Deborah Baker’s A Blue Hand – The Beats in India is not a book about existentialism resolved. Rather, existentialism (Beat style) experienced. The agonies and ecstasies of the rebellious generation of the Atom Bomb felt as real to me as they must have to the Beats – page after page. Whether it’s Allen Ginsberg’s little ‘wife’ Peter Orlovsky’s streaking and other eccentricities or the lost and clueless Hope Savage or the desperate Joanne, Baker presents the essential Beats, fragile humans searching for something meaningful.

It is passion that defines A Blue Hand. Not the violent and consuming kind but one that’s about a higher pursuit. The generation was chased by demons not seen before. A seeking out was in order. And Baker is the perfectly detached narrator with a subtle sense of humour. A politically incorrect giggle escapes when she talks about Tibetans crossing Indian borders freely, holding their hands on their temples repeating ‘Dalai Lama’ as their ticket to Dharamsala. Ginsberg when informed by Jains that every man must spend his last days in penance, imagines his father walking around in Newark dressed in saffron.
At times on the darker side, Baker maintains her wit at a rather neutral pitch and does not startle the reader much. The narrative moves as Ginsberg and company do: across India with every part offering something or someone special. The seditious poets encounter life, sex, God, ganja, poverty and philosophy in a land that delivers, often with mixed blessings.

Excerpts from an interview with Deborah Baker

What piqued your interest in the Beats?
The Beats were more like a vehicle to write about India and America and the two countries’ relationship with each other. I was not always interested in the Beats. I’ve read their major works and I’ve met Burroughs and Ginsberg and I always got the idea that they were misogynists. But as I delved into their story, I realised that I had a limited understanding of their work and who they were.

Whose story did you find the most compelling?
At a personal level I was really fascinated by Hope Savage. She was a failed poet. She never really accomplished anything. I guess the idea of cutting all ties to one’s country and family was kind of compelling and mysterious to me. What kind of life did she have? Why did she do what she did? She was so desperate... so lonely.

Have the Beats influenced your writing in any way?
It’s not so much the poetry but the personalities that have influenced me – the loyalty they all had to each other and their lack of judgment about each other’s shortcomings. Like when William Burroughs mistakenly killed his wife who was very close to Ginsberg; and the latter forgave him. That sort of compassion seems like a very soulful attitude towards life.