What draws a foreigner from lands as distant as France and Italy to Hampi, the famed capital of the Vijayanagar kings and make it their home for decades? Is it the enduring charm of the timeless ruins or the freedom they enjoy in this quiet land without interference from the authorities? Are there ancient voices wafting across the centuries silently answering the queries in their troubled minds?
Foreigners have always been mystified by the magnificent temples and monuments at the World Heritage Site, sculpted from local granite between the 14th and 16th centuries, with the arid, rocky landscape making them look all the more awesome.
An air of spirituality, of history pervades the entire stretch of hallowed land near the banks of the Tungabhadra and it’s not surprising that fakirs, gurus and spiritual pilgrims from East and West and from all corners of the globe have made Hampi home.
There was a time in the heady Seventies when the Hippie culture was popular here. Westerners looked to the east for simple truths about their existence, many found it in Hampi with some settling here permanently and even adopting Indianised names.
One of them was Robert Geesink. In 1978, he reached India a broken man. Hampi gave the Dutchman hope, in its ruins, he found the peace and solace that had eluded him in his country. The surreal landscape was like a blank canvas for him and he set out on a creative journey.
Since then, for 38 years, Robert's love for Hampi has seen him producing hundreds of paintings based on the local culture. He married two Lambani women, has four children and is a Hampi resident like anyone else though he admits the ancient city is very different from what it was forty years ago.
Francoise came from France shortly after and stayed here with an Indian sadhu at nearby Anegundi village. She changed her name to Sharada and had a daughter, whom she named after local goddess, Anjanadevi. Now 39, Anjanadevi, or Anjali as the villagers call her, is a gram panchayat member.
Cesare, a wealthy Italian, left his country in the 1970s to become a mendicant and travelled with yogis.
He soon found a cave on an island in the Tungabhadra river, set up a Shiva temple and has stayed there since then. Meera, a Belgian sadhvi, is always clad in black and stays with a few dogs in a cave close to Cesare's temple. She fetches water from the river and firewood for cooking every day, and runs an NGO for village women who make artefacts using banana fibre.
The hippie era may have ended but mysticism and spirituality continue to enthrall these minds from faraway shores. Robert, Cesare, Sharada and Meera have bonded with life in Hampi and have no intention of going back though they could have led cosy lives in the West. They are now senior citizens and return to the country of their origin only to renew their visas and for official work.
The foreigners keep coming to Hampi, there is a continuous stream of them heading for the towering palaces and shrines. In 1996, Graham Purchase, an Australian anarchist author, was lured by the reclusive air of Kaddi Rampura, a village near Hampi. An avid cyclist, Graham leads a simple life now, bereft of smartphones, internet or stress for that matter. He smokes local bidis and rides an Indian bicycle.
Also enjoying the Hampi way of life is Rangit Sanhaie, an Englishman who came to Hampi in 1999 with his partner, a Lambani woman from Kaddi Rampura. He married her in Virupaksha temple. Since her death, he has been living with his three stepchildren. Rangit performs every Saturday at a party by expats. Robert Geesink plays the vintage brass saxophone at these partys. They call their jam group Hampi Rocks.
Another foreign resident is Dutchman Jan Wim Bugle, who reached Hampi in the 1990s. A retired history professor, he is an amateur photographer and cartographer and has climbed almost every peak in Hampi.
Parisienne Jan Duclos lives on the outskirts of Kaddi Rampura in his self-designed botanical garden. His wife, Lakshmi Bai, runs an NGO to support the education of Lambani women and children, and a handicraft shop that features old embroidery designs of the Banjara tribes. There could be something intrinsic in the air and ruins of Hampi which foreigners can sense and we Indians may have missed out.
Like many ancient monuments, Hampi is testimony to the enduring human spirit which lives on in each of its crumbling stones and intricate designs. Just to remind us that like the Vijayanagar kings or the foreigners in Hampi, we can never stop aspiring for the heights of excellence or relax in the pursuit of answers to our eternal dilemmas.
