I was dropped off at. It took me about 20 minutes walking down Golkali Marg then down Rajiv Chowk to arrive at Connaught Circle. The first hotel that I came upon which was in the guide book is called York Hotel so that was the hotel I entered and that is the hotel where I stayed for a couple of days. I was placed in room 212 and the charge was 275 rupees plus 25 rupees for tax or tariff charge. I paid the 300 rupees in advance. This amounts to about $22 at the present exchange rate. When I took out my money belt to pay, there were many receipts for restaurants, hotels, shops, and ticket stubs that I had to take out in order to get to the money. It looked like a mess on the counter but the hotel clerk was very nice and patient with me. In fact, he told me that he could staple all of the receipts together if I wish. I told him, "Wow, that would be wonderful if you do not mind doing so, thank you."  He said, "It would be my pleasure." (English is spoken quite well here). He then gathered the hotel and restaurant receipts and had them in a nice stack that he stapled together and folded just right for proper storage in my money belt. I was able to quite easily find the receipts for Rajpoot Hotel, 5 Kotha Parcha Allahabad, Hôtel Varuna, Vishwanath Villa Gulab Bagh Varanasi, and York Hotel which includes three receipts; one for the room charge, and two for the two times I ate in their cozy Bhoj Restaurant. It amounted to a significant stack of 15 receipts.                                                 After I settled down into the room, I decided to relax here for most of my one night stay before traveling south to Vrindavin the next morning. I did leave the room several times to walk around the Connaught Place area and to eat. The restaurant was at the ground floor of the hotel just to the left of the hotel entrance. The ambience was cozy, food was great, and the service was professional and friendly. There are several types of Kesas Pista on the menu. They seem to be made mostly with nuts, some sort of fruit, and spices. This is a refreshing ice cream of India that did a lot to alleviate my long standing cravings for ice cream that often haunted me while in the country. One decent scoop of Kesas Pista cost about $1.00 at the York Hotel restaurant and it was a wonderful, low cost treat. I liked the York Hotel as it supplied me with several things that I was missing while exploring India. There is hot water, soap, flushing toilet with paper, and a bath tub. There is also a color television, radio, large bed with sheets and bed spread, a desk with a room service menu, and a water glass. The radio did not work very good and the television had only local stations that I could find. I enjoyed my stay at the York Hotel because it was a large step up from patios and hostels.                                               By this time, I was constantly wearing the two silk pajamas style pants that I had bought in Agra. I was wearing kirta style shirts with them. I remember one time when I was walking around Connaught Place, I saw a man looking at me when he spoke in surprise; "Pajamas!." The streets are wide and busy in this area. I once stood on the sidewalk watching a man with no legs crossing the wide street of Connaught Circle with only his arms. The handicapped are very visible throughout India and they are often fending for themselves to get places without any modern conveniences like wheelchairs. Many of them survive on whatever people put into their hands or cups. There are many places to go to get free food. Prasadam is food that has been offered up to the dieties on the altar before it is eaten and there are many thousands of temples throughout India where people can go to eat freely distributed prasadam. There are also the festivals and feasts that provide free food from many Muslim and Sikh communities. There are also water faucets on buildings that are used, not only for cooking by anyone who needs the water, but are also used for bathing. I saw several men crouching below such water faucets taking baths with bars of soap. It seems to me that it is much easier to live homeless in such a country as India than in USA.                                              The next morning, I walked back to the transportation hub to buy a ticket to Vrindavan and wait for the bus. It is not difficult to buy tickets at the stations. Each window clearly shows the destination that the windows serve. I just had to find the window where the south bound bus traveling through Mathura and Vrindavan was located. Once I found the window, there was a line I had to queue up to and the wait was only about 15 minutes. It is an efficient system that did not take long to get aquainted to. It was easy to find the correct platform to wait for the bus because the platforms are also clearly marked. I waited on the platform for about half an hour then all us passengers were quickly boarded. Of course, I was traveling lightly with only my duffle bag (unlike most of the other travelers with their many bags and boxes) so I was able to find a seat right away then just watch everyone else manipulate their possessions until they were all piled together and secured.

Once we were on the road, I was transfixed on what I saw outside the window. I was discovering that India always mesmerized me. There is so much to see everywhere, from the buses and trains, that I have never seen before. In the movie "Gandhi",  there is a scene that shows Gandhi traveling by train throughout India. What is shown in that scene is very reminesant of what I saw from the train I was on. The bus ride took about four hours because we had to go to Matura before continuing on to Vrindavan which is a change of direction, more towards the east. Matura has the reputation of being to town where the god Krisna was born. Because the demonic ruler Kamsa was trying to find the baby to kill him, Krisna was transferred to Vrindavan to live out his childhood in the home of "Mother Yashoda". I think Yashoda was his aunt so he was able to grow up in Vrindavan while in hiding from Kamsa while remaining in his family. In Matura, I was able to see the Katra Shrine which is the location of Krisnas' birth. This location is in the area of the Krisna Jamasthan Temple, Garbha Griha Shrine, Bhagavata Bhavan, and Rangabhoomi (where Krisna fought and slayed Kamsa). I could spend just a few minutes here because I had to get back to the station to get on the bus for Vrindavan, the town of one thousand temples where there are probably 2,000 temples 😄.

The road from New Delhi to Matura is a well maintained highway with lots of traffic but the road from Matura to Vrindavan is not so much a highway. It is well maintained but not wide and it has less traffic. Vrindavan is a major pilgramage destination for Vaisnava hindus and many others so it is not surpising that there are many temples along the Yamuna River here. The first destination for me was the ISKCON temple, Sri Sri Krishna Balaram Mandir, at Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg. This is where I would stay off and on for the next month.

I was given a place to stay at the brahmacharas' ashram so I could live here as long as I wanted. I would offer some kind of service for my room and board. I lived here and ate here with no money spent except when I went outside the temple grounds for lassis or street food. There is a nice restaurant at the temple and I did buy a good meal there once or twice when I was tempted. I spent a lot of time in the library and garden of A.C. Bhakivedanta Swami Prabhupada relaxing. I would sometimes rake up leaves in the garden. There are several trees in the garden and leaves were often falling. The initiating guru of the temple eventually asked me if I would like to do service for the devotees and Krishna. I accepted to do this service and found myself in a motorhome traveling around Rajasthan State as part of a Traveling Sankirtan Party. My duties were to fetch water from wells and faucets with two metal  buckets. The faucets always were attached to the walls of buildings where a line of water bearers formed. This water was for the cook. I also helped the cook by chopping vegetables. This was the routine in several cities throughout Rajasthan. I was sent out one time to sell posters of Radha-Govinda as well as posters of Vishnu and Ganesh but I lost most of them because people would ask to see them and they would just leave as soon as they had one in their hands. I was surrounded by people. They would take hold of a poster, many people at the same time, and the posters would disappear before I could say anything. I was no longer sent out to sell posters after that first disaster. 

The area around Mathura is especially sacred to the Vaisnavas. It encompasses approximatly 170 square miles with Mathura in the center. They call it the Brajmandal and consider it a manifestation of Krishnas' abode on earth. They believe that one must visit Brajmandal with the knowledge and attitude of their scriptures, or shastras, to see past the material characteristics of the place. That is how they are able to experience its true nature of sat, chit, ananda (eternity, bliss, and knowledge). In the Adi Purana, it is written, "In all the three planetary systems, this earth is especially fortunate for here stands the town of Vrindavan." There is a garden that is surrounded by a large wall which is called Nikunja Ban. This is where Krishna, as the most beloved Govinda, is believed to have appeared to His devotees. The Mathura Mahatyam Shastra has many statements like; "Dumb or unconscious beings, blind, killers, and those not practicing any tapas or nyamas who die in Mathura at any time will go to Visnu Loka (the abode of Visnu)."  Also stated; "If a man decides in his mind, 'I will go to Mathura and I will stay there', simply by having such thoughts, he will escape the wheel of Samsara."  Maybe I should have accepted the offer of the initiating guru of the ISKCON temple (Sripad Gopal Krishna Goswami) when he told me to live longer in the temple and they would arrange to acquire a visa to allow me a stay of much longer than the three months on my present passport visa.

Unfortunatly, I mostly saw the material conditions of Vrindavan rather than the Sat, Chit, Ananda. The material conditions jumped out at me all the time. They took the shape of dead cows floating down the Yamuna River, big, ugly pigs lumbering along the streets, dead dogs lying in the road, small children looking up at you with sad eyes as if they were hoping for a hand out of food or money, the heat of the sun bearing down, and the dust from the roads and dry fields rising up into my nostrils. There was some Sat, Chit, Ananda, though, such as when I met the spiritual master, Sripad Gopal Krishna Goswami because one of his devotees interruped my service in the garden of Founder Acharya Srila Bhagevendanta Swami Prabupada to bring me to the spiritual masters' room. The spiritual master wanted to ask me if I would like to go on traveling sankirtan with the devotees who travel in an RV to places like Gwalior. I liked the idea because Sripad Gopal Krishna Goswami seemed very humble and intelligent although he had at least 200 disciples in this temple and a few Africa temples. Also, I would be able to travel through Rajasthan with no money at all. There would be three of us traveling to Gwalior in the Traveling Sankirtan RV. The main purpose of the traveling sankirtan mission is to distribute books by Vaisnava Spiritual Masters and posters of Hindu dieties like Narayana, Krishna, Ganapati, and Laksmi for a nominal donation. We also spent a good amount of time preparing meals for, not only ourselves, but also for impoverished people in the area and the cows, goats, and dogs. We spent two hot, sweltering weeks in Gwalior. We slept on the roof of a Vaisnava Temple that hosted us during our stay. We had no mattresses to sleep on. We did have some thin mats though. We took baths with buckets of cold water which actually felt good due to the oppressive heat of the sun. We had soap most days but not every day. When we traveled the province of Rajasthan, we did so in an RV with inefficient refrigeration, suffering temperatures that sometimes reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit.