Undercover in India: A Memoir

By Paul Hosch

Mr. Hosch's satirical memoir is much more than a typical disciple-seeks-guru quest. A unique blend of healthy cynicism, insight, and humor, this unfiltered account details his survival as an inexperienced American in pre-tech India, while at the same time, captures the yoga and meditation craze of the 1970s. A must read for serious

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Awakened Press
• Release date: Apr 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988180005

Paul Hosch

Paul Hosch grew up on the Jersey Shore many years before it became famous on MTV. Mr. Hosch majored in journalism and wrote a regular column for his college newspaper, but got kicked out shortly before graduation. He drove out to San Francisco in 1969 to catch the last dregs of the Hippie Revolution and in his new e-memoir, JERSEY GOES WEST, he describes Grateful Dead concerts at the Fillmore, his disappointment with Woodstock, getting busted in Haight Ashbury, and how he saw a man get killed at the Stone's ill-fated Altamont concert. After abandoning the drug scene for yoga in 1970, he toured the U.S. with an Indian swami, then spent a year studying with a guru in India. In 1975, Mr. Hosch graduated from Philadelphia College of Arts. On his second trip to India, he went underground during Indira Gandhi's martial law and climbed the Himalayas in search of a mysterious yogi as detailed in his first e-book memoir, UNDERCOVER IN INDIA. In 1976, Mr. Hosch moved to Hawaii and worked as an artist in the International Marketplace. He spent five years teaching copywriting and design at the University of Hawaii and another six years teaching at the Honolulu Academy of Art. His painting was featured in the Academy Award winning film, "The Descendants," starring George Clooney. He moved to Southern Florida in 2009.

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UNDERCOVER IN INDIA

A MEMOIR

1970-1976

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HOSCH

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The Awakened Press

www.theawakenedpress.com

Copyright © 2024 by Paul Hosch

This book is a semi-fictional autobiographical work based on the author’s fifty-year-old memories. Names, dates, places, events, and details have been changed, invented, and altered for literary effect and to protect the privacy of certain individuals. The reader should not consider this other than a work of literature.

The events described in this book are a product of their time and do not necessarily reflect the same values as they would today. Readers should take into account that views about sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since these events took place.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For additional information, please contact The Awakened Press at [e-mail].

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Distributed throughout the United States of America and worldwide

First The Awakened Press edition

ISBN: 979-8-9881800-0-5

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

INTRODUCTION

ONE—1969: SARAH AND HER SISTER

TWO—1970: GOLDEN GATE PARK IN THE LATE AFTERNOON

THREE—1970: OUT OF THE FRYING PAN, INTO THE BREATH OF FIRE

FOUR—1970: THE HOLY MAN JAM AT THE FAMILY DOG

FIVE—JULY 1970: MENDOCINO: KAMANANDA IN HIS TENT

SIX—1970: THE MATERIAL VS. THE SPIRITUAL

SEVEN—1970: THE AMAZING DEIDRE

EIGHT—1971: ROBERTO AND MARNI

NINE—1971: ORANGE, ORANGE EVERYWHERE!

TEN—1971: THE SLAYER OF DEMONS

ELEVEN—1971: MOONLIGHT ON RANJANI ROAD

TWELVE—1971: A SCARY GHOST STORY, MINUS THE GHOST

THIRTEEN—1971: THE MAD MONK OF NAGESHPUR

FOURTEEN—1971: A SHOOTING STAR: THE FALL OF KAMANANDA

FIFTEEN—JUNE 1971: THE GURU’S BIRTHDAY PARTY, AN UNHAPPY ENDING

SIXTEEN—A ROOM WITH NO VIEW

SEVENTEEN—SEPTEMBER 1971: THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD

EIGHTEEN—OCTOBER 1971: THE FORMIDABLE MRS. PATEL

NINETEEN—1971: SURVIVING CALCUTTA

TWENTY—DECEMBER 1971: WALKING WITH THE GURU

TWENTY-ONE—1972: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, ACT ONE

TWENTY-TWO—1973: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, ACT TWO

TWENTY-THREE—1973: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, ACT THREE

TWENTY-FOUR—1973: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, ACT FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE—1975: OUT OF THE FRYING PAN, INTO THE SOUP

TWENTY-SIX—1975: FAR BELOW THE POVERTY LINE

TWENTY-SEVEN—1975: THE GREAT ESCAPE

TWENTY-EIGHT—1975: NARAYANA BANERJEE, I PRESUME

TWENTY-NINE—1975: A NEPALI ROAD TRIP

THIRTY—1976: THE LAST DAYS OF KANSAS CITY

EPILOGUE

BONUS MATERIAL

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PAUL HOSCH

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INTRODUCTION

While friends back home were planning fancy weddings, launching professional careers, and taking out second mortgages, a younger version of myself sat cross-legged in a remote Indian village, 10,000 miles from home, meditating with my eyes squeezed shut. It was a stifling 110 degrees in the shade over there, and unfettered cows roamed the countryside. I spent the next twelve months floating in a cosmic fairy tale…

The day before I left India in December of 1971, I was given permission to take a private walk with my guru. As we were about to embark, his aide took me aside and warned me not to ask any questions. He said questions were forbidden because the guru always knew exactly what needed to be said.

Heeding the aide’s advice, I kept mum during the entire walk and listened patiently. As our time together came to an end, I decided to go rogue and pose one simple question to the great man: Sir, is there anything you would like me to do when I get back to the States?

The guru stopped momentarily and closed his eyes as he contemplated. Then he looked at me thoughtfully and suggested that I write a book. His answer was a huge surprise to me because I’d never written anything longer than a college paper before. I dared a second question and asked the master what the book should be about. He smiled mysteriously and said it should be about something that has never been written before. I had no idea what he meant by that, but I knew the guru’s words had deep significance, so I promised to do as he said. Our walk now completed, I bid him a final namaste and departed.

By the time I got back home, I had somehow blocked that seminal conversation from my mind, and it stayed blocked for almost fifty years. Then, in 2012, I was having lunch with an old friend who asked me, Hey, whatever happened to the book you were supposed to write? At first, I had no idea what she was talking about; then suddenly, it came back to me like a bolt of lightning. I admitted I’d forgotten all about it, but now that she reminded me, I would begin immediately. After all, a promise to one’s guru may be delayed, but it is not to be denied forever.

Over the next five years, I obsessively put down every anecdote I could muster on yellow legal pads. I stacked 1,500 pages of handwritten notes in a cardboard box. I carried a little Sony recorder around and spewed scraps of memory into it while I was riding in the car, jogging, or working out in the gym. Things long forgotten, both real and imagined, oozed out of my mind and onto paper.

Then I dictated my notes into a computer and edited furiously for another three years.

Having reached the end of this journey, there is one thing I can say definitively: This book is indeed something which has never been written before. A slightly fictionalized, somewhat satirical memoir, it reveals contact with an ancient culture and a wise soul who helped transform me in ways I never could have imagined while growing up on the Jersey Shore.

So far as I know, there is no set of rules for seeking spiritual guidance. It is mostly a process of trial and error. Some would call it fate. But if you are curious about such things as I once was, this book may help you find the all-important answers you’re looking for. You might even manage to avoid some of the many pitfalls I encountered along the way.

ONE

1969: SARAH AND HER SISTER

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The Universal Café in Chinatown served huge dishes of chop suey under a mountain of sprouts and tender chunks of tofu for a mere three bucks a plate. I especially craved their abalone soup which was my favorite dish in San Francisco until I became a total vegetarian.

If the restaurant wasn’t too crowded, we took a booth in the back with a privacy curtain. When we were ready to order, we pressed a button on the wall which buzzed in the kitchen causing the waiter to come scurrying out with his pad and pencil. They didn’t fuss if customers smoked behind the curtain, so it was the perfect place for my stoner roommates to get high before lunch; but in case you’re thinking of going there, like so many good things in the world, it’s closed and gone forever.

Sarah and her sister Nina were eating chop suey when I sat down next to them that day and ordered lunch. Sarah was pretty with long, straight blonde hair and light blue-green eyes. I started flirting with her almost immediately and was pleased to learn that she lived right around the corner from us in Noe Valley. As we talked, I noticed she was having great difficulty keeping the top four buttons of her blue work shirt from opening up right there in the restaurant. Self-conscious, she looked down every few seconds, but the unruly buttons were disobedient. They tried their best to open as she slurped her Shanghai noodles.

As the conversation progressed, Sarah told me she was unhappily married to a guy named Bert, who was the resident music scholar at Atomic Records in North Beach. They had two kids together: a three-year-old toddler and a one-year-old baby girl. She said they were about to be divorced and Bert had already moved out on his own. Translation: she was available. Delighted, I told her my friend and I would be playing music later in the afternoon and invited her to come over and listen for a while.

Sure enough, Sarah came by to watch us jam and the flirting progressed. A few days later, I stopped by her place and she looked great as usual, but I was shocked at the condition of her apartment. It was a God-awful mess. The kids were screaming, running amok, slinging toys and food everywhere, and the whole place smelled like a baby powder factory, except for the cat box in the kitchen, which didn’t smell too good at all. Pizza boxes sat abandoned on the kitchen counter, sticky baby toys were glued to catsup-stained couch cushions, and oatmeal-coated bowls floated half submerged in gray soapy water, hopelessly waiting to be washed and put away. All sizes and shapes of cockroaches searched the floor for scraps dropped by the children, or cat food abandoned by the cat. But never mind, Sarah shrugged it off as if it was no big deal. She could only talk about how she was going to be a famous writer someday, and how she documented her deepest thoughts on a portable typewriter, and how she studied literary composition in college.

We became lovers within a week, but I knew right from the outset the messiness of her apartment was going to cause problems between us, probably sooner than later. Bad smells and dirt were deal-breakers in my relationship world, even in the depths of the hippie era.

When I met Sarah, I was in the process of transforming myself from a drug-dealing outlaw into a pure-living spiritual seeker and I was searching for just the right environment to go with my new mindset. I needed to be around sympathetic people who would share my new values and honor my transformation.

Sarah practiced Buddhism which was a big plus in my eyes, because Buddhists are generally very mellow and drug free. She woke up every morning, lit a stick of incense, and typed out the previous night’s dreams on a blue portable typewriter while sitting cross-legged on her bed in the work shirt with the disobedient buttons. Although I never read any of her dreams, which were piled in shoeboxes surrounding her bed and stacked high in the closets, I found it hard to believe she could remember so many of them after being unconscious all night; but apparently she did. She said it originally started as a writing exercise while she was studying English lit in college and she had kept her dream journal for years.

Sarah graduated from an experimental art college near Boston where she met and married her ex-husband Bert, who was something of a music savant. He knew everything about everything as far as rock music was concerned. After graduation, they migrated to San Francisco to soak up the culture, but got sick of looking at each other soon after the second kid came along and broke up amicably. He was a shy, geeky intellectual who supported her and the kids financially, even after she threw him out on the street. This was an admirable quality, rather unusual in the late sixties. I met him once or twice, and he didn’t seem at all concerned that she and I were sleeping together in his former marital bed. Maybe he was relieved because there was a male presence in the apartment to protect his kids from whatever might happen in his absence.

At first, I stayed over at Sarah’s on random occasions, but later, at her invitation, I packed up my stuff and moved in. My former housemates were super pissed at me for leaving so suddenly, but what could I do? I needed a change. We three had come to San Francisco together as dopers a year earlier, but once I quit using drugs, we were constantly at odds. They couldn’t accept that I had moved on with my life, and I couldn’t accept their extreme drug use. Since my old friends were not about to become clean and sober vegetarians, I had to go through the changes alone. I hardly ever saw them after I moved into Sarah’s pad, but the truth is, I didn’t care. Even the best of friendships can come to an end when one person is determined to change and the others are determined to stay the same.

I put my clothes in her bedroom closet and declared it off-limits to the kiddies, but my admonition, of course, meant nothing to the little angels. They scattered my stuff around wantonly like they did everything else in the apartment.

No matter how many times I begged Sarah to keep her kids out of my belongings, she ignored me. And no matter how many times I begged the kids to stay out of the closet, they went in there to play as soon as I left. They explored everything they could get their grubby little mitts on. And her bed was always full of sand. Sarah’s unwashed sheets stayed bunched up at the foot of the double bed all day while her mangy mama cat slept for hours in the middle of the mattress. The bony feline snoozed through life like it was in a medically induced coma. The scene amused me at first, but I soon tired of it.

After a month or so, I could hardly force myself to stay there any longer. The rent was free, and I was kind of a bum back then, so I hung in there as long as I could, but the chaos was wearing me down. I hardly ever ate meals at her house because it was so unsanitary. I had recently traded in my brown Mercury Comet for a beautiful two-tone ’63 VW Bus with sunflower curtains and a futon in the back, so when I got frustrated with the complexity of her scene, I took off for the countryside and slept under the stars, weather permitting.

TWO

1970: GOLDEN GATE PARK IN THE LATE AFTERNOON

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As the dope fog of the past few years slowly began to lift, I busied myself reading every book I could find on spirituality, ranging from Autobiography of a Yogi to the Tibetan Book of the Dead to The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran to the Aquarian Gospel by Levi to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to Be Here Now by Ram Dass to Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore to Rishi Vyasa’s Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I was a New Age bookseller’s golden dream.

When I wasn’t home reading yoga books, I was strolling through Golden Gate Park contemplating my future life. One day, while walking along, I met two girls and a guy sitting on a blanket, burning an Aladdin’s lamp filled with jasmine and sage. Don’t ask me how, but the old incense lamp somehow led to a spontaneous conversation about Eastern philosophy. During the course of our discussion, I boasted how I had recently sworn off drugs and was on the road to quitting cigarettes. I told them I was also in the market for a good yoga class.

The girls, whose names were Cindy and Joy, weren’t at all impressed by my life-changing resolutions. With their noses high in the air, they told me they hadn’t smoked dope or cigarettes in more than two years, and were, by now, quite advanced in the study of Ashtanga yoga. They claimed to be attending the best yoga class in San Francisco taught by the most enlightened teacher east of the Himalayas, and they happened to be the most advanced students in his most advanced class according to their own lofty estimation. In fact, they would soon be teachers in their own right. Then they challenged me to come to class with them that very evening if I was truly as serious about yoga as I pretended to be.

I had a very bad first impression of these two pompous girls and really didn’t want anything more to do with them. Everything they did was the best this, and the most advanced that. I politely told them I could find a yoga class without their valuable assistance, thank you. Their overbearing attitude reminded me of my grandmother’s old lady friends back home, which is not a great thing to be reminded of when you meet a young woman for the first time—at least not for me.

As I was about to split, Cindy scribbled their address on a scrap of paper and shoved it into my jacket pocket. She said they were leaving for class at five o’clock sharp, and if I was meant to be there, I would be there. Yea, right, I thought. If I was meant to be there…. I hated that pseudo-spiritual cliché. She said to be on time because class started at five thirty sharp, and they didn’t intend to be late. Jeez, these were the two pushiest girls I ever met.

When I got back home, Sarah and her sister were brewing a zoophagous feast in the kitchen. As they opened the oven door to show off their handiwork, the pungent smell of scalding flesh filled the house. I was trying my best to become a vegetarian by then and found the very sight and smell of meat to be both repugnant and uncomfortably tempting at the same time.

I weighed my options for the evening, and reluctantly decided in favor of going to the yoga class with Cindy and Joy rather than hanging around our smoke-filled kitchen with Sarah, her sister Nina, and the two screaming kids. I got back in the car and drove over to Fell Street, hoping to catch up with the two girls in time for the class. I climbed the stairs at precisely five o’clock and rapped on the front door. The guy who was with them in the park answered in his pajamas and told me they just left; he said I only missed them by a couple of minutes. I thanked him and shuffled back down to the car with my hands in my pockets.

I can’t believe I missed those crazy girls by two minutes, I grumbled to myself as I got back in the car.

I decided to kill some time cruising around the city, then maybe have dinner at the Good Karma Cafe on Dolores Street. By the time I finished my vegetable casserole, I surmised, the air back at the apartment would once again be breathable. As I pulled away from the curb, a young couple hitchhiking on the side of the road caught my attention, so I stopped to offer them a ride.

Hey man, where you going? the boy asked through the open window.

No place special, I said. I’ll take you two any place you want to go as long as I don’t have to go over one of the bridges to get there.

They jumped in the car and told me they were headed over to North Beach. As the boy settled into the front seat beside me, he asked what I was up to that night so I told them how I met the two girls in the park and how I was supposed to go to a yoga class with them, but they already left.

Far out, man, the girl said, we’re going to a yoga class too; why don’t you come to ours instead?

’Really? said I. Good idea; I think I will, and off we went.

I liked these two kids and had a feeling something good was about to happen. Maybe they were meant to be!

We arrived in North Beach and walked into a dimly lit room smelling of incense, and when my eyes adjusted to the light, Cindy and Joy were at my feet, stretching on yoga mats, wearing white cotton drawstring pants. When they saw me standing in front of them, they grinned like Cheshire cats.

See, they said in perfect unison, we told you if you were meant to be here, you would be here!

They didn’t seem shocked or even surprised, but I must admit, I sure was.

Before I had a chance to say anything sarcastic, the teacher glided into the room and sat in half lotus posture in front of the class. He pressed his hands together in front of his chest and chanted something in an exotic-sounding language as he began the class. Thus, I took the first step of a lifelong journey.

The