“Then we got on train and went to Jaipur way down in the middle of India which was a big boring red walled city full of Maharaja palaces that Kennedy’s wife visited the week before, then we went on further trains to further serious touring taking weeks and weeks, to Sanchi, a big Buddhist stupa with carvings, then the Caves of Ajanta and then the great rock cut cave temples of Ellora where the Great GLORY of Indian art really is makes Michelangelo’s renaissance low Western little, I mean they got great dancing shivas balanced with ten arms doing cosmic dances of creation 20 feet tall, and fantastic skully Kali’s invoking nightmare murders in another yuga, thousands of statues dancing all over huge temple built like Mt. Kailash the Himalayan abode of Shiva. And Ganesha with fat belly and elephant head and snakedhead belt and trunk in a bowlful of sweets riding on his vehicle a mouse – How can Da Vinci beat an elephant on a mouse? Anyway, all that statuary’s endless and there are 30 caves full of it at Ellora alone. Stayed there and nearby city Aurangabad a few days, and then train to Bombay where after 2 months travel we all collapsed in great huge mat-floored cool electric fan room in rich Indian lady’s house on Malabar Hill in Bombay, with big trees outside.” — Allen Ginsberg in letter to Jack Kerouac, May 11, 1962 from Essential Ginsberg, Ed Michael Schumacher #peterorlovksy #jackkerouac #allenginsberg #beatgeneration #writers #poets #poetry #poetrycommunity #jaipur #india #elllora #ajanta (at Jaipur, Rajasthan) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIoh2QtBFvq/?igshid=1bbi7xrnzg682