Toby Tiger, Outlaw of the Jungle.

 

Listen up my good friends, I have a strange story to tell. Get close to my camp fire and warm your limbs with my tale of life as a Magical Mystery Tour, (if you can GO FOR IT.) My protagonist's infancy was painful, scarred with violence, blood and loss. Perhaps he simply needed to escape from his domestic reality by dreaming of fabulous, imaginary places. 

In later years he found it difficult to believe in "reincarnation" but how to explain this boy's fascination with India from early childhood on? It seems he recognised Indianess in many things presented to him, as if he remembered it, felt connected to it, his soul yearning for a land of jungles, tigers, high snowcapped mountains, maharajas, elephants and palaces with minarets, all phantasmal in the mists of  his mind.

When he was 2 he was presented with a variety of dolls; he ignored the white ones, only seeing the black doll. He dragged it along with him everywhere and cried if seperated from it. At 4 years old he was given his first book, "Little Black Sambo" which he devoured, the cheeky black boy, his new clothes so cute and the tiger turned into butter, with the pancakes he was mightily amused. The illustrations were all done in primary colours with heavy black outlines, a style that stayed with him throughout his artist's non-career.

From aged 7 to 14 he read comics, hundreds of them, Donald Duck, Lil Lotta, Archie, everything. He was particularly enamoured of the super heros, Batman, Superman, Dr. Strange, Doc Savage Man of Bronze, he found their antecedents mystical, they were members of Secret Societies, some of them achieved their super-powers studying with enlightened Masters in deep Tibet. He dreamed of also earning those powers in many adventures of exploration.

From aged 8 he saw on the newly introduced television all the movies starring Sabu, the irreverant, young Indian actor: The Jungle Book, Elephant Boy, Black Narcissist but best of all The Thief of Baghdad, where he flew on a genie's back to the top of the Himalayas. He stole the omnicient jewelled third eye from the forhead of an arcane god with which he had visions of where he should go to follow his heart's desire. This inspired Toby mightily, he crossed his heart and swore that when he got older he would follow in Sabu's wake.

Also on '50s television was a half-hour show, every weekìday at 4.30pm, called "Jungle Jim" starring Jihnny Weismuller. It was based on Jin Corbett's books, set in a mixed-up land involving both India and Africa, with tigers, lions, elephants, evil thieves and aggressive natives. Toby rushed home from school on many afternoons to get absorbed in the jungle derring-do of his new hero. Corbett was an Anglo-Indian who made a living from hunting animals with rich tourists, mostly killing tigers and leopards.

At some point in middle age he saw the result of his hunting, tigers going extinct, so he had a change of heart and initiated a conservation park to protect and save the big cats. Toby took Jungle Jim to his heart, seeing in him a strong, brave father figure who he'd follow through rivers of crocodiles and villages of cannibals.

Baden Powell started his Scout movement in London about 1907 influenced by indigenous people's bushcraft and battle tactics he learned as a soldier in the Boer War. At aged 9 Toby joined his club for very young boys, the Cubs, and was inculcated into pagan practices such as imitating wild animals and adoration of a Nature Spirit. Based on Kipling's 'Jungle Book'  the Cubs would squat in a  circle like young wolves around the club's Master and in unison intone, "Ekala, we love you!"

Aged 12 he graduated  to the Boy Scouts, learnt how to tie knots, start a fire, create makeshift kitchen utensils and imitate warrior practices in mock battles. He assiduously collected the badges that dealt with each of these disciplines until finally achieving the ultimate badge, 'The Leaping Wolf.' He was fortunate to have as a Scout Master a very upright man, stern but kind, fatherly but principled. There was no hanky panky from him or allowed among the boys. At 15 Toby dropped out, more interested in pop music, rock clubs and sex.

As a movie maniac he was especially attracted to Arabian Nights type movies, Ali Baba, Alladin, Haji Baba, he got a weird visceral thrill from them. Handsome heros, wicked magicians, flying carpets, magic lamps, horses with wings that took him to fantastic realms. He felt a strange sense of belonging in those realms, he knew them intimately, as if he truly had lived there sometime.

Then he saw 'The Lost Horizon' and was blown away, his destiny was sealed, he'd spend his life exploring the Himalayas, searching, searching, perhaps to find "The Secret Community", allowed ingress and recieve enlightenment. Or he'd find it in his very heart which was more likely.

18 in 1968, he was roaming down a backlane of Melbourne and saw a sign above a doorway, "YOGA", he recognised it, went up stairs and signed on, taking 2 classes a week. Then when he was 19, strolling past the Theosophical Society, he saw a notice promoting a yoga demonstration inside, went in and was smitten by the old yogi standing on his head upon a stage.  His name was Compassion and on spotting Toby took an instant liking to him and ignored all others in the room. He invited the boy back to his residence, Toby visiting him for the next 2 years where he was regaled with wondrous tales of India, its realities and mysteries. This confirmed his deepest wish, to somehow make it to that much sung about subcontinent.

He slaved as a palliative care nurse to save money and in 1971 hitched out of Melbourne all the way to Darwin, flying to Singapore, train to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, hitching to Chang Mai and back, all the way to Penang where he caught a steamship to Madras. He made a beeline for Rishikesh and after a few terrifying imbroglios made it to that Shangri-la of his dreams.

He lived in India for 4 straight years, travelling all over, surviving hurricanes, bus crashes, serial killers, LSD orgies and Satanist sacrificial cults. (Read the full story in the 1st book of the "Toby the Punk Poofy Cat" trilogy = Vagabond Freak, available on Amazon/Kindle.)

Compassion showed up in 1974 and Toby nursed him till his death from cancer and, with Sivananda Ashram's assistance, threw the old yogi's body in the Ganges River. His father sent him money, he sold paintings to tourists and he volunteered nursing at a charity haspital and thus he stayed alive. His experiences were like a jungle university course in survival, he rerurned to Auz in 1976 tough, bright, courageous, in time for the Punk subcult revolution, which he wouldn't have missed out on for anything.

For 21 years he both nursed in hospitals, clinics and geriatric homes all over Sydney as well attempting a non-career as an artist, handmaking posters, paintings, murals, comix and animated films. By 1997 he felt exhausted and over IT. A woman at the Piccolo Cafe informed him that India was still happening and he'd fit right in so he once again journeyed there, to get lost, on and off, for the next 27 years in that vast, wild subcontinent.

During those years he read of Jim Corbett's Tiger Park and his book "The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudra Prayag." The park was in the Kumaon Himilayas, one of the few places he'd not visited and, adoring tigers as one of his 7 animal spirit guides, was determined to go there. It was only in 2003 that a friend offered to take him there on the back of his motor bike, even assuring him he'd get to sleep on Jim Corbett's bed in his bungalow. Toby was jumping out of skin, at last, Jungle Jim's environment would be his.

Halfway there they had a motorcycle accident and Toby got his right leg broken horribly. They traveled for hours in a took-took looking for a hospital and when they found one the head surgeon threatened to chop his leg off. He escaped with both legs intact but never made it to Jim Corbett's Tiger Park.

Finally, in 2023, again Toby had the chance to visit the park, this time safely in a car with a driver who was also his best friend and gofor, uncannily resembling Corbett's Indian sidekick Sahib. After a full day's journey they finally reached the front gates and they were locked. They discovered they had to book online many weeks previously as the park was a very popular tourist destination.

Toby was ropeable and roared like a tiger, "This is fucked! My lifelong dream shattered by the usual 21st century buffoon bureacracy." Jungle rangers rushed over to try to placate him but he was spitting curses. He decided to play an old trick of his, Indians being quite superstitious they had an inordinate fear of ghosts and he resorted to pretending possession by the ghost of Jim Corbett.

He rolled his eyes, shook his limbs, frothed at the mouth, then in a raspy voice croaked, "Aaagghhhyeowww!!! This is Jim Corbett speaking. I am horrified at what you've turned my beautiful park into, a playground for robot tourists. It's shocking! I will chase all the tigers away!"

The Indian crowd gathered  around him stiffened, their eyes went bugaboo, their mouths gaped in shock. Toby saw he had them hooked and gave a tiger roar that made their hair stand on end. "This man is my grand nephew, how dare you treat him like a street beggar. I demand you let him in the park immediately or I'll blow the gates open!"

The park manager rushed over to catch the last part of the act and namasteying obsequiously blabbed, "There's a share-jeep leaving at midday, for 5000 rupees you will be taken around the park for 5 hours but I can't promise you will see anything."

Toby came out of his mock trance and growled, "Five fucking hours getting my arsed dragged around the jungle and not even seeing two tigers fight to the death! Are you fucking kidding me?"

The manager wiped his sweating brow and pleaded, "If you book ahead online you can stay the night in your uncle Jim's cabin, only 12000 rupees, dinner included."

"Hmmmm... that sounds like the better option." He turned to Pankaj and muttered, " We'll plan this for next year, now we know the details, stay the night even." He turned to the manager, "My uncle thanks you, he won't bother you any more." All the crowd nodded and smiled, the foreign tiger had been tamed. He then shouted to Pankaj, "Let's get the fuck outta here. The law of the jungle sure is hard to deal with. Thank no god I'm an outlaw!"

Farewell My Lovelies.

 

His mother nearly murdered by a drunken dad, he was battered as a child till he turned out bad, and refusing to be herded this sissy boy ran wild, his grandma had to save him as a broken orphan child.

At school he was bashed daily as a despised queer, and seen as less than zero made him live his life in fear, his youth was spent a monster in a human zoo, he dreamed of movie heroes who would save him too. In the crowded schoolyard all the kids yelled "Poof!" Yet a friend would whisper quiet, "Only love is truth."

Hoping to find comfort from strange men in the dark, gay teens in the '60s got raped as well as fucked. Then a cult they called "The Family" gave him LSD, to convert him back to "normal" and insanity. Instead they broke the prison of his brainwashed mind, he renounced god, the devil of the human kind.

Crazy and enlightened, on the road for 7 years, surviving all the dangers in the valley of dark fears. Many comrades joined him as they fought their Overlords,  a community of lovers underground and never bored.

Arrested for resistance as he dared to disobey, antifa peace activist and art communiquè. Junkies looting in the squats with skinheads in the night, the true heart never stops or rots from friendly vampire's bite. Yet always there were some who cared, they made the terror fun to bear.

They shared and sang and rocked and laughed, they pissed and cursed and mocked and barfed. Plagiarists like harpies' fruit, gay mafias slammed hard the doors, toxic dicks put in the boot knowing bad that's gone before. No matter all the cruelty, pricks hoped that he would fail, others showed real sympathy believing his sad tales.

Corrupt Pigs with their frame ups, the jealous with their scorn, naive he  gave the game up, his soul betrayed and worn. His lovely friends made it all worthwhile, they backed his art and quirky style. He never did it all alone, he did collaborate, a gang of bandits all as one, helped him home to great create.

While apemen tried to mount and fuck him others played cat and mouse games, poseurs tried to sneak one up him and trash the punk outsider's name. But they'd never take the life he'd led of fun and love, kind souls he'd met. The adventure and the ecstacy was his even in poverty.

So farewell all you cannibals this man has gone so far away, my friends, my humane animals, no return is what I pray. I thank you for your sweet regard, you made my journey not so hard. I need a break, a brief escape from wars, and facts of fascist rape.

To wander through exotic dreams, to forget our pollies traitor schemes, I have to take my freedom's chance, next year I may be banned from dance. I disappear into the mist, dust to dust and sunset's kiss. I assure you life was fucking grand, jumping to a rock'n'roll band.

Seeing is Believing vs Group Pressure

 

When I was a student nurse in the late 1960s we had to attend a weeklong seminar on psychology. The lecturer asked the class of about thirty wannabe nurses if anyone would volunteer to participate in a psycho experiment. The class remained noncommittal until I put my hand up, unafraid, even enjoying a challenge to perform for a crowd. The lecture droned on for another hour and I forgot about it. The psychologist then asked me if I'd go fetch a book from the library and eager to please I rushed off. Returning in seven minutes I handed over the book and sat back down, ignoring the smug silence of the rest of the class.

"Now I want to ask the class to participate in a little exercise that will confirm cooperation within a group of disparate characters," announced the lecturer. "I will show you each a diagram and ask for your opinion." He held up two sheets of paper, each of which had a line drawn on it, both lines of the same length and he went from student to student asking, "Are these lines the same length?" Every single person agreed including myself, the last participant sitting by the door. He then held up two more sheets of paper and asked, "Are these lines of equal length?" To my eye one seemed ever so slightly shorter than the other but after everyone agreed they were of equal length so I figured maybe it was my sight that was deficient and I agreed also that the two lines were the same.

Then he held up two more sheets and the lines were radically opposed, one very short and one very long and he nonchalantly asked, "Are these two lines of equal length?" As each student replied in the affirmative I grew more unsettled, confused, stunned in disbelief. The whole class agreed the two lines were the same. Had I misheard the question? Was I in a parallel universe? Finally it was my turn to answer, the psychologist stared at me with laser eyes, the rest of the class watched expectedly. I turned bright red, my brain seemed to swell, I coughed and gargled. Was I going mad? Surely I has misinterpreted the question?

For endless seconds I gasped and shook my head, "What the fuck was going on?" Perhaps I should agree so as not to stand out as a fool, go with the group, there could be something wrong with my brain, my perceptions. Before I could groan a reply the whole class burst into laughter and the teacher smiled upon me patronisingly. "You've just undergone a test of "group pressure." Many would've agreed as to the absurdity of the obvious difference, you seemed to be holding out against it. I'm sorry if it has disturbed or upset you in any way."

To this day, in my old age, I have remembered that "test" and not gone with group pressure to conform with any questionable event or proposal, without a full study and consideration of its factual truth, its history, its possible use as propaganda for some devious cause. This why I call myself a "punk outsider", I don't just sheepishly believe and follow whatever information, pitch, lie or confidence trick that's thrown at me. 

An egregious example is the Main Stream Media's attempt to convince me it's the Palestinians who are the main terrorists in this inhumane war with Israel. I have studied the history of the Palestinian struggle for their very existence and self-determination. I have seen every day for many years on the mainstream and alternative media the destruction of their homes, the dispossession of their lands, the tortured and imprisonment of their resistors, the murder of their children, their aged, their young men, by the Israeli Zionists. I didn't imagine it, I wasn't brainwashed by the superior forces of media propaganda, militarism and geopolitical powerplays into thinking that Palestinian minority are the perpetrators of most of the destruction. They are a conquered and colonised people, everyone knows it was their land invaded and their population murdered in 1947/48. No amount of revisionism and post-truth can change these facts.

The same goes for the proxy war with Russia in the Ukraine instigated by the U.S. in its determination to be the sole, hegemonic power ruling the world. The media bias plus the politicians' acquiescence in Europe, America and Australia, carping on and on about Russian "provocation" and imperialist terrorism, will not change the facts of a long history of lies, betrayals, coups, massacres, sacrifices imposed upon Ukraine in the U.S. long desired agenda of weakening and dismantling Russia so its resources can be grabbed and its economic competition wiped out.

U.S. Secretary of State Blinkin at a Ukrainian cemetery

The latest brainwash into compliance with certain economic and  power-hungry "overlords" has been the referendum on the YES to First Nations Voice to parliament here in Australia. With intense media negativity from the Murderoch Newscorpse empire, along with conservative politicians' lies, distortions, provocations and hysterical fear-mongering, the NO reactionaries have held the day, convincing a majority of unquestioning, uncaring and seemingly racist Australians into turning their backs on the hopes, needs and concerns of our First Nations people. 

But history not only informs us here and now of the past iniquities against this colonised people, the citizens of the future will look back on this referendum in perplexed distaste: how could a majority get it so wrong. What was the group pressure into being blind to the stealing of Koori lands, their rates of dying earlier, their over-incarceration in gaols, their stolen children, their mass poverty, their lesser opportunities, their worse health conditions? It's a very obvious fact that Australia is an apartheid society, as one rarely sees white people socialising with black people.

The struggle will continue, the First Australians will surely gain total respect and a Voice and a Treaty as it's obviously a progressive fact that it's necessary and its time will come. Perhaps white Australia will snap out of its sleepwalking when the MSM Newscorpse brainwashes it into a war with China and we get destroyed as Ukraine has been destroyed. When Aussies stagger about with no shelter, starving, bombed, tortured, rained down upon by white phosphorous, our environment poisoned by Agent Orange and depleted uranium detritus, then we might snap out of our white supremacy, born to rule masturbation and know what it is to be "less than zero." Will anybody then listen to and believe the inhumane drivel coming from the Newscorpse.

Three Indian Men.

 

It's nigh impossible for a Westerner travelling in India, even if he/she visits and lives there much of their lives, to truly see and feel the reality of what it is like to be Indian, surviving in their familial milieu. One can have empathy, for a life-journey with its successes and failures but eventually one goes back home to a secure and comfortable life far from the Indian reality.

You can dress like a Hindu, wear a Brahmin string and a tilak mark on the forehead but that doesnt make you an Indian, you have to be born into a Hindu family, there is no conversion process in that religion.

The Western visitor can fall into the orientalist's fantasy of only seeing India as full of exotic curiosities, stereotypical spectacles, mystical ecstasies and fabulous fairy-tale adventures, all of which excite fascination and revulsion. Some foreigners  seem to think Indians constantly need saving, being helpless simpletons, and the true nature of the people is  simplicity, generosity and poverty. Or they grumble perjoratives: Indians are greedy, lustful and so stupid that an honest, upright pilgrim has to outwit and evade them continuously. The reality of an Indian's life is veiled, hard to fathom, but they are definitely capable of organising their needs and overcoming obstacles, bringing up families and obeying the law of the land.

He contemplated three Indian men he had befriended and his dysfunctional involvement with them, real individuals without the overought superlatives and degrading criticisms an ignoramus might espouse.

Sonny is a Hindu taxi driver in Main Bazar, Paha Ganjh, New Delhi. He's driven Arthur on tours of Delhi for the past 7 years, usually at fair rates. Post-Covid everyone's money was tight, many Indians went into debt with money-lenders during the two year lock-down to survive their unemployment. Sonny picked Arthur up at the airport and charged him 10 times what a prepaid taxi from a govt office would charge, (4000 rupees as opposed to 400 rupees.) Arthur had money so he went along with it , enjoying the experience of having an acquaintance greet and help him on his arrival.

He charged Arthur way more for the tours than he used to and got him an Indian sim card phone connection extravagantly expensive, all the while softening him up by repeatedly telling him what good friends they were and he would never rip him off. Arthur gritted his teeth and smiled throughout for he knew the guy's story.

He had married for love and was ever faithful to his adoring wife. They had two sons, 5 and 1 year old. The one year old got sepsis of the blood and died. This devastated them. She lost her faith in the gods, he took on the gods of all religions hoping they would guard his family's future. After much praying he was blessed with a second son and Sonny swore he was exactly like the one who died, the gods had given him back to them.

Then the 2nd infant son caught Denghe fever and was on the point of death. In fear and despair they took out a huge loan from a money lender and put the baby in an expensive hospital and had him attended to by the best doctors available, and the baby revived and is now well and thriving. They now owe a huge amount and its debilitating interest to a greedy userer. Sonny has to scrounge together as much money as he can, every day, competing with thousands of other taxi drivers.

This is where foreign tourists come in, particularly Arthur. To sweetly get hin to pay that little bit more. He couldn't save Sonny's family, he couldn't even help him that much, the driver works very hard to achieve the loan repayments in many clever and opportunistic ways, because he has to, his family depends on it. He was no background character in Arthur's self-enlightening journey, he was self-interested and passing through Sonny's life-drama hoping the guy will achieve his goal of financial freedom with ingenuity and it will probably happen long after Arthur disappeared.

The second character in this reality drama is Shubham, now 27 and a student of yoga and ayurveda medicine in Rishikesh. He and Arthur had been friends for 7 years, he was a bright and pleasant character to get on with and Artie often hired him as a guide, gofor and driver. He was intelligent, strong willed, compassionate and trustworthy. In the covid years he fed the wandering cows because nobody else was bothering. If he found an injured dog he took it to a vet. During the Covid lockdown years Arthur paid him to feed crippled paupers abandoned by the roadside and he fulfilled the job with honesty and alacrity.

His parents had taken out a huge loan, again with a voracious money-lender, to build 4 rooms on top of their three room abode, hoping to earn money from tenants. Then Covid hit and nobody came to rent the rooms for 2 years. They went into devastating debt and, as they'd put their own land and home up as collateral, they were threatened with being thrown on the streets if they couldn't pay the monthly dues.

Family is everything in India, it's the central institution and organising principal of their society. Their religion/caste comes second  and govt, which provides little in supportive services, comes a distant last in their daily concerns. There is no medicare, no old age pension for the majority, no sick leave, no unemployment benefits, it's every person fighting for him/her self with their family as the one saving grace.

The bride comes home to live with the son's family, the mother chooses the bride, the father decides what's the best career for the son to succeed in, the wife is a home-body, the husband goes out into the world to be the bread-winner, and the whole family usually sleeps together in one bed. The parents have as many children as they can handle, bringing them up to accept the duty of looking after mum and dad in their old age. They nurse all family members in the home and only the rich farm out their beloved to institutions and nursing homes to be taken care of. In a country of 1500 million people they only have each other to love and depend on.

Arthur trusted Shubham implicitly to safeguard his interests but when it came down to a choice between the survival of his family and the discomfort of a foreign friend he chose, of course, his family.

At one stage the two friends were discussing the possibility of buying a scooter to tour about on, each of them going halves. Arthur suggested a second-hand scooter at a cost of about 30,000 rupees. Shubham disagreed, claiming a brand new one would be better, it wouldn't break down. It would cost 90,000 rupees and Artie's share would thus be 45000 rupees,(A$900.) He reluctantly agreed and sent Shubham the money. Arthur couldn't drive on the Indian roads, they terrified him, he had 3 accidents when he drove, and one very serious when pillion with a German friend, breaking his leg badly, so was dependant on Shubham to drive. They got one trip out of the scooter, to the top of the Himalayas for 5 days and it was very pleasant. 

Then Shubjam broke the news to Arthur that he had accepted a job in Kerala and was leaving in a week. He had known this for 7 months and not said a word, abandoning Arthur who now had no one to drive him. Arthur soon discovered the scooter had been bought on hire purchase, the parents paying 2000 rupees a month to the bank while Arthur's 45000 rupees were paid to the money lender. After a few weeks the scooter itself disppeared, probably sold to raise yet more money to pay that avaricious userer.

Arthur was pissed off at the deception, especially from Shubham, who, of all his Indian acquaintances, he trusted the most. But what easier alternative could Shubham have taken? It was a choice between his family thrown on the street or a bit of discomfort for his foreign friend. Family wins out every time with Indians, even if it meant losing a best friend. While Arthur understood the boy's predicament he didn't like the dishonesty, his estimation of the lad fell and he intended never to see him again. This was a real life drama, not exotic, not mystical, Arthur agreed that his discomfort at losing some money was as nothing compared to their homelessness. He empathised but still went his own way, able to team up long term with no one.

The third Indian man Arthur could never forget, had the harshest story of all and his name was Pankaj. They had been close friends for 12 years and Arthur knew every twist and turn of Pankaj's sorry road. They first met at a hotel Arthur was staying in, the Yellow Laxmi Hotel, at the back of Tapovan, Laxman Juhla. One had to walk down a long, muddy road around many corners to get to it. Pankaj had opened a restaurant there for the hotel guests and visitors, only in winter there were few guests and no visitors who found their way to the premises. Arthur only occassionally ate from the grungy kitchen and Pankaj went broke.

He next tried going partners with a wild man named Jittu. They both invested in a space on a clifftop looking down upon the Ganges River with wonderful views of jungle and mountains. They named it Tat Cafe after a famous yogi, Tatwallah Baba, who Arthur had meditated in front of in the early 1970s. It had much foot traffic past its front door and with Pankaj arranging musicians to play on many nights it was quite a success with the tourists.

While Jittu rushed about the village and jungle, yahooing drunkenly on his motorbike, Pankaj put in the daily grind of recieving guests, encouraging the cook and waiters to do their best, and watching the till. Jittu didn't have to try too hard as his elder brother, working in Canada, was pouring money into the business and keeping Jittu's side of the enterprise afloat.

It only just made a profit, Jittu smoking much of it in hash, and the waiters robbed the till claiming they weren't paid enough. It didn't take long before Jittu stated the entire cafe was his as his brother had put the most money in and he kicked Pankaj out. Tat Cafe never did succeed as a business as Jittu continued to get both high and drunk, brawling with the local lads while his brother continued to support him.

Two doors down was another space similar to the Tat and Pankaj took out a huge loan to decorate, furnish, supply utensils and foodstuffs and hire the staff, even putting in a toilet. The premises were owned by a retired Indian army officer and he strolled about the place twiddling his thumbs while Pankaj did all the hard work. They shared thirds in the profits with an old entrepreneur named Pappu, the soldier taking his share in lieu of rent.

Again Pankaj hired musicians to play nightly and connected up with the local yoga schools to have their foreign students patronise the place as well as neo-hippie tourists and trendy Indians hoping to join the cool set. Arthur was asked to name the place and he came up with Shambala,(otherwise known as Shangri-la, The Secret Community), and it was promulgated on social media and Tripadvisor as a laid-back paradise for hip cognoscenti types.

Word spread as it became a popular hang-out for wannabe hippies, this it was profitable, finally Pankaj had a thriving business and a regular income. Arthur visited daily, enjoying the milieu, except when the bongo thumpers started up their infernal racket causing Arthur to flee back to the sanctity of his room. He was lounging back one day talking to the son of the ritired soldier who said to him as he looked about at the glittering decor, "My dream is to one day have my own restaurant." Arthur thought to himself, "Oh ohhhh! It's Shambala you've got your eye on, how long before you take over?" Not long.

2020 and Covid hit, no tourists, no yogis, no people at all, total lockdown. The old retired soldier continued to demand rent, even though there were no customers, Pankaj couldn't pay so he was asked yet again to move on.  Now was Rahul's chance, he and his father pounced, complaining that Pankaj and Pappu had kept most of the profits. The partners were tired of the old miser's constant complaints and, fed up, gave him all the furnishings, utensils and new toilet, even the name Shambala, as payback for any rent they may still owe. Shutdown ended, the business thrived on its previous reputation and its grand setting above the Ganges River. They made a lot of money, that filthy lucre that many unenlightened souls think is the epitome of righteous living and would sell your baby to get more of it. Rahul went to China to teach yoga, made more money and sent it home, cash raining down on them like dead frogs.

With smug, sour faces they surveyed their kingdom as they sat upon their heap of gold, hoping to hatch a few more coins. They didn't actually own the property, only the trinket shop at the front. They had encroached upon the rest, a common Indian subterfuge of claiming and building upon govt land that surrounds their meagre holdings. Apparently all the buildings lining that clifftop above the Ganges were on encroached govt property, hotels, restaurants, homes, temples, nearly every structure teetering upon the precipice was illegal.

The Modi govt had a hsrd on for the Ganges River, considering it a goddess. They were determined to clean it up, stop waste being dumped it and close all the river rafting camps set up on every beach and cove of the river to stop its further degradation. 7 years previously they had annoynced all the buildings built illegally on the clifftops of Laxman Juhla hugging the edge would have to be demolished or pushed back leaving a 200 yards wide safety zone. This was to stop the undermining of those cliffs and be safer for any residents who were in danger if the cliffs collapsed into the river, as they were want to do.

Nobody took any notice of this order and not only continued to live there but to build more, level upon level, like a tower of cards. In 2023 the Modi govt passed legislation that demanded this demolition take place soon, it could wait no longer and the residents should take heed. Again, those encroachers ignored the notification and live on in complete defiance, of the law and the danger ad they have done gor years. This includes the Shambala shambolics, one day they wake up in their plush beds with a bulldozer knocking tbeir wallscdown and their entire wealth sliding quickly into oblivion. Pankaj prayed for his own upliftment and left the fall of his detractors to their karma.

This is some of what's going on in that exotic background of temples, yoga schools, trinket shops and masala restaurants. The foreign tourist can find it all quaint, the scenery picturesque, the locals colourful, polite and servile, they are only passing through for a few weeks, they dont want to know about the daily struggle, the betrayals, the greed, the nastiness, the desperation, the scramble to get on top, the strength to get out from underneath oppression, the compassionate heart to continue and succeed in one's given lot.

Pankaj in the meantime had taken what he could salvage to other premises across the river. It was right next to the Laxman Juhla Bridge, visitors could see it as they crossed the river, a glowing sign enticing them, they marched straight in. With cushions, low tables, wall tapestries, a glorious view of the river, people again enjoyed kicking back and hanging out. Arthur was an honoured guest and given pride of place, for him it was paradisical, with no hippie bong bong twang twang to get on his nerves.

Pankaj had once taken Arthur to his home village, way up near the Tibetan border, hidden deep inside  a craggy valley, as if it were indeed The Secret Community, Shambala itself. The people lived very simple lives, up before dawn, tending their milk cows and their crops, participating in age old rituals to appease their gods. They also had satellite television and it was there that Pankaj saw the wonders of the modern world, far down below in the cities  with the consumer goodies and easy lifestyles on tap. He desired it all badly and migrated down, into the contemporary maelstrom.

While visiting his archaic village Arthur met Pankaj's sister, blind since birth, and partly deaf and dumb. Both his parents had died young, his aunty looker after her in the main, but Pankaj had to support them, always scrabbling to get money together to send to them, life was a trial for him. Add to this a wife and two children, and a lazy, no hoper brother and his existential predicament was dire. He visited every temple and shrine, praying to whatever god or saint his mind could lock onto, for succour and upliftment. Arthur felt deep empathy for him and gave him whatever assistance he could afford.

The Laxman Juhla Bridge Cafe was plodding along nicely for a year and Pankaj was gradually paying off all his debts, though he still continued to under pay his staff. His sister's survival was uppermost in his consideration, much money went to hiring specialists who could operate and give her some sight, but it was hopeless, her blindness was incurable.

Then the Uttarakhand govt decided the bridge was too dangerous for the amount of traffic using it, about to collapse any moment they closed it and started constructing a much bigger, stronger version in the shadow of the old bridge. This left Pankaj's restaurant empty, as it did all the businesses around it. He was unable to pay his debts, his staff's wages, or the rent. It was a disaster and he was thrown into deep despair as well as thrown on the street with all his furnishings. He just couldn't get a break.

He'd opened a daily needs shop in a shed next to a petrol station up on the highway to Badrinath. A plague of mice rushed in and ate up all the goods till there was nothing left to sell. He threw ratsack all over the place and poisoned any customers who still showed up. His brother crashed his scooter into another scooter ridden by a woman and her child, and even though she was driving on the wrong side of the road, the brother was blamed. Mother and child are iconic, they were all cut up along with the brother and Pankaj had to pay their hospital bills as well as fixing the scooters.

Will Pankaj's run of bad luck never end? When praying to Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, for sustenance she told him, "I've given you Arthur, ask him for some money." For the short time Arthur was in Rishikesh he hired Pankaj as his driver and the fellow worked assiduously to earn enough to keep his family housed and fed. Even when Arthur returned home he dent small amountscof money to help out but not near enough to keep the Indiam's head above the turbulence. This was up to Pankaj him self to achieve and he did it, without crime but with a lot of gift of the gab and applying his unstoppable ingenuity to the task.

In writing of his own fatigue at the daily grind of survival, the betrayals and disappointments  Arthur had to mention his travels in India, fot it was there he could see his privilaged background and know his worries were comparably smaller. It was his story, his life, his confession, those he met were incidental to his travails, some actually played a part in his undoing, and many in his success. He didn't see them as exotic background characters in his drama totally extraneous to his survival, people existed everywhere no matter where he went, they were with him, against him or indifferent, that's life.

If he comes across as a confabulating orientalist it's because that's what he was, an outsider looking in, a lonesome traveller, a narcissistic wanderer. India was not his milieu, it WAS  different, exotic and heartbreaking because that's how he experienced it as a stranger. He was existentially and sexually exhausted and lost himself there, looking for a way to begin again or end it.

The Bipolar Bear Who Eats Art For Breakfast.

This is not another version of my faux boo hoo hoo story, it's fact, a hard social realist tale. I have suddenly woken up. After all these years it has hit me like a punch to the heart, the travails of struggling through a class-war planet has driven me into dysfunction. To be a pauper artist, unconnected, rejected from the NAS,a refugee from social housing, and still exhibiting is pissing in the wind.

There have been many surveys which have discovered that the majority of artists who get State/bourgeois recognition and make a good living from their work are from wealthy families. What hope is there for an unconnected working class boy but to make do with communicating from the gutter? Where can I pin the cause of my madness? Is it a delusion, a myth, a romance, a calling? Is my art practice just therapy, a compensatory mechanism for a broken heart?

In 1971 I hit the road at the age of 21 travelling across the world for 7 years. I slept on the streets of Sydney, Mackay, Darwin, Penang, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Istanbul, Athens, Crete and some years later Paris, Spain and Morocco. Often I sat on the street and drew pictures, occassionally selling one. That's as "street" as one can get.

Returning to Australia I lived in Sydney squats for 13 years from 1977 on, one step up from the gutter. I guess I got used to living in a squalid space, the ceiling caving in and rain-water running down the walls. I thought it was fabulous, the dirt and dust most suitable for the "grunge era" of the 1980s, and let's face it, a partial roof definitely beat the streets. In 1990 I got shifted by the Sydney City Council to social housing in Surry Hills, a secure roof over my head at last, but actually it was leaping from the frying pan into the fire, murders, suicides, police busts rained down and I devolved.

I live a lot in my head, studying, researching, reading, looking, watching, discussing, dreaming, wanking, thinking, thinking, thinking... and I don't notice the entropy grunging down my apartment for dust, dirt, mould, hoarded crap piled up. I live on my couch or my bed where I do all my drawing and writing, the dust building up on everything around me till it seeps into my lungs and slowly kills me. The carpet has not been replaced for 34 years! The Housing Dept inspect the place twice a year to make sure I'm not living with anyone or growing pot, they ignore the filth, possibly hoping I'll sink into it and drop dead, then they can sell off the flat.

Whenever I have a big project on the boil I let everything go even more to pot, busy making posters, paintings, online promos, while all art materials, clothes, books get scattered everywhere. I had a show on recently and in my preoccupation with it I ran out the door and left a tap running in a plugged sink. I came home 7 hours later and found my entire apartment flooded with 3 inches of water. Sludge, wet paper, soggy carpet all turned into a swamp that I squelched through to cross the room. Feeling defeated I daily mop, scrub, wash and sweep, throwing heaps of rubbish out: perhaps the ordeal a blessing as at last my apartment is getting a good clean out and all put neatly in order. But as I pushed the detritus around with a mop I flashed that indeed I have been quite mad much of my life, acting out the role of a bohemian with delusions of artistic grandeur.

Let me again go over my life of poverty, intransigence and mistakes. Both my parents came back from the 2nd World War with PTSD, to no counseling, no jobs, no accomodation. We moved 7 times in and out of share-houses with arguments raging between all the detainees. We finally got social housing in 1956 in the Olympic Village after all the athletes split. Domestic violence was rife, my dad beating my mother into the floor and beating me, from infancy on, for crying loudly and squealing like a girl.

As a boy's boy and a sissy boy I got in a lot of fights in childhood, the local kids beating me up, my teachers strapping me on hands and legs for disrupting the class, my brorher often punching me out for acting effeminitely: life was a riot. In my teens I was poofter bashed, raped, unemployed and homeless, my burgeoning queerness alienating me. Then at 19 I was conned into having psylocibin (LSD) therapy by an undercover cult called The Family to convert me to heterosexuality. It didnt work, I was bent further, my conditioning to accept the bullshit of the society I lived in was blown out my arse like so much crap, particularly religion and authoritarianism. I wised up, clearly seeing "the emperor has no clothes." I became cynical, twisted, angry, angst-ridden, the classic outsider. This scrambling of my sense of self was the ultimate shove not just to the edge but over the cliff into vagabondage.

After 7 years on the road, mostly all over India, I washed up in Sydney and unleashed my madness on that much abused, old convict colony. I papered the walls of the entire inner-city. What better gallery could I have? That got me the tag of "street artist" and hopefully "street cred." To communicate directly to the people without the middle-person of gallery entrepreneur or govt bureaucrats is my aim and pleasure. There's no money in it or State sanction, it's raw and uncensored, liberating and outrè, just how I like it. If Arthur Stace can do it with "Eternity" I can do it with "No God No War."

There are those smart arses who realise they dont need any great talent to succeed, as long as they are proficient con artists. All they have to do is get on a committee and influence it, and/or appeal to govt bureaucrats with a PC proposal, always putting on a smiling, polite middle-class face to hide the venal, ambitious, lying desperadoe. They will get the money/space to do with what they desire and also present themselves as great artists, and many polite suckers will fall for it. And if you don't have the class background of good manners and designer dress you dont make the grade. Anything for the money, the kudos, the power to say who gets in the door. As if such access to fat pickings wouldn't attract the most clever/banal villains.

I was recently informed of the perturbations going on behind the "Sydney Gay Mardi Gras" scene. I've always wondered why I and my art got cold-shouldered by the Gay Mardi Gras organisation, never invited to show my art: after all, I am queer, a long time working queer artist and a '78er. I always knew the SGMG was conservative but I hoped not mind-fucked also, I have since learned a long time CEO is a coke head, that type of hedonist gay is anathema to me, snippy, elitist, vapid. 

Worse is a dude who has comandeered the art side of the "gay movement" in Sydney, a queer South African come to touch up the soft Aussies. Previously he floated a project to raise funds for the gay media and gay nursing homes. Many queer businesses and empaths invested around ten million dollars in the caring idea. He embezzled it all, sending much gay media broke with all concerned losing their jobs. He went to gaol for it. Since graduating from prison he has "turned over a new leaf" and taken over the "queer arts scene", namely Fuqtopia, the supposed queer history/art museum.

And what do you know, the artefacts chosen to exhibit are, in the main, banal, depoliticised, safe, unchallenging. A female assistant, when asked if she'd hang my painting of the '78 Sydney queer riots in the musem, used the censorious excuse Ive often been given in my artists' non-career, "there's not enough room on the walls." These are the right wing creeps that have agreed to take a million dollars from the Murdoch's for their vacuous queer mauseleum, a pink-wash for an entity thatvhas trashed queers, and all else progressive and humane, forcthe last 70 years.

Lying Nasty Parasite voters seem to make up the bulk of the Fuqtopians. When a friend of mine told them at their committee meeting that such a donation was anathema to queer history she was "screamed down" for her temerity. They must all be siphoning off some of that million dollars into their own pockets, only that could explain their over-reaction to the thought it shouldn't be accepted. Nothing riles up RWNJs more than a threat to their pockets.

The Murdoch "bribe" is a fait accompli, presented to the community without any consultatiins. Money talks, zombies walk. I'm persona non grata to the right wing queers who have infiltrated the movement and taken over much of the organisations, for therein lies much moolah, kudos and power. 

Of course it had to happen, many of us queers are good guys, soft-hearted, ripe for take-over by ruthless fascists. They purport to support all gay art but when I advertised my latest show, "Dancing in the Garden of Pan", via posters, flyers, online posts and video grabs, not one supposed queer art fan came. Only my '78ers compayriots, my best "straight" friends and the Pasd-Port Gallery crew of young skaters and hip fans supporting me. Their antipathy didn't stop one of the Fuqtpians from coming to the gallery the day after my show closed to try and get them to have drinks at the Stoneall pub with their committee to celebrate their vacuous museum, all the while sniffing around at the prospect of also grabbing the Pass-Port Gallery space as it's garnering a lot of "hip" cachet for them to exploit.

So, the arts, among many fields have always been a  site of elitism, exploitation and propaganda. Only the ruling class and the ruthless class succeed with notoriety and bullion, the rest of us live in poverty, ignominy and desperation. The real kicker is those money-grubbers ruling this class war have the nerve to present themselves as "caring, humane, progressive, uplifters of the downtrodden and marginalised" but in reality they're the opposite, they are terrifying social oppressors and capitalist money grubbers. 

My life's hard journey, working class, impoverished, queer, brutalised, dysfunctional due to a cult's queer conversion attempt, activist arrested 7 times on intersectional concerns, suggests these supposed social uplifters should support me, but instead they kick me in the arse and starve me. It's always been this way, the class war, yet it doesn't stop or defeat me. I roam free and exhilarated, creating art, painting the walls of "the Temple", the world at large my sanctuary.