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

Good finds, indeed.

So what if he'd changed his mind, and went to Kashmir now, after all? (One wouldn't need to go up into the higher mountainous zones there. Maybe it was just pulling him.)

Oh, India, talk of the needle and the haystack... (But of course, trying to pick up any trail you can in Rishikesh first would seem to be the way to go.)

One thing this thread brought home to me again, and hopefully it may to others: Besides keeping the homefront reasonably updated -- and let them know if you may not be available for a while, right, or tell them before leaving you sometimes may not be --, is to fill in those hotel registers and C Forms truthfully. So notably again including last and next intended place visited (which of course no one can force you to or check on if you fill it in correctly, not even if they take a copy of your passport). The odds would still be slim I suppose, but so hopefully you would be leaving behind a paper trail, that can be followed.

My only other thought would again be that indeed, it is sometimes easy in this modern day & age to be so used to people calling in all the time, phoning and emailing and texting and whatnot, that it becomes easy to overlook that under different circumstances and in different parts of the world, they may not.

Still, even David seems to be already counting more on his son being in some ashram or so, rather than completely missing. Surely his parents must have weighed all those options, and arrived at their conclusions regardless, and so to go looking for him there.

They say they'd already been in contact with their embassy before leaving, who they found supportive. I'm sure they would have asked them a few questions to ascertain why they would think it might be a missing persons case, and probably sought to assure them first that now-now, have you looked at it this-that-and the other way.

I contacted the McLeod Ganj Weathergeek and he is in touch with the Dharamsala Expats group to spread the word and get some posters up there. So many travelers pass through that town one of them might have seen him.

I pray for your son's safe return. India is a vast country and at times it is difficult to locate some one but pls take help of Local Police and I am sure they will be able to help you to find him.
I live in Delhi and I dont know if I can be of any help to you.

what I can suggest is that a telecast on TV and a missing report / photo in local newspaper can also be helpful.

All the best and I pray you meet him soon.

It might be prudent at this point to include his name in the thread title with the word 'missing'. He has traveled in India before & the keywords will assist the search engine ratings & hopefully the search itself. Perhaps something like:


Have you seen Jonathan Spollen? Missing in Rishikesh, India since February 3/12.

Mod Note
I have modified the title of this thread. Good idea.

<cross-posted with Theyyam just now>

Duly and diligently fixed by the mods already, I see (And they're really giving it their best, aren't they. Bravo )

Along those lines:

I really don't think this has any priority, nor do I know if he has any readership to speak of on that homepage/blog of his, but I'd been thinking if you can somehow gain access to that page, it could be worth putting up a note on the situation there, too. (Perhaps via the blog's host, if nothing else?)

(The thought being partly inspired by previous cases where a person might be missing or something else amiss, and with all sorts of web and on-the-ground efforts going on, but their own homepage never being updated to that effect.)

It looks like he's been employed at the International Herald Tribune office in Hong Kong. We don't know yet if he's on assignment, vacation or working vacation? I did notice that his website application embedded an 'is_mobile' cookie on my computer upon entering the page. These cookies are normally employed by those who are 'very active' with mobile devices. I would think that both his communications provider & website service provider may hold important time/location information of his last communications/contact.

Good ideas there Mach and Peak. I'm pretty clueless about these technical things, and thinking of David there on the ground in Rishikesh, how would he actually go about contacting the blog host/website service provider etc?

With the website provider you would call them & speak to the technical department. Obviously there are security clearance questions but the seriousness of the situation would explain itself in this case.

They(tech department) are easily able to access all passwords & records. They would be able to know if/when he picked up &/or accessed his email or otherwise accessed the site. They may well know if email was forwarded/redirected to his mobile & either accessed or not accessed with the specific time/date/hub of these specific transactions.

The mobile provider will have similar if not more pertinent information.

Good question. Jonathan had finished work in Hong Kong and was looking for somewhere to relax, in peaceful and beautiful surroundings. He has a spiritual, inquiring mind, so places like Rishakesh and Dharmsala would attract him. However, he likes trekking too so mountain regions would attract him too. He mentioned a couple of places, such as Dehradan and Vipassana. If anyone is in those places, please have a look at his photo and look out for him.

Hello David,

This is the Vipassana web page in Dehradun:
http://www.salila.dhamma.org/

Hi David,

This is good information. Vipassana is a kind of meditation involving silent retreats. If that is what he was interested in doing then that could (we hope!) be a reason for his lack of contact with the family. Other members here will have contacts for popular Vipassana centres.

Dehradun is a city at the foot of the hills. There are several members of Indiamike with contacts in the area; we will do all we can to get the posters out there too.

Thanks for that , Kullukid. Will look into that

Hi Julia F, thanks for your work on the posters...will have to comeback to you on that, as I have to make a couple of changes.

David, please do share with us anything Jonathan might have mentioned so we can give you the best advice we can. I appreciate this is a very difficult time for you, and we're just a bunch of strangers on the internet, but there are members here with a lot of experience who are willing to help.