Word: mehtas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Himmat S. Mehta Flint, Mich...
...movie that found God in a hash pipe: "Take a drag. Take a drag. I'm wiped out./ Say it in the morning. Say it in the evening./ Hare Krishna Hare Rama Hare Krishna Hare Rama." There are also Western notions on better transcendence through chemistry. Mehta notes that young foreigners frequently sell their passports to buy drugs; the documents are reported stolen and easily replaced at local embassies. She also reports that villagers who refused to take smallpox vaccinations 15 years ago are now "dropping uppers and downers with the best of them," and "Benares looks...
...Ginsberg made his pilgrimage to India in 1962, his influence was limited to the handful of people who read his poetry. When the Beatles headed east in 1966-68, they affected tens of millions with their celebrity and music. They also laid the foundations of the international guru business. Mehta has an impish eye for the spirit trade; a multinational convocation of celibates meets in Delhi under the motto ROYALTY is PURITY PLUS PERSONALITY; downtown, hundreds of Children of God are demonstrating for the principle of making love for Jesus. A California touch therapist attends a session in an ashram...
...Mehta's observations are that amusing. A French couple arrive at their consulate with their dead baby. They demand and get money for the infant's funeral but then leave the body at a crematorium with a note that reads, "A Present for the French Consul." Hippies lie stoned and malnourished on the beaches of Goa: a young European woman sits for days in a stupor with her fatherless child hanging onto a withered breast; a cult of ritual murderers, known as the Anand Marg, stalks the streets for victims; an American would-be rabbi buys...
...only 201 pages, Mehta embraces an enormous variety of life and death. Her style is light without being flip; her skepticism never descends to cynicism. Given her subject this is a miracle of rational ism and taste...