Have you seen Jonathan Spollen? Missing in Rishikesh since February 3rd, 2012

Thinking of Outlook btw, that is indeed a popular Indian publisher of a variety of magazines. http://travel.outlookindia.com/. I thought they were related to some high-end media or publishing group, but have trouble finding any details on that now.

Outlook Traveller, besides a guidebook series, is a monthly (I think? Fortnightly?) magazine of theirs. I was just thinking if you could get an alert message out in there, that would again not go amiss.

Outlook traveller is related to http://www.outlookindia.com/

Called Hotel Kailash/Shah. Jonathan is not there (from his memory). Says can send poster by post (anybody going there?) and he will display. Garrulous. Said should contact Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) of various places in Uttarkhand.
thanks.

Called Hotel Bansal (area code is 05962, btw). No J. No email so can't send poster. Helpful, will display poster if it can reach him.

Indiamike member jituyadav (I think) lists his location as Almora. Can he help reach posters to these folk? If it is not him it is another member, but I am sure that an indiamike regular lists Almora as his location.

some friends have offered to put posters up in varanasi and sarnath, every little helps i guess.

how many people are involved in the footsearch for him now??

A very important point! I am not sure what is happening on that front.

I have just spent much of a day reading all this info and would like to suggest yet another possibility, that he could have gone to Delhi that one time to pick up false documentation and indeed has engineered his own disappearance. If that sounds ridiculous, sorry, but its come to my mind as a possibility. In which case he would go somewhere few travellers go, so as not to be recognised, like back up to Kashmir, as had been suggested by one IM'er, and for this endeavour he may have been in contact with Kashmiri's to help him, either in Delhi or with Kashmiri shopowners of Rishikesh itself, either way they could be people he had known from that past trip when he had ended up in Kashmir and loved it so.
I would still say the possibility of him having been weak and lost is a huge possibility, especially with his poor state of health, and when I was in Kasol last year a Russian man did go missing on the hillsides, a helicopter and search team could not find him but in time a foliage collecting local woman stumbled across his dead body, fallen from a great height into a chasm. A local man told me that people do sometimes disappear from choice and stay forever in the hills. As Jonathan's body has not as yet been stumbled upon by the foliage gatherers or herders and as he had been acting untoward, not contacting his family when he was in a position where he could have done so, the idea that he wanted to make a new life in India can not be disregarded.
Whoever he fasted with for that ten days, whether foreign or Indian, could still be in the area, if not having accompanied him. That person, if still in the Rishikesh area, may be privy to the thought processes and schemes in J's head. He had spoken negatively about the world he had come from, enough of a clue that he did not want to return. As for the fasting that may have been to try and sort out his health problems, and was not necessarily spiritually motivated, though the two motives can be linked. The money he took out all at once was quite a lot, for someone in a budget or camping in the rough situation, another clue that he might have been of on his venture, one of which he may well be writing about all the time. When there is a new path one deeply wants to follow, a complete change, it can mean cutting off all former identity and connections, so the new life can have a chance of being successful, not because of lack of love.
I hope this not a deviation from anything and it just occurred to me that a change in documentation was possible, if he was to stay somehow in India untraced and needed to fake his own tragic scenario in the hills.

Mod Note
Guys, sniping at one another will not assist in the search.

I have deleted some posts.

I still have not read david or lynda confirm if J was in a state of mind or a kind of person who would actually want to vanish.

And susiewoo don't take this personally, welcome to IM.

From the following quote we can only assume that all was well with his psyche & that his disappearance was a complete and utter surprise to his family, friends and as compared with his history of punctual correspondence:


http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120323/dplus.htm#3

Now updating/consolidating the list of people I have contacted by phone/email and from whom I have received negative replies: (Thanks to Kullukid and others)

(List in some kind of chronological order of contact)

-Phool Chatti ashram
-Santoshpuri
-Dhamma Salila (Dehradun Vipassana centre)
-Satvik Sadan Bhimtal.
-Rishikesh Valley
-Sivananda Ashram
-Yog Ganga,
-Maharishi Yoga Vihar
-Rishikesh school of yoga
-Sivananda Kutir, Uttarkashi
-Dayanand Ashram, Rishikesh
-Pt. Dayaram Institute of Holistic Healings and Sciences
-Rishikesh Yoga Retreat
-Riskikesh Yog Peeth.
-Shiv Yoga Peeth- at Rishikesh
-Rishikesh Yoga Centre, Devprayag
-Bharat Heritage Ashram, Rishikesh
-Association for Yoga and Meditation,
-Ashtanga Rishikesh
-Yoga Chakra
-Sampoorna Yoga
-Sidharth Yoga
-Shailja Guest House, Joshimath
-Adventure Trekking, Joshimath
-Mr. Raghuveer Negi- (arranges camping/trekking etc in Ukhimath area)
-Anasakti Ashram, Kausani
-Kirti Hermitage, near Vashist Muni cave, Rishikesh outskirts.
Krishnamurti ashram in Uttarkashi
Rishikesh Valley, rafting
Rafting Masti
River valley resort, rafting rishikesh
Ganga Riveria
Jumping Heights
Aspen Camp,
Treks and Rapids
Lok Anand Yoga Sadhana Kutir
Khim guest house, near Almora
Tara guest house, near Almora:
Rainbow guest house- Jageshwar
Landour school of language, Mussoorie
Hazelwood House, Landour
La Villa Bethany, Landour
Padha guest house, Kasol
Alpine Guest House, Kasol
Hotel Kailash, Almora
Hotel Bansal, Almora

I believe there is one current family member & perhaps/hopefully/ideally one or more members of the local police department.

yes,new traveller examines everybody's first post in forensic detail i can attest to that he is wise though

It was to be expected but had to put in another idea there, especially as people were saying earlier how could he travel elsewhere without his passport. All the speculation does ultimately fashion this loss into a huge mystery, true, while all could end up being so simple, with the requirement to look more in a five mile radius of where he was last seen, as Danielle tried to impress upon everyone, and especially with regard to the direction in which the crumpled up papers had been found.
Then again, if J had been getting unstable even in his mind, getting thrown out of a guest house (and why can't someone actually go and ask the guesthouse management why they evicted him), discarding things and and not eating properly, then its also possible he could have been taken on by some sadhu, keeping an eye out for him, and I say this because I have seen just such a situation many years back in Pokhara.
Also to consider again, peoples drinks were being drugged there and in Kathmandu, not just for money as people have said, but also for reasons of sexual opportunity, this even happened to me, though I escaped the situation, and to my friend (who ended up going crazy for a while). Anyway, while there we became acquainted with a sadhu, who was travelling with a couple of tourists and in their group was also one Indian fellow who had completely lost his mind, drug related I believe, and they were protecting him, feeding him and so on, and at the same time having one long party. Apollo, that was the Indian guy. What became of him I do not know as I moved to Kathmandu, trying to sort out my friends predicament.
And I say that as it would be one hope that all will end up fine and is not unrealistic but is a situation I've seen before, that hopefully he's not perished in the wilderness, or slipped under the waters of the Ganga, but is being looked after by someone.

I posted the poster in groups at www.couchsurfing.com

http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_re...&post=11770227
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_re...&post=11770169
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_re...&post=11770222
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_re...&post=11770189

Hope this helps, my hopes and prayers for Jonathan and his family.

Regards,

Sysilia

Well I will not get offtopic by explaining myself.

Just that I feel the thread has been overpowerd by a thought which is too indian movie type, filmy very filmy.

ps So it struck me only now I could look for my hotels there (bit slow sometimes)

But, no such luck, looks like they start at a rate way above where I stay at. (And so their books do list cheaper places. This hotel search engine looks to be powered by Hostelworld, anyway.) So if you're mainly targeting the backpacker scene, they won't do you much good. Still, they could of course be contacted.

If you click individual hotels there, the page you get does feature a not-so obvious tab "location and map." One might find contact details here, though not on my first two tries. Flicking through a guidebook would no doubt be a lot quicker.