The Foreign Service Journal, September 2011

Colorful Characters Despite my nickname, I rarely saw a hippie. Here’s some of what we did see in the consular section: • An elderly American missionary lady came back to India after a visit to the States and told me she had re- turned to end her life in her beloved India. She did just that a few weeks later, without designating anyone to dispose of her meager possessions: a wheelchair, a few other personal items and the urn containing her remains. Those items stood in a corner of my of- fice for several weeks until we sorted out who could legally take possession of them. • Another American woman came to India as a master of Indian Bharatiya dance. Her involvement with a mar- ried Indian parliamentarian led to an expulsion order after the parliamen- tarian’s wife discovered the dalliance. By then, however, the dancer had been tentatively diagnosed with a life-threat- ening disease that was paralyzing her legs. We negotiated an agreement that she could stay at a local hospital for a few days instead of being put on the first available flight out of India. (Once back home in California, she was diag- nosed with the nutritional disease beriberi, and soon recovered with pro- per diet.) • Then there was the wife of an American journalist stationed in New Delhi who refused to go back to the States when her husband departed on a transfer. She turned violent and, after an incident where she hurled bricks down from her fourth-floor apartment on kids playing noisily in front of the building, she was arrested in a pre-dawn swoop by a bunch of In- dian police officers. They took her into custody kicking and screaming, and naked except for the blanket she had been sleeping under. She ended up being repatriated to the U.S. for treat- ment somewhat against her will, under sedation and with medical escort — partly stage-managed by yours truly. • And there was the Maryland state legislator who secretly absconded to India and Nepal with a woman who was not his wife. After his where- abouts and secret life were discovered (“Assemblyman by Day, Hippie by Night” was the headline in his home- town paper), he was followed to India and Nepal by two machine politicians from Baltimore who had a cocka- mamie plan for the fugitive legislator to come back to Maryland in triumph, declaring he had been investigating a drug ring all along. He could then re- sume his climb through state politics and advance to the national stage. (In- stead, he went to jail back home in Maryland.) Playing the Guessing Game One day the embassy press attaché came to my office to tell me that the local Associated Press representative was doing an article about hippies in South Asia and wanted to interview me. I told him it was just a joke that I was the hippie control officer; in actual fact, I knew very little about them. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what a hippie was. But he insisted that I must know more about them than did anyone else in the embassy, which was probably true. So the appointment was made. The AP guy wasn’t much older than I — maybe in his early 30s. Kind of a wiry little guy with a pleasant manner. He wasn’t in a big hurry, either. I told him that we didn’t see many hippies at the embassy, and explained why. When he asked me howmany hippies were in India, I told him I had no idea, for the reasons I had just laid out for him. For that matter (I pontificated), there wasn’t a standard definition of hippie; it wasn’t exactly a technical term, after all. Did it fit any young tourist who didn’t stay at a posh hotel? Every spiritual seeker following a guru to a Hindu retreat? Or just the ones dressed a certain way and smoking il- licit drugs? “And besides,” I added, “not all the hippies are American. They come from all over: Germany, Scandinavia, Britain, France, Australia … and other places, such as Japan. You can’t tell their nationalities just from looking at them.” I also encouraged the reporter to interview some of my counterparts in other embassies. “That’s an interesting angle,” the guy said. “What percentage of the hip- pies are Americans?” This was the only point in the con- versation when I expressed a little an- noyance. I had already told him I didn’t knowmuch about the American hippies, so obviously I would know even less about the non-Americans. “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. But the AP guy demurred. Com- pared to me he knew nothing at all, he told me. He wheedled and flattered me before reframing the question: What percentage would I say if I had to venture a guess? For instance, say I was at a dinner party and my hostess insisted on an answer. Well, I was enjoying the interview. It was a slow news day, and it was evi- dent that the AP guy was in no hurry. So against my better judgment I told him that maybe 40 percent of the hip- pies in India were Americans. (Actually I was being a little disin- genuous in picking that number. My honest guess would have been that well over half of the hippies in New Delhi — and by extension in India — were Americans.) But I had already said that nobody knew, and I thought it would be better 36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 1 In the late 1960s India was a prime destination for Westerners seeking spiritual enlightenment.