Click to play videoMumbai: It was a journey that began like a sex, drugs and rock n' roll trip, only to end up in something more.
American poet, Allen Ginsberg, the voice of the Beat Generation, set out for India in 1961 not only to escape his notoreity after the publication of his poem Howl, but also to introduce LSD to India and search for God.
Beat Generation is a term used to describe both a group of American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the cultural phenomena that they wrote about and inspired.
On his travels, Ginsberg encountered an India of saints and charlatans, piety and poverty, which he wrote about and published back home.
It is this trippy journey that forms the subject of A Blue Hand, by author Deborah Baker.
"His book changed the whole texture of the 60s," claims Baker.
The narrative weaves in not just Ginsberg's journey but also his testimony to the Age of Aquarius. The side effects of India continued long after Ginsberg left the burning ghats of Benaras and returned to a country at war with peace.
"He learnt that you could make a scene, levitate the Pentagon, you could calm down riots in Chicago by chanting 'om' for seven hours," says she.
A Blue Hand is just the sort of book you should take on your own little journey. While it won't promise you nirvana, it is defintely one long strange trip you wouldn't want to miss out on.
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