A COURSE IN MIRACLES PART I of II

In the fall of 2001, I was talking to some friends of mine in Dharamsala. I told them I had found it a little nippy in the Himalayas the previous winter and asked them if they knew a nice place in India where I could walk around in a “bed sheet” on flip-flops without getting cold. They told me they always spend their winters in Varkala, in the very south of India. According to them it was a very special place. It had some mystery about it.

On November 26, 2001, I decided to travel down south. The moment I arrived in Varkala, I was in love with it. In 2001, Varkala was only known to the experienced back-packer and those foreigners who lived in India. It was only a little developed back then and the local fishermen still camped out on the beach at night close to their traditional wooden boats. There was a small Tibetan community as well that ran some Tibetan artifacts and handicraft shops on the 30-metre high cliff above the beach. There were few low-budget guesthouses hidden in the palm tree forest and about ten open-air restaurants and shops, all constructed from biodegradable construction material such as local palm leaves.

One day I was chatting with my new friends, Tenzin and Dolker, a Tibetan couple that ran a little Tibetan shop close to the place I was staying in. Though Tenzin had little education, he was fluent in English to the extend that he was able to teach me English words I never heard of before. Apart from that, he was one of the most spiritual Tibetans I have ever met. We would speak every day for hours about the workings of the matrix of the universe. One day he suggested me to be silent for a few weeks. Just don’t speak, observe and learn, was his advice. When I was done with being silent, I returned to him.
“Very helpful,” Tenzin. “After a weeks, I felt I was able to communicate with the ants and giant cockroaches in my hut. I asked them to go somewhere else…and they listened.”
Tenzin smiled. “O, you are a quick learner. It took me twenty years before ants started listening to me.”
“So explain this to me, Tenzin. Is there some sort of magic in the universe that starts to help us when we pay attention to it?”
“You just have to go slower. People are so busy these days that they just don’t see the little miracles happening all around them. A few weeks ago you told me that you didn’t believe in reincarnation and that you were very sceptical about those people in Dharamsala who think that you are the reincarnation of Pantau.”
“Indeed. Well, I like to believe in it but it seems so difficult to understand. I don’t know much about Pantau and what he was all about. I wonder why this Tibetan guy decided to reincarnate into a Dutch person’s body. It’s too much hocus-pocus for me, Tenzin.”
“But you told me that some Tibetan had put you under hypnoses and that you started telling him about your previous life.”
“Yes. But I can’t remember what I said. I think it was a very deep hypnosis and I don’t trust those techniques. There is too much of a scientist in me. If there is one thing I have learned from the Dalai Lama it is not to trust anything automatically a person tells you. He said that one should hold every theory against the light and study it from every angle possible before accepting it as truth. Buddhism is not about blind faith. That is why I like His Holiness so much. He even accepts scientists to scrutinize everything he believes in. I like that.”
I took in a deep breath. “You know, Tenzin, I wish I would meet someone who could help me unraveling the mysteries of this Pantau-person. I may have adopted his name, but I want to know more about him. I want to feel more convinced of the concept of reincarnation. The astrologers of the Tibetan Mentsekhang discovered that, after Pantau died in the early 1960s, he reincarnated into a god. And this god decided to return to earth to be reborn in my body? You know Tenzin, I love the Tibetans and His Holiness, but really, if I go on television in the Netherlands talking about all this stuff, people will consider me to be completely nuts and lock me up in a mental hospital.”
Tenzin nodded. “Yes, I know. You want some tea?”
“Yes please.”
“Have you read the book A Course In Miracles?”
“No. Is it good?”
“Yes. A few years ago someone lend it to me. It’s a very big book, written decades ago. It will come to you when you are ready to receive it.”
“I see. Do you know any people in this area who can do regression therapy?”
“No.”
“I wish I would meet someone other that a Tibetan who could help me to travel back to my previous lives.”
“Well, if you can talk to ants and cockroaches, you can talk to the universe. Just send a message into the sky and attract what you desire to experience. Don’t WANT it, as that message will push it away from you, but ATTRACT it. After that it is just a matter of time.”

A little later I took my leave of Tenzin and started walking along the edge of the cliff, across the helicopter platform and further down to Beach Road. I turned right, walked onto the beach and entered the open-air restaurant called Somatheeram. Mr. Aje, the owner of the restaurant came up to me with a big smile. “Good evening, Pantau. How are you?”
“Hungry.”
“I have some beautiful red snapper for you. 100 rupees. You like it with coconut rice and some chapattis?”
“That sounds delicious, Mr Aje.”
“It’s very busy today. I don’t know why. Every table is taken. Perhaps you don’t mind sharing a table. Perhaps with that lonely lady overthere. She is German. Very nice woman. I can ask her if she doesn’t mind you sharing her table. She is about to finish dinner anyway.”
“German, huh. She speaks English?”
“Yes, she does.”
“Good. I don’t want to speak German today. I have been speaking German for months with my Japanese-German ex-fiancé and I am fed up with that language for the moment.”

Aje introduced me to the German woman. Her name was Heide P. and she was a slender, spectacles-wearing middle-aged woman. It was only 30 degrees but the woman looked visibly hot; she was sweating like a pig and kept wiping her forehead a neck with a cotton scarf.
I sat down at her table and smiled. “Sorry to invade your privacy. But if you’ve been in India for a while you know that there is no such thing as privacy over here.”
Heide giggled. “You look like someone who has been here for a while.”
“Ah! Can you tell?”
“Well, it’s the way you dress and the expression in your eyes. It shows that you have been studying the universe for a while.”
I looked up into the star-studded sky. “Well, I am just a beginner.”
I directed my eyes at Heide again. She looked at me with a strange expression.
“O my God,’ she said. “There is this white light flashing around you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Pardon?”
“There is this light. O, there it is again! It’s a spirit.”
Okay, a German nutcase, I thought.
“What spirit?”
“You’re a very special person. There’s something about you. I wonder why I need to meet you?”
I kept quiet.
“Okay, just give me a moment.” She closed her eyes for a few moments. Then she looked at me intently. “There is a reason why we meet today. I can still see the light surrounding you. It’s very bright. It’s flashing to attract my attention. It’s a very powerful spirit. It’s telling me that I need to connect to you.”
I still remained quiet in an aura of scepticism.
“Don’t tell me anything about yourself. It will come to me,” she continued.
“Okay. Tell me something about you then.”
“I am from Cologne. I am very interested in spiritualism. For decades I have been studying a publication called A Course in Miracles. Actually, I knew the author and I read parts of the book before it was even published. I work as a regression-therapist in Germany.”
“Ah! That is interesting. Would you like to regress me to my previous lives some time?”
“Do you believe in rebirth?”
“On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I believe. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I don’t.”
“And on Sundays?”
“On Sundays I take a rest.”
Heide laughed. “I would like to work with you, because I see a spirit light flashing all over the place. It wants to be heard.”
Nutcase. An interesting nutcase, but definitely an interesting German nutcase.
“So how does regression-therapy work? You put people under hypnosis?”
“Not really. I put people in a trance. I will ask them some questions and guide the person through the conversation. Normally a session lasts about an hour.”
“I am interested.”
“Me too, because I don’t believe in coincidences and there is a reason why I am meeting you tonight. Also, I have never seen anyone with such a strong aura and this spirit light is overwhelming. After you finish your dinner, I wouldn’t mind coming to your room. Is it a quiet room?”
“Yes. It’s very basic but it’s cool and quiet. It’s also free from cockroaches and ants.”
“Good.” Heide looked at me more focused. “Did you know that during your immediate previous life you were a deity; a god-like state of being? I also see a very powerful male spirit. I am fascinated. I can’t wait to put you in a trance and find out more.”
I smiled. I looked up into the sky and observed the constellation of Orion. I took in a deep breath. I looked behind me to see if I could see the bright white spirit light, but couldn’t. Next to me I could only see a middle-aged German woman who was still sweating like a pig. I realized I came a long way in these past few years. I already started to open myself up for people like this German woman. I was looking forward to my first regression-therapy session.

Left: Mr. Aje, the owner of Somatheeram Restaurant; right, his waiter; below, his cook.

DAVID BLAINE AND THE SUICIDAL MAN CALLED BRIAN

Do you believe that some dreams contain premonitions? Well, I don’t. I am a very Dutch person that has both feet on solid ground and just don’t believe in hocus-pocus.

In my dreams I recorded a duet with Barbra Streisand, made love to every member of the Korean boy band Super Junior (twice), sold over 100 million copies of my book Pantau in India, and was invited by Oprah for an exclusive one hour interview. None of my dreams came true, with a few exceptions…

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Since 2000 I am trying to unravel the mysteries of the workings of the matrix of the universe and still I have no idea. However, one night in December 2003, I had a strange dream about a man in a glass box and a person called Brian from London. It was a strange dream, a little bit frightening as well, as I saw someone committing suicide on live television by jumping from a bridge. Normally I tend to forget my dreams as soon as I wake up, but this time I remembered the images of the man in the glass box and the other man called Brian from London committing suicide on live television by jumping from a bridge.

That morning I got out of bed, got dressed in my white “bedsheet”, and put my hair in a knot on top of my head. It’s not a fashion statement, but merely the way yogis tend to dress. If you’re dressed like that in the West, you may get arrested and put in a mental hospital; in India people will namaskar you, touch your feet with their foreheads and take in every word you speak as if they are spoken by someone of great importance.

I left my hut and walked on my plastic flip-flops along the cliff of Varkala Beach. I kept seeing the images of the man in the glass box, and a man called Brian jumping off a bridge on live television. I felt a little farklempt as these images were disturbing and I didn’t understand why they kept re-appearing in my mind.

Normally I would have a fruit-muesli with yoghurt and coffee at Café del Mar, but this time I decided to walk a little further and go to a tourist restaurant that I had never been to before. Meanwhile I was mesmerized by the sight of a few dolphins swimming from north to south some 100 metres off-shore in the Arabian Sea, and this time I also saw a great whale with her calf swimming in the same direction. Should have brought my camera with me, I thought. Bummer! You don’t get to see big whales every day. I took in the lovely sight and the tranquil atmosphere of off-season Varkala. Only a few smelly hippie-like backpackers had found their way to Varkala but at 11 a.m. they were still in the process of sleeping off their highs so I was the only person on the cliff apart from the local merchants and restaurant personnel.

I entered a quiet open-air restaurant and sat down in the shade of a palm-tree with a book. It was deserted apart from one western man in the back of the restaurant who was chatting with a waiter. The waiter came over to me to take my order. An hour later I finished breakfast and stood up. I hardly ever signal a waiter to bring me the bill (which can take ages in India); normally I get up with a banknote in my hand and walk to the Indian who handles money and who often sits in the back of a restaurant. So was the case at this eatery. I paid my bill of 45 Indian Rupees to the restaurant owner who sat behind a little table in the back of the restaurant and greeted the western man who was still chatting with the waiter by nodding at him in a friendly manner.
“Ah, that is Pantau,” the waiter said to the western man. “She’s a yogi. She’s from Dharamsala in the Himalayas. That’s where the Dalai Lama lives.”
O my, I thought. I don’t even know this waiter and he even knows my name!
I smiled at the man who extended his arm to me. I kept on smiling while I shook his hand. 'I guess I don't have to introduce myself anymore. And who are you?"

“Hello, ma’am. I am Brian from London.”
And that was the moment my dream re-appeared in my mind. Brian from London. I wondered if he had anything to do with a bridge, live television, suicide and a man in a glass box. Here I was at a cross-road. I could say, “Nice to meet you,” and leave the restaurant, or “Nice to meet you. So tell me, how did you end up in a place like Varkala in India?” I decided to go for the second option.
“Nice to meet you, Brian from London.”
“So you live here in India?” he asked me.
“Yes, I divide my time between Dharamsala in the north and Varkala in the south. I spend the winters here as I think it is bloody cold in the Himalayas in winter.”
“That is quite a trip. India is big.”
“Yes, 12 hours on the Jammu-Kashmir train to Delhi and then two full days on the Rajdhani Express to Kerala.”
I had a good look at the man who didn’t appear to be very happy. I always wondered how people can look so sad and stressed in a beautiful beach resort with a more than fabulous view.
“Can I offer you a drink?” the man said.
“That’s very kind. Thank you.” I looked at the waiter. “I would like to have another coffee, please. Extra strong.”
I sat down next to the man. In the next hour he told me he was very unhappy.
“Two months ago I got into a fight with my wife. She wanted a divorce and my life fell apart. I left the house, totally disorientated. I walked and walked and walked and ended up on Tower Bridge. I felt so depressed that I wanted to commit suicide. And so I climbed over the railing and jumped.”
“O dear! But you’re still alive.”
“Yes. People who jump from Tower Bridge don’t survive. It’s high. Somehow I survived. I don’t even remembering hitting the water. I was knocked unconscious. But a few moments later I woke up and was floating belly up in the cold water of the Thames. My clothes were ripped off my body. I was completely naked apart from my shoes. I started swimming towards the South Bank. It was a totally insane situation as Sky Channel had recorded my jumping from the bridge. There were thousands of people standing on the South Bank. They were all there to watch David Blaine.”
“Who? David Blaine? Who's that?”
“He is a magician. He was executing some stunt by sitting in glass box for six weeks suspended in the air along the Thames.”
I nodded and felt a shiver run down my spine. “Right. I didn't know about that.”
“My attempted suicide was broadcast on live television by Sky Channel. It was very weird. But I survived and was taken to a hospital. A few weeks later I decided to travel to India. I flew to Goa and then took the train to Kerala. And that is why I am here. I thought I might find some sort of solution to my problems in India.”

I remembered the words of my own therapist in the Netherlands. In 1999 I consulted her to fight my own depression. I told her I wanted to travel to India to find a cure for my depression through a spiritual journey. She told me: “Sick people don’t travel to India to get better. Healthy people travel to India to get sick and die.”
I ignored her remark. I travelled to India shortly after and was able to cure my own depression in India. Seeing so many poor people dying in the streets in India, I suddenly felt a lot better about my own life. I hoped Brian from London would be able to find a cure too.

I spoke with Brian for a few hours before I moved on with my daily activities in Varkala. I never saw him again after our meeting.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

On September 5, 2003, David Blaine began his 44-day endurance stunt sealed inside a transparent Plexiglas case suspended 30 feet (9 m) in the air next to Potters Fields Park on the south bank of the River Thames, the area between City Hall and Tower Bridge in London.

SOUTH-EAST ASIAN TSUNAMI

On Sunday, 26 December 2004, I decided to get up early (shortly before noon). About a half hour walk from my hut on the cliff of Varkala Beach was a small upscale hotel called the Taj Garden Retreat. This hotel allowed non-residents to spend their Sundays at their pool and enjoy a buffet lunch for 200 rupees. That was a good deal. I must say, 200 rupees for a one-day five-star experience is not much, even for a low-budget person such as me. The price included a bed with mattress plus towel plus parasol at the pool. As my hut and my life in India didn’t include any luxury, I would occasionally treat myself to a Sunday at the pool of the Taj Hotel.
I got up at 11.00, had a light breakfast at Café del Mar next door, and started walking to the Taj Garden. I greeted the doormen, entered the lobby and found my way through the building to the garden at the back. It had a wonderful kidney-shaped pool and a wonderful view of the Arabian Sea. Normally I would only encounter very view people at the pool but this day it was busy. Very busy. All beds were taken by western tourists.
I felt disappointed. I had been looking forward to spending this day at the pool, surrounded by luxury, enjoy the buffet lunch around 3 p.m., but I guess that wasn’t going to happen today. The pool man apologized to me. “Sorry Madam. It’s very busy with hotel guests today. I am afraid we cannot accommodate you this time. It’s very high season right now. Maybe in a couple of weeks it will be more relaxed and perhaps you should come a little earlier next time.”
I left the Taj, disappointed and dissatisfied. Okay, what to do now, I thought. I had been looking forward to swimming in fresh water for a change. I shrugged my shoulders and walked down Beach Road towards the beach.

It was a beautiful day, rather busy with Indian day-trippers from upcountry who were visiting the nearby temple and enjoying a stroll along the seashore. I walked towards the north-end of the beach and sat down on the sand near the area where most western tourists could be found. I greeted the two Indian life-guards that kept an eye out on the swimmers, as the current was known to be unpredictable in this area. I glanced at my watch. It was shortly after noon. I gazed at the horizon and felt the sun burning on my skin. Perhaps not a great idea to have my white skin exposed to the burning sun at this time of the day. I ran a few options of “things to do” through my mind. Go back to my hut atop the cliff and read a book in my hammock. Perhaps have a chat with my neighbours, Tenzin and Dolker, who had a small souvernir shop in their hut. Have a swim in the sea and then return to my hut. Yes. That last option felt alright.
I was wearing my swimsuit underneath my clothes. I pulled my shirt over my head, got rid of my skirt and folded them up before I put them in my bag. I had a look around. There were perhaps a hundred western backpackers on the beach. I observed the sea. Normally there was a fierce surf with high waves but today it was unusually calm. The sea was like a mirror and I had never seen it like that before. Wonderful water for swimming. I was looking forward to my dip. Suddenly I felt a shiver run down my spine. I didn’t feel comfortable. I felt restless. For some inexplicable reason I changed my mind about swimming in the sea. By now I had come to take these inexplicable signs or intuitive feelings seriously. I felt uncomfortable being on this lovely beach and there was an urgent need to leave. I took my clothes out of my bag and got dressed. I picked up my bag and was about to walk to the staircase that went up the 30-metre (100 feet) high cliff when the life-guards asked me why I decided to leave already. “Don’t know. I changed my mind. I am going back to my room. I’ll come back later when it’s not so hot.”

I walked to the cliff and climbed the staircase. I turned left on the footpath along the cliff. It was only a short walk to my hut from here. I passed Tenzin and Dolker’s souvenir shop. Tenzin stood outside looking at the sea. “Hi Pantau. I thought you said you were going to the Taj Hotel today.”
“I did go but it’s very busy right now and there were no beds left for me. Bummer. I was looking forward to a day at the Taj, but I guess the gods had some other plan in store for me.”
“You want to have lunch with us a little later?”
“Sure. I am not really hungry yet, but give me a shout when you are ready.”
I walked passed their shop and turned right. My hut was at the back, just a stone-throw away from their shop. I pressed the buttons of my digital door lock, went inside and put my bag on the bed. I took my small digital camera out of my bag when I suddenly heard Tenzin shouting my name. I came outside to see what was the matter.
“Pantau. Come! Something strange is happening!”
I could see him standing at the edge of the cliff facing the sea. I ran towards him, my camera still in my hand. I could see a number of waves, about two metres high, coming towards the beach. They appeared to approach the beach very slowly. All the tourists jumped up. Within seconds the first waves flooded the entire beach, but they flooded the beach rather slowly and no one was swept away. People waded through the water towards the rocks and the cliff’s staircase to get on dry land. Another wave hit the beach shortly after. No one had an idea of what was going on.
“This is very strange, Tenzin. I have never seen anything like this before. This is unusual. And look at all those people on the beach, they’re up to their knees in the water. O my God, look! Their bags and everything are dragged back into the sea. Holy cow! Look! The water is sucked back into the sea and it takes all their belongings with it. How odd. What on earth is going on?”

I started to take some pictures of what was unfolding in front of my eyes. Half an hour later the water started to retreat completely. On Tenzin’s little television set inside the shop we saw that the world had been hit by the biggest earthquake in recorded history.
No people in Varkala died in the tsumami that started some six hours earlier off the coast of Indonesia. The tsumani travelled across the Indian Ocean, bounced off the Maldives Archipelago and travelled back to the south-west coast of India where Varkala is located.
The beach of Varkala remained closed for 10 days and monitored from the air by planes and helicopters until the authorities were sure that no more tsunamis could be expected.

North and south of Varkala Beach 168 people perished. In Kollam 131 died, Alappuzha 32, and in Ernakulam 5. A few hours south of Varkala in the Kanyakumari-area, around 10,000 people died.

The earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunami along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing more than 225,000 people in eleven countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 metres (100 feet) high. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand were hardest hit.
With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, it was the largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (0.5 inches) and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.

JOANNA LUMLEY: YOU LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO’S BEEN HERE FOR A LONG TIME.

In March 2004, nearing the end of my annual winter retreat at Varkala Beach in South-India, I passed by the little palm leave hut bookshop of Kumar. Tourists often left their old books behind in guesthouses or would give them to Kumar before they would return home, so Kumar ended up with a nice collection and was able to make a little business out of these used books and resell them. As I would read about a book a day and didn’t want to buy any books, I had made a deal with Kumar that I could rent his books for 30 rupees and return them within two days.

That day I was chatting with Kumar and drinking Indian milk-tea when he started telling me about his favourite Indian actors. “I love Amitabh Bachchan and Hrithik Rochan. They can dance and sing very well. I love them. Who are your favourite actors?” he asked me.
“Well, I like Jodie Foster. Some people say I look like her. And I like Barbra Streisand very much.”
“Who?"
“Barbra Streisand. Do you know her?”
“No. Never heard of Bar… what is her name again?”
“Barbra Streisand. She’s also a very famous singer.”
“Is she from Engeland?”
“No. She is American. My most favourite English actress is Joanna Lumley. She played the role as Purdey in The New Avengers. She also starred next to Jennifer Saunders as the chain smoking, boozing, cocaine-sniffing fashion director Patsy Stone in the British comedy television show Absolutely Fabulous. Very funny. Love her.”
“Who?”
“Joanna Lumley.”
“I see. Never heard of.”
I smiled. Of course, I can’t expect a former Indian fisherman-turned-used-book-seller to know about Joanna Lumley or Barbra Streisand. We continued talking, changing the subject to more local topics of interest, such as coconuts and fishing for blue marlins. As I was about to finish my tea, Kumar suddenly stood up. He looked at me. “Joanna who?”
“Lumley. Joanna Lumley.”
“Joanna Lumley,” he repeated. He stepped into his two-and-a-half square metre bookshop. A few moments later he returned outside and handed over to me a very used paperback pocket book. I looked at the worn cover. “O my God, what a coincidence! Joanna Lumley’s autobiography!” I flipped it open. “Printed in 1989. How wonderful. I would love to read it.”

Back at my hut on the cliff I lay down on my hammock and started reading Joanna’s autobiography. Here I learned that she was born in 1946 in Srinagar, Kashmir, as her father served as a major in the British Indian Army. Later she would make a documentary about her father who also spent some time in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. She is also known as a Free Tibet activist. I looked up into the sky through the palm leave canopy and wondered if I should send a copy of my book to Joanna and ask her to commend it, perhaps write an introduction for its upcoming English translation. My mind started to wonder off. How to contact a British celebrity? Should I send a letter to the BBC? Would they pass my letter on? Would she actually contact me?
I finished the book within two days and returned it to Kumar. “Very interesting. She is born in your country, did you know that?”

Of course he didn’t.

A week later I travelled back to my home in the Himalayas during a grueling three-day train journey. The next day I picked up my jeep that I had left in the care of an auto-repair shop in Lower Dharamsala, making sure it would still work after my 4-month retreat in South-India. On April 6, 2004, I woke up at 9 and tried to make up my mind as to where I would have breakfast. I could go to my favourite Tibetan restaurant atop the mountain for thukpa. I could go and chat with my friend Dykey-la and have breakfast at the Om Hotel that was owned by her family. No, I have a better idea, I thought. I’ll have breakfast at the café of the Norbulingka Temple in the valley.
The Norbulingka was one of my most favourite places in the Dharamsala-area. It was a beautiful temple, surrounded by a lovely garden. Some of the buildings of the Norbulingka accommodated a school that taught Tibetan refugees thangkha painting and wood carving, as well as a variety of other Tibetan handicrafts. From the top of the mountain of McLeodganj, it was about a forty-minute drive in my jeep. The Norbulingka Café served very tasty Tibetan bread. Yes, today I would have breakfast at the Norbulingka, and after that I would be able to meditate in the temple. Unlike the Dalai Lama Temple in McLeod, only very few people visited the Norbulingka in the valley. It was always nice and quiet in that beautiful temple and I always enjoyed going there for meditation.

I parked my jeep outside the temple next to a small motorcade of expensive looking jeeps. Uniformed drivers stood in the shade of the large bodhi-tree close by. I was wondering who had been brought here with this motorcade. Was His Holiness the Dalai Lama visiting the temple? Surely someone of importance must be visiting the Norbulingka. I walked through the main gate and turned right toward the café with the outdoor terrace. From a distance I could see that only one of the 8 tables was occupied. At the far-end, two women and a man were having breakfast. As I came closer I recognized the woman that was facing me to be no one other than the British actress Joanna Lumley. I almost got a heart attack. I froze for a moment and turned into a salt pilar. I had the urge to scream: O MY GOD, IT’S JOANNA LUMLEY!!! However, I decided to play it cool and not act as some sort of crazy fan. We looked at each other. She nodded and so did I. I decided not to sit at the table right next to her and her escorts but at a table on the other side of the terrace, as far away from her as possible. Let’s play this professionally, I thought. Let’s give the girl some space. I am not going to talk to her. I am not going to ask her for an autograph. I am not going to arrange for a photo shoot of Joanna and me. There won't be a picture of me and Joanna smiling at a camera. I’ll be completely cool.

My friend Thubten-la, who worked as a waiter at the café, came outside to take my order. “Hot lemon-ginger-honey, cheese omelet with Tibetan bread, please,” I ordered. “Thubten-la, come closer, I need to whisper in your ear!” I whispered. “That woman with the blond hair overthere…that’s Joanna Lumley!”

“Who?”
“Joanna Lumley. She’s very famous. She’s a British actress.”
“O, is she? Very nice. I don’t know her.”
“I can’t believe seeing her here.”
I put on my sunglasses so that I could stare at Joanna without getting noticed. She was all dolled up in make-up, coiffed with a great hair-style, and dressed in a beautiful silk salwar kameez. What on earth was she doing here dressed up like that?

About fifteen minutes later I was half-way eating my breakfast when the man and woman who accompanied Joanna stood up and went inside the café, leaving the actress sitting alone at the table. I took off my sunglasses and smiled at her.
“You look like someone who has been here for a long time,” Joanna Lumley said to me with her posh accent. It took me a few seconds to take in her words. What did that mean? What does someone look like who has been here for a long time? It doesn't sound as a compliment. Perhaps she thinks I must be here for a long time because I am dressed like a Tibetan. Like many other people she can tell by my demeanor that I am not a tourist. I smiled at her. “Well, Miss Lumley, it is not a coincidence that I am seeing you here today.”
Miss Lumley sat up and looked at me, suddenly more focussed.
“I just finished reading your 1989 autobiography. I picked it up at a small bookshop in South-India last week. I just returned to my home in Dharamsala.”
“You just read my autobiography? Wow!” Joanna Lumley stood up and walked towards me. “Can I sit down with you for a moment?” she asked.
“Yes. Of course. You look absolutely fabulous, Miss Lumley. All dressed up. What are you doing here?”
“I am here for a photo shoot.”
“Great. Well, you look absolutely fabulous.” I studied her face. She looked great for a 58-year-old woman. I wondered how many cosmetic procedures she had done. Should I get the name of her surgeon?
“I read you were born in Srinagar in Kashmir. Very interesting. I visited Kashmir a few years ago. I wasn’t meant to but the propeller plane I was travelling in crashed just outside Srinagar, so I ended up spending some time there. Beautiful valley. I remember the documentary that you made about your journey to Bhutan in the footsteps of your father. Very interesting documentary. Loved it. Especially how you explained about folding up your dirty clothes and put them at the bottom of your backpack. They would move to the top of the backpack and come out looking much cleaner the next time you would wear them… O, buy the way, my name is Veronique Renard, but the Tibetans call me Pantau.” O Jesus bloody Christ hanging from the cross; I am rambling. She must think I am a nutcase.
“I see. So you've been living here.”
“Yes. I moved from the Netherlands to Dharamsala in the spring of 2000. Wasn’t very happy with my western life-style and decided to live close to the Dalai Lama and become a Free Tibet activist. I published my memoir last year. The book is expected to be published in England next year. We’re working on its translation right now.”
“Interesting. I would love to read it. Do you have a business card?”
I looked in my bag but couldn't find a business card. I was also upset because I didn’t carry my digital camera in my bag. My mobile phone was bought before they made them with cameras in it. I didn’t even have a piece of paper on which she could sign her autograph.
I only carried a book of the Dalai Lama with me. But it wasn’t my book so I couldn’t ask her to sign it. However, I was using one of my own Pantau in India-book marks. My publisher had a 1000 of these book marks printed to give away to my readers. He had given only 20 of them to me. In turn I had given most of them away to people who hadn't even bought my book. I only had one of those book marks left but decided to give it to Joanna Lumley. It had my website address printed on it.

The two people who accompanied Joanna came out of the café. They had gone inside to pay the bill. They were surprised to see Joanna sitting at my table. Joanna introduced them to me. We shook hands and exchanged a few words and soon Joanna stood up. “Nice to meet you. Send me a copy of your book when its English translation has been published.”
“I will, Miss Lumley. I certainly will.”
After Joanna had left, I thought: I forgot to ask her where to send it to. I should have asked her for her email-address or some contact information of her people so that my people can contact her people. Hmmmm. Should I send a copy to the BBC, hoping that they will pass it on to her?
I finished my breakfast. I asked Thubten-la for the bill. “Can’t believe I just met Joanna Lumley! What a coincidence.”
“Coincidence?” Thubten said. “There are no such things as coincidences.”
I smiled.

It’s now 14 January 2009. I never sent a copy of the English translation of my book Pantau in India to Joanna Lumley. I’m such an idiot really. But I am going to look up the address of the BBC and finally send a copy addressed to her, perhaps print out this little blog-story and send it along with it. Would she remember our conversation? Would she send me a signed photo? Would she like my book and commend it?

If you read this, Miss Lumley, I would like to thank you for giving me the pleasure of meeting you at the Norbulingka. Do you believe in coincidences? Did you have a dream the night before our meeting about meeting someone in India who had read your 1989 autobiography? And please explain to me: what does someone look like who looks like someone who has been “here” for a long time?

WHAT HAS A HIPPIE TO DO WITH SATURN AND JUPITER?

In the winter of 2002/2003 I was staying in a low-budget guesthouse, just a few minutes’ walk from the edge of the cliff in Varkala Beach, India. I wanted to stay in my favourite hut on the cliff, but the owner of that particular property hadn’t shown up yet so early in the season, hence I was forced to reside at a guesthouse for a few weeks. One night I had stood still for a long time at the south-side of the cliff where there had been made a clearing in the palm tree forest over a decade and a half before. A part of that area had been covered with asphalt and painted with a large white circle that had an H in the centre. It was once used as a helicopter platform to allow Indira Gandhi to land there. She had been invited to visit a nearby temple.

When you stand on the edge of the cliff on that helicopter platform at night and look up into the sky, one gets a great sense of standing on a sphere in a vast universe, and thus feel very small and insignificant. One can see the star sign of Orion, and the planets of Saturn and Jupiter…and dream away.
I always loved standing on that helicopter platform and gaze into the star-studded night sky. One night I went to bed and had a dream about Saturn and Jupiter. It was the first time in my life I actually dreamed about planets. I have dreamed of many things in my life, but never about planets. In my dream I was able to see the rings around Saturn and the moons of Jupiter, something impossible to see in real life with the naked eye.

The next day I had forgotten about my dream and went through my routine of having breakfast on the cliff at Café del Mar, swimming in the sea, and having dinner at night on the beach at Aje’s Restaurant. As usual, I would end my evenings by chatting a few hours with my Tibetan friends Tenzin and Dolker, who ran a little souvenir shop called Wind-Horse in a palmleave hut on the cliff. At eleven, I walked back to my guesthouse, finding my way through the forest with my flashlight. When I arrived at the guesthouse, I found a dirty old man laying in front of the door. The owner of the guesthouse wasn’t present, and as it was still off-season, I was the only guest in the guesthouse. I wondered what to do with this bum laying in front of the door. Who was he and why was he sleeping in front of the door? I woke him up. The bearded man sat up. He looked like a hippie on drugs.
“Hello. Can I help you?” I asked.
“Hi. I got here this evening and checked into a room. I went out for dinner at the temple but I got a little drunk later on and then I lost the key of the front door and the manager isn’t here so I can’t get in. Fuck!”
I took in his words. “So you still have your room-key?”
“Yes. I just lost the front-door key.”
“Okay. In that case I can let you in. Which room are you staying in?”
“The lilac room.”
He convinced me to be a guest here. None of the 6 rooms had numbers, but colours as names.
He followed me inside, climbed the staircase to the first floor and opened the door to his room.
I pressed the buttons of my digital lock and opened my door.
The hippie reappeared on the landing. “O excuse me. Do you have some grass for me to smoke?” he asked me.
“Sorry. I don’t do grass. But if you hang out in this area for a while, perhaps have a walk near black beach, some Indian will come up to you and ask you if you want something. If you say yes, you’ll get a fair amount of grass for a few hundred rupees. Enjoy and good luck. Goodnight.”
He nodded and went back into his room and I in mine. Half an hour later someone knocked on my door. I asked who was there.
“It’s me. I can’t sleep. You want to talk with me?” It was the voice of the old hippie.
I contemplated. I couldn’t sleep either, but what was I to talk about with this crazy bearded hippie? Was it safe to be with him? We were all alone in this guesthouse; the manager had obviously gone home to spend the night with his family in Varkala town.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked him with my door still closed and locked.
“Anything. I just feel the need to talk to someone. I am broke, have no money to pay for the room at the end of the week, spent my last money on food and beer a few hours ago and I feel depressed. I want to talk to someone. About anything.”
I rolled my eyes, accusing myself in silence of being too much of a Mother Teresa, and finally opened the door.
“Can I come inside your room?” the old hippie asked.
“No,” I replied. “I have no chairs in my room and I don’t allow people to sit on my bed. We can sit on the veranda.”
We sat down on some uncomfortable rattan chairs on the veranda. “So what’s your name and where are you from?” I asked him.
“I am Antonio. I am Italian. And you?”

"My name is Pantau. I am Dutch but I live here in India. I live in the Himalayas for eight months a year but the winters I spend here in Varkala. So what are you doing in India without money, Antonio?”
“I am homeless and India is cheep. I can’t stay in Europe. Too cold and too expensive.”
“Do you work…sometimes?”
He looked at me and grinned.
“I haven’t worked in years. I am a bum. People give me food. Indians are nice. They always give me food. I sleep in temples. People feed me. Sometimes I do chores for people. They give me some money. Things like that.”
I nodded.
“Do you have some money for me?” he asked.
“No. I am sorry.”
He nodded.
“These rooms cost 100 rupees a night,” he informed me.
“I know. You should have thought about that before you checked in. Sorry, I cannot help you.”
He started to irritate me and I thought of going back to my room to continue re-reading my book The Art of Happiness by H.H. the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler.
A long silence followed. Antonio looked up into the sky. “The moon is beautiful tonight.”
“Yes. It’s almost full.”
“Do you know about the planets? Have you seen them?” he asked.
“On pictures, sure, and as little dots in the night sky.”
“I am an astronomer,” he said.
“Really? A real one?”
“Yes. But I hate teaching at universities and I started travelling the world about twenty years ago. I never went home. I am always unsure about whether I will be alive the next day, whether I will have food in my stomach or a place to sleep. But I like it this way. It’s not boring. Working as a professor is very boring. At least, that is how it feels to me.”
“Indeed. So you never felt a need for certainty and security?”
“No. Everyone wants security and certainty, but that doesn’t bring happiness. It’s very boring.”
“People want surprises then?”
“They think they like surprises, but they only enjoy surprises that they like. If they’re surprised by something they don’t like, they consider it a problem.”
I smiled and took this information in. “I had a dream about Saturn and Jupiter last night. Very strange, because I never dream about planets. But last night I was observing Saturn and Jupiter in my dream as if they were right in front of my eyes. I could see the rings around Saturn and the moons of Jupiter.”
Antonio stood up. “Jupiter has over sixty moons. Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun. You want to see them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me to the roof and I’ll show you Saturn and Jupiter.”
I stood up and followed him to the roof of the guesthouse. To my surprise there was a little table in the centre of the concrete roof and a rattan chair. On top of the wooden table stood a large telescope. It wasn’t one of those long slim things on a tripod but a drum-like, two foot long cylinder with a small viewfinder sticking outside the bottom. Antonio searched the sky, pointing the telescope in the right direction and then allowed me to look through the viewer. And there it was. Saturn with her rings. Never seen it before like this. This was a first for me. It looked so close to me, so clear; the sight ran a shiver down my spine. Saturn moved so fast through the sky that within a minute it disappeared out of the telescope’s view and Antonio had to adjust its direction for me every minute so I could keep following it through the sky. A little later, he pointed the scope at Jupiter and I could see 5 of its moons so clearly. They appeared so close to me, as if I could reach out my hand and touch them.
The moon started to appear higher in the sky and Antonio directed the lens at the moon’s surface. The view of the moon through this big telescope was more impressive than I had ever seen it through my binoculars. That night we spent a few more hours talking about the universe. I offered him some money, as this experience was worth it. I also discussed with him a little business plan....

For the next few months, Antonio would stand on a strategic point atop the cliff near the tourist restaurants. He had made a cardboard advertisement reading: SEE SATURN AND JUPITER FOR 60 RUPEES. Tourists queued to get a glimpse of the planets through Antonio’s telescope. Antonio could pay for food and shelter. I greeted him every night. He would sometimes show me Saturn again (for free) until one day Antonio no longer stood on the cliff with his telescope. He had disappeared, probably moved on to a new adventure.

WHAT HAVE SEAHORSES TO DO WITH UNIVERSAL MAGIC?

Leh with Leh Palace in the background.

In the summer of 2004, I made plans to travel from my Himalayan hometown of Dharamsala to the remote village of Leh in the former kingdom of Ladakh. In order to get there, one needs to conquer muddy, rocky and none-existing bad northbound jeep tracks and cross a number of high mountain passes. This time I also planned to cross the world’s highest motorable mountain pass, the Kardung-la, north of Leh.

From Dharamsala, which is located in the foothills of the southern-most Himalayan range, the journey takes about 5 days in a sturdy four-wheel-drive jeep with the foot pressed down on the accelerator pedal and the stick-shift mostly in first gear. Good thing is that I had such a jeep and knew the route across those high mountains pretty well. In previous years I had driven to Leh in order to avoid the torrential monsoon rains that tend to hit Dharamsala from June till September. The monsoon clouds are too heavy to cross the peaks of the first Himalayan range, leaving Dharamsala constantly covered in the clouds, and the Ladakh Valley in the north a very arid moon-like landscape.

On the third day I arrived in Manali with my British travel companion Ann, who I didn’t allow to steer my jeep, so I was to drive the entire journey myself. In Manali, I was told by local Indians that no woman had ever driven across the Himalayan ranges, but I told them I had done it a few times before, so that record had already been broken... by me... a woman.

Ann and I spent our fourth night in a tented encampment at an altitude of over 18.000 feet. The lack of oxygen made us suffer from insomnia so Ann and I were chatting a bit in bed, covered by half a dozen blankets, plus my travel duvet, and wearing woolen hats and gloves. I told her that I felt a bit of pride, thinking that I was very probably the only woman who drove a jeep across half a dozen Himalayan mountain ranges. I had seen women walking the route, or by means of horseback-riding, yakback-riding, scootering and I had even seen some Dutch people bicycling to Leh, but I had yet to encounter a woman steering a jeep. The only people crossing those mountain ranges on four or more wheels were experienced Indian jeep, lorry or military truck drivers.

I admire women who stand out, make a change, do something that most women wouldn’t even consider doing; women who change the world into a better place.
I have my idols. Apart from Barbra Streisand and a few other celebrities, there is another woman who captures my attention. That night I told my companion about a girl that I had seen on BBC-television some four years back, shortly before I moved from the Netherlands to India. She was concerned about the well-being of seahorses and managed a seahorse preservation project somewhere in the Pacific. "I love seahorses. Aren’t they incredible creatures of nature?"

I told my friend that since I saw that girl on television I had the wish to meet her, to produce an article in one form or another, creating awareness of the plight of the seahorses and write about this incredible woman’s mission. "But what is more: because of this girl, I was able to lose my fear of stepping out of my comfort zone, getting out of my box, build enough courage to leave my familiar life in the Netherlands behind me and commence a new adventure. Only weeks after seeing the seahorse-girl on television, I got on a plane to Asia and started a new life. I owe her more than you can think of."
“Do you know her name and where she is? Have you contacted her?” Ann asked me.
“No, it’s been a while that I saw her on television. She spoke English and had blond hair... I think. Could have been dark blond hair, bleached in the sun and sea water. I never got to tracking her down. But I told you about the workings of the universe. One day I may stand in a Chinese pharmacy in Beijing or Bangkok staring in horror at at a glass jar full of dried seahorses and standing next to a girl with blond hair whom I recognise as the seahorse-girl I saw on TV. It may take years or a few days, but if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. There's a lot of magic in the universe. Or... I should Google 'seahorses' and see what turns up. Never thought about that... hmm!”

.
The next day we continued the journey. Ten hours later we started descending into the Ladakh Valley and driving across the over 12,000 feet high plateau toward the former capital of the former kingdom of Leh. The place looks a bit like the old Lhasa before the Chinese occupied Tibet and changed the ancient capital into a modern Chinese city.

Ann and I found a pleasant guestroom below the dilapidated Leh Palace that was perched against a mountain. It was abandoned by the royal family already in the 19th century when they moved into the nearby Palace of Stok. The last King died there in 1974, but his wife and decendants still inhabited the palace.

.

The next day we woke up early and had breakfast in town. My companion and I were discussing the plans for that day. We could take a hike up the hill and visit Leh Palace. I had been inside the palace the previous year and was baffled to observe the royal toilet, which was a small room with a hole in a mud-floor. We could perhaps take it easy, adjust to the altitude, and just have a walk around town. We could take the jeep to Tikse Monastery, about a 30-minute drive south of Leh. I had never been to Stok Palace before, which is only a short drive from Tikse Monastery. I had heard the old queen was still alive and the decendants of the royal family still took up residence in the rooms on the top floor.

Suddenly a western middle-aged woman in a blue jacket came up to us. “Excuse me, ladies. Do you have any idea how I can get to Stok Palace by public transportation?”
I frowned. “Public transportation? Sorry, I happen to have my own set of wheels so I have no idea about public transportation in this area, really.”
“Do you think there is a bus station here?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sorry. I am not the right person to answer that question.” I turned to Ann. “Isn’t that interesting? I know every bloody jeep track in the Himalayas, but I can’t even help a woman getting on a bus in Leh.”
I turned back to the woman. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t know about busses. You may need to consider hiring a jeep with chauffeur to get you to Stok. However, this is your lucky day. If you sit down with my friend and me and have a coffee while we finish our breakfast, I can offer you a ride. I have a Maruti-Suzuki jeep and my friend and I were just thinking about going to Stok Palace. Would you like to join us?”

Half an hour later, the lady climbed into the jeep and we sped off, leaving a cloud of dust behind us. Her name was Jane, a woman from Canada, and she started telling me about her expedition to Leh. In return I told her I was a writer and Free Tibet activist, residing in the hometown of the Dalai Lama. "Born in the Netherlands, but I matured in Asia," I grinned.

Jane complained about the dry air in Ladakh that caused her skin to crack. "My skin feels like parchment."
“When you’re facing the sun at this altitude, you burn your face while your back freezes off your body,” I replied. “The Ladakhi women use a very thick green cream with a texture of Vaseline, but it works really well. It prevents us ladies from aging ten years in one week in this harsh climate. I have almost run out of my last year’s batch of Tibetan high-altitude mountain cream but half-way to Stok there is a branch of the Tibetan Mentsekhang Hospital and they sell that stuff in their shop. Can’t get anything better than that stuff. You’d better stock up on some of that product. It’s good. Very good.”

After leaving the Mentsekhang, we continued to Stok Palace. It looked deserted. We knocked on the door but nothing happened for a few minutes. We stood idle for a while but then suddenly the door of the courtyard opened and a very old man wearing a chuba and a hat came out to greet us in Ladakhi. "Joolay".
“Joolay! Is Her Majesty at home?” I asked.
“Sorry. The Queen no longer receives visitors.”
“O, bummer! Well, is it possible to have a look around then? We would love to see some of the inside of the Palace.”
.

“Sure,” the old man replied and he took us inside, showing us around a few rooms that had ancient furniture and old black and white pictures of the royal family on the wall. There was also a photo of Lde, one of the sons of the king and queen of Leh. A few years back, an old lama in Dharamsala had told me about my previous incarnation, a Tibetan nobleman called Pantau. He used to be friends with Prince Lde. For that reason alone I had been interested in meeting the Queen and ask her about Lde and his Tibetan friend Pantau. The Dalai Lama himself renamed me Pantau, in honour of my previous body’s good deeds as a freedom fighter. Both Lde and Pantau died in the early 1960s.

Suddenly, our fellow-traveller took out her camera but the old man with the hat told her that it was not allowed to take any photos inside the palace. Jane looked visibly disappointed. “Can I just take a picture of you then?” she asked. The man looked surprised. “Why would you want to take a photo of me? I am just an old man. Nobody special. I just work here. Cleaning the floors, opening the door, attending to the Queen. I am nobody.”

.

“Well, I would like to take a picture of you because of your hat. It says “seahorse” on your hat. My daughter is crazy about seahorses and I thought it would be nice to show her a photo of a man in Ladakh who is wearing a hat that says seahorse.”

I turned my head towards the woman who was finally given permission to take one photo of the man with the hat. I thought her request was unusual but interesting. I took out my small digital camera and secretly took a picture of the man while he was posing for Jane.

I told the man the story about Prince Lde being friends with my previous incarnation, Pantau. “Did you know Prince Lde personally? Have you ever met Pantau from Tibet?" I asked him. "I was told that Lde and Pantau were very good friends," I continued. "I have information that Pantau visited the palace in the 1950's. The Queen may know about their friendship.”

The old man looked three-hundred years old, perhaps he had known both Lde and Pantau. "No, I am sorry. I haven't met either one of them. I am nobody. I just clean the floors and open the door."

I nodded understandingly. “Can I take a photo of that portrait on the wall of Lde?" I asked him. "My previous incarnation and the Prince were... let's say... very special friends. It would mean a lot to me. Perhaps there are some pictures laying around somewhere of Pantau and Lde."

"I am not sure about that. I don't think we have such photos."

"Well, it would mean a lot to me if I can at least take a photo of the Prince's portrait.” Unfortunately the answer was “No. No photographing allowed inside the palace.”

After our brief visit the man requested us to leave the palace.

Outside, my friend Ann, our fellow-daytripper Jane and I sat down on a white-washed wall.
“Well, that wasn’t the greatest experience I had. I feel a bit disappointed," I said. "I had been looking forward to visiting this palace and speaking to the Queen. At least I got a photo of one of the Queen’s aides, but oy vey, this fahcockteh experience is giving me shpilkes in my genecktigazoink! It's making me all farklempt now.”
“I am glad that I was able to take a picture of that man and his seahorse hat. My daughter will be pleased.”
“So your daughter is verruckt about seahorses, right? Interestingly, two nights ago I was discussing seahorses with Ann in a tent on the Sarchu plateau. Shortly before I moved to India I saw a documentary on television about a girl who had set up a preservation project for seahorses on some island here in the Pacific. She went to China and everything to do research on Chinese people who think that eating dried seahorses give them some health benefits. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but I always wanted to visit her on that island and observe her working there and write about her. She inspired me to change my life and move to Asia. I think her name was Sandra or Samantha or Amanda or something like that.”
“The Philippines,” the woman replied.
“Pardon?”
“She carried out that seahorse project in the Philippines. And the girl’s name is Amanda Vincent. She’s a marine biologist. I am Jane Vincent. I am Amanda’s mother.”

I am always surprised about the workings of the matrix of the universe, but wasn’t it Goethe who said that when you’re committed, the universe conspires to assist you?

Perhaps I wasn’t able to meet the Queen of Leh or take a picture of the black and white portrait of Prince Lde, but meeting the mother of Dr. Amanda C.J. Vincent PhD, made up for it in a very big way. Wasn't this more than a coincidence?

Despite meeting Amanda's mother in the remote Himalayan valley of Ladakh, I never wrote about her wonderful daughter… until now.

If you want to learn more about Amanda’s amazing work, please visit Project Seahorse at http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/team.html

Below: Jane Vincent, the mother of Amanda Vincent, in front of the Japanese temple outside Leh in 2004.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Shortly after I posted this story I had the pleasure of receiving the following email.

Dear Pantau/Veronique,

What a lovely surprise to find your email in the midst of an otherwise predictable day. I enjoyed reading your blog - and seeing a lovely photo of my mother - and was delighted to find that you, too, are keen on seahorses, marine life and good causes. My mother ended up buying me a seahorse hat like the one the custodian / doorkeeper was wearing. Thanks for putting our website in your blog. We are still hard at work in fishing communities in the Philippines, but are also cooperating productively with traditional Chinese medicine markets / consumers and policy makers. The oceans are still a mess but at least more people are starting to care. I wish you all good luck with your own projects and dreams. Life is never dull.

Warm regards,

Amanda

COINCIDENCE OR INTERVENTION OF THE UNIVERSE?

Late afternoon on 24 December 2003, I was walking from my hut atop a cliff in South-India to the beach in order to fill up my 5 litre canister with mineral water. About a mile from my hut there was this place where perfect clean mineral water came jetting out of the cliff. It came from a five mile deep volcanic reservoir and it was believed to have healing properties. All the local Indians would queue to fill up their jerry-cans and plastic bottles on a daily basis; other people travelled from afar to wash themselves in the water, as it was also believed it was blessed water. An Indian version of Lourdes I can say.

As usual I was dressed in my white yogini-habit, which I jokingly refer to as my bed sheet. In fact, I would use the lower part to sleep on every night. Anyway, I had just returned from the Netherlands where I spent a couple of months promoting the Dutch release of my novel Pantau in India. I had been speaking to dozens of journalists of newspapers and magazines, on radio and television, and some of these people had actually read my book. But I hadn’t been speaking to anyone who had actually bought the book in a bookshop. I was wondering what readers thought of the book, and this was going through my mind as I was on my way to fill up on drinking water. The sun was setting over the Arabian Sea in the West and the moon was rising above the palm tree line on the cliff in the East. It was a perfect picture. Was that Venus on my right, already visible in the light-blue sky? Oh, I did love my winter retreats in Varkala Beach in Kerala State, even when being totally alone on such a special day with no prospects for a shared Christmas meal.

What I also loved about Varkala was that nobody in this quiet Muslim fishermen’s town knew I was a writer and Free Tibet activist. To them I was just that woman dressed in a “bed sheet” who keeps to herself most of the time and spends the days in quiet meditation.
While making my way to the water spout I remembered all the recent attention I received from the Dutch and Belgian media, and suddenly I felt a bit lonely and alone on that Christmas day in India. So my list of “things to experience” started growing quite rapidly: speaking Dutch, speaking to readers, and sharing a Christmas Eve meal.

There were some tourists on the beach, mostly couples from Europe and some back-packers from around the world, but wouldn’t it occur as strange to them if I asked them: did you read my Dutch book and do you want to have dinner with me?
Getting closer to the water spout, I suddenly heard a man calling my name: Pantau! I turned my head and saw a couple sitting on the sand in swimsuits. I nodded. Who were these people? I walked towards them. The man and the woman stood up. “Is it really you?”
I smiled. “Yes, I am really me!” The couple was visibly shaken. “O my God,” the man said while his eyes became moist. “I now believe what you wrote in your book. That if you really want something, the universe conspires to make your wish come true.” And then tears started flowing from his eyes.

In the next half hour the couple explained to me that they were from my hometown in the Netherlands. They travelled to India after buying my book a few weeks earlier, but only started reading it after arriving in India. They both finished this lengthy work in a few days. They remembered the last chapters of the book that describe the scenery of Varkala Beach, but I deliberately didn’t mention the name Varkala for reasons of privacy. I didn't want my readers to find me there as I used the place for quiet meditation and comtemplation. The couple had no plans to come here, it was a coincidence. When they arrived in Varkala they realized that it looked very much like that special spiritual beach I described in my book. Maybe this was the place! They had just arrived in Varkala that morning and thought: If this is the place Pantau describes in her book, she might actually be here. Didn't Pantau write she’d spend her winters in South-India? And if she’s not here, we will travel all the way to the Himalayas in the North to find her in her hometown of Dharamsala. We want to meet the writer of this book that touched us so deeply...


Well, there was no need. I stood right in front of them. They invited me for dinner. So our wishes came true. They managed to meet me. In return I was able to speak Dutch, to speak to people who had bought my book in a bookshop (and liked it!), and have Christmas dinner with people from my Dutch hometown. Yes, they offered me a free meal and their company. I wouldn’t be alone on Christmas Eve.
At such moments I do feel a connection with the universe. This was not much of a coincidence, was it? What do you think?

Varkala Beach, Kerala, India