A Swiss followed a hippy trail to India 50 yrs ago - and he is still here

In 1971, artist Christian Uhlmann left Switzerland in a minivan along with six of his hippy friends for India. It was via Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan that the group reached India, crossing the historic Wagah (Attari) border.

It was an eventful trip, interrupted often, as the minibus broke down several times. As the journey marks its 50th anniversary this year, many who embarked on the trip with Uhlmann — a mix of artists, musicians and activists — are no longer around. Today, what Christian Uhlmann keeps with him is a set of postcards collected from Switzerland to India and a couple of sepia-toned photographs.

Uhlmann and his friends were attracted to India’s diversity and vegetarianism. “We were fed up with Europe. Then we heard about India as a land of diversity. So, we started our journey in a Matador minibus packed with books, canvas and musical instruments,” says Uhlmann, who turned 70 on September 23.

When he talks about books, he mostly means the works of German-Swiss novelist Hermann Hesse, his favourite. “So, I had some of his works including his famous work titled, Siddhartha, with me,” he adds.

Uhlmann was barely 20 years old when he and his friends decided to drive down to India from Switzerland. They were strong followers of the hippy movement. A hippy (hippie) is a member of the counterculture, an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon which developed across the western world in the 1960s and 1970s. “I started the journey with a blanket and a pair of Italian-made zoccoli wooden clogs, which I left somewhere on the way. We were against routine, conventional practices and were seeking something fresh and colourful.”

Hitting the road

As the minibus moved, musicians in the seven-member group started playing the latest hits. They didn’t stop over at any posh hotels or restaurants and mostly ate whatever was available in roadside eateries. “Some slept in the minibus itself while others slept on the pavements and public places. There were three artists, including me, in the group. At night, we conducted live exhibitions of our works on the streets of Turkey, Yugoslavia and Iran. We even painted on the walls of some important towns in Turkey and Yugoslavia,” he recalls.

The minivan broke down on the way many times. “We knew some fundamentals of vehicle mechanism, so we managed minor issues ourselves. But some needed to be done in proper workshops. So, we had to wait until the work got done,” he says.

However, when the group reached Iran, they had a miserable experience. They parked the minibus near the Caspian Sea beach and went for a walk. When they returned, they found the windshields of the vehicle smashed. “There were protests going on against the policies of the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was ruling the country at the time. We were lucky that the miscreants didn’t burn our vehicle. It took a couple of days to replace the windshields and soon we crossed the border of Iran into Afghanistan.”

In Afghanistan, Uhlmann and his friends first drove to the 6th century AD Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley, 128 km from Kabul. “Both statues of Buddha, carved into the sandstone cliff in the Bamiyan Valley, were spectacular. We spent a lot of time out there. It was a great feeling,” he says. But when he heard later that the great works of art were destroyed by the Taliban [March 2001], it made him quite sad. “How could people be so ignorant and brutal? I don’t understand,” Uhlmann says about the desecration.

In Afghanistan, two of the members from their group decided to stay back. So the journey resumed with the remaining five. When they reached Pakistan, there was news about a possible war between Pakistan and India. “We could feel that something was wrong. But we didn’t lose hope and went ahead and crossed the historic Wagah border into India. We were lucky, it was barely 10 days before the India-Pakistan war of 1971,” says Uhlmann.

It took two-and-a-half months for them to reach India from Switzerland. From Amritsar, the five members decided to move separately. “I went to Patna and then moved towards Bodh Gaya, where Buddha is supposed to have attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. After visiting Agra, Varanasi and Delhi, I went to Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) and from there I travelled to Kathmandu (Nepal),” he says.

When calls the heart

Even though Uhlmann left India, he was driven to revisit the country by what he calls his ‘inner voice’. He came back to India in 1975 and again returned to his hometown Winterthur in Switzerland.

In the early 1980s, when he came to India, he got attracted to the philosophy of Ramana Mahirishi and advaita. It was in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvannamalai wherein Uhlmann developed a strong relationship with palmyra — the state tree and a symbol of Tamil culture.

Even though the palmyra tree no longer enjoys the same popularity, Uhlmann has been trying to reinvent its status in the cultural space through his art. His sculptures using palmyrah have been very popular. After settling down in Tiruvannamalai, he married Rani, a Tamil woman. The couple has been living in Thiruvannamalai ever since.

Uhlmann’s works have been exhibited in his hometown Switzerland and other international venues, as this old hippy still finds the meaning of life in nature using the leaves of palmyra as a metaphor.

Even though Uhlmann remembers each and every moment of the historic trip he and his fellow hippy friends undertook 50 years ago, he lost track of their whereabouts. “I was in touch with a Croatian lady who accompanied us till five years ago, but I don’t know where she is now. The owner of the minibus died. I think two others are also no more. I have only some photographs with me now,” he says.

Another memory Uhlmann cherishes from the trip was when he threw away his clogs at the beginning of the journey from Switzerland.

But why?

Well, he says: “As the journey gained momentum, I wanted to set myself free.” He never wore a pair of clogs after that. And he had a reason. “I have a few more blankets, but I have always been barefoot since then,”  he says. The long, burning roads, dirty pavements, cuts and breaks, Uhlmann adds, have made his feet stronger.

“I don’t think I need them anymore.”