Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

Two
New York. I had forgotten how beautifully worn out
this city looks. Rusty fire escapes on bare facades. Pale colors,
advertisements taped together. Like a pair of totally
threadbare shoes that shuffle so nicely you never want
to get rid of them. The scene in the East Village, where
we live for four days behind exactly such a fire escape,
fits that description exactly. Baggy T-shirts, shoelaces untied,
sneakers with holes in them, our neighbor sitting on
the stone stairs in front of his house in the sun. Nobody
cares.
The first time I was here, more than thirty years ago,
I had decided to leave the Divine Light Mission of guru
Maharaj ji. I was stopping over on a flight back home to
Amsterdam from Denver, where I had maintained contact
for the guru with his ashrams in Europe and Australia
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