Runaway Boy in a Bombay Café, Bombay, India, 1971
(catalog number 205P-140-258)

MY FIRST trip to India, in 1968, changed my life. I fell in love with the country. I was interested in every aspect of the life and culture. One thing that was very apparent in the late 1960s and early 1970s was the influx of young people who came to India to escape the ills of Western culture, find spirituality, and/or do drugs. The foreign youth were very involved with everything that was Indian. At that time, a variety of drugs were readily available, ranging from hashish to heroin and morphine. It always seemed strange to me, because this did not have much to do with the real culture of Indian youth. Ninety percent of the people I saw doing drugs were foreign travelers.

I spent several months traveling around India, Nepal, and Afghanistan, photographing these strange young travelers from all over the world. The dream for them was the romanticism of a beautiful and exotic Asia. Once their money ran out, this romanticism faded quickly. Life was tough and dangerous. Many young people died in Asia during that period. There is one image I will never forget, but I just couldn't bring myself to photograph it. I was in Benares in a boat, and when I arrived at the main ghat, there was a young foreign girl. She was lying dead on the steps of the ghat. She died from drowning in the Ganges River after taking too many drugs. She lay there all day, and no one came to claim her.