The first two 'hat' efforts made in Poona 1 (click on pictures to zoom)
The First Step on the Tailor’s Path
Fast-forward to Poona, 1975. After building and living in a bamboo hut – the prototype for many bamboo huts to come – on Krishna House roof, my partner, Naresh, and I relocated to the newly-created Francis House where we had a cute room complete with toilet and bathroom. To make curtains required a sewing machine. I managed to rent an ancient Singer, driven by hand, for 20 rupees a month from a shop in Laxmi Road. Although it was brand new, the design was at least 50 years old and seemed like an antique to me! Sannyas fashion was now flourishing – the kurtas and lungis were a thing of the past. Now people sported a huge variety of styles and colours – except for Nirvano, who continued to wear her ‘straightjackets’.
Slowly, though, I noticed, she started to appear in other gear – copious, shapeless garments which made me wonder if she was pregnant! One day she summoned me to Lao Tzu House to look at a dress she had just got back from a Mahatma Gandhi Road tailor (those of us around at that time can tell many a story of MG Road tailors!). It was predictably a mess and she asked if I could make it fit. It was an awful dress and she deserved much better so I said I would rather make her a new dress than spend time trying to alter this one. I think she was so frustrated that, in an unguarded moment, she said yes!
Candida, a wonderfully creative Spanish sannyasin, had developed a very attractive style and I decided to use this for Nirvano’s dress. I took all her measurements, bought the fabric, made it up and then tried it on to fit. She looked absolutely beautiful – finally a garment to enhance her delicate beauty. But when she saw herself in the mirror she hurriedly started to take the dress off, saying ‘No, no, I can’t wear this!’ I was shocked. Why not? She told me it was too beautiful and it took me a while to get out of her that she felt it would detract from Osho and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She wanted always to be in the background.
Hmmmnnn. Well, knowing Osho and his oft-quoted saying that ‘Beauty is next to godliness’ (not cleanliness), I suggested that she go and show him the dress and see if he approved or not. I realised the big decision would have to come from him. Off she went and I waited in trepidation. Had I stuck my neck out too far yet one more time? Finally she appeared – with a big grin on her face.
‘Well?’ I said.
‘He said I look like an angel,’ she smiled.
‘I guess that means yes,’ I said and hugged her. From that day on I made most of her clothes.
Again ‘retribution’ from the top was swift to follow! About a week later I was peacefully sipping a cup of tea when Priya appeared at my door.
‘Come quickly! Come quickly!’ she breathed.
I followed her at a trot to Lao Tzu House to find Nirvano rather white-faced. She told me that Osho had suddenly decided that morning to have a photo session and wanted me to make something for him to wear – by 11 o’clock. I glanced at the kitchen clock. It was ten to nine! My god! I had never made anything for him before and now he was giving me two hours to concoct something? My face must have been pretty white too as I followed Priya and Nirvano to the verandah outside the library where there was a cupboard with some cloth and an old sewing machine.
After Osho had arrived in Poona a sannyasin woman had sewn for him for a while before returning to the west. It was she who had created the maternity-looking outfits for Nirvano. There were a few bits of uninspiring cloth on the shelf which I fingered in some dismay. Nirvano told me that Osho had said I was to make a kind of cloak with a hood – very simple! No doubt! But I had no idea of his size and I had by now less than two hours to come up with something! Osho wasn’t very tall, actually about the same height as myself, so Nirvano suggested I just use my own self as a model. With a forehead bathed in sweat not just from the heat, I cleared a table in the library and started cutting. Priya obligingly found me a mirror and I set to work. That was probably the most focussed I have ever been in my life! Summoning all my powers of concentration and all my sewing skills I actually did manage to produce something by 11 o’clock. Nirvano whipped it out of my hands and ran onto Osho’s balcony where he and the photographers were waiting.
Totally exhausted I went back to my room and made another cup of tea to sip. I was just beginning to relax and gather my scattered wits together, when Priya appeared. Again it was, ‘Come quickly! Come quickly!’
‘Oh my god, what now?’ I thought as I hurried back to the house after her. In the kitchen Nirvano this time had a cheeky grin on her face – which I was soon to learn heralded a new and impossible task for me. With a wicked giggle she told me that he had liked the hood so much that he wanted me to make another one for another photo session at three that afternoon, after his nap.
‘Whaaaat?’ I had already scraped the bottom of the fabric barrel but it seemed I had to conjure up something else. The positive side was that I had three instead of two hours to do it in! There was no piece of fabric big enough to make a single garment from, but I played around with a bit of velvet and a bit of satin and saw that if I made the cloak from the velvet and gave the hood a wide border of satin, I could just manage. That went in just before 3 pm and this time I staggered home totally wiped out. I most certainly was not satisfied with my efforts but he seemed quite happy, so what to do. I just hoped that he would give me a bit of warning next time so I could get some interesting fabric and have the time to create something better.
He did! I was told well in advance when the next photo session would be and, as this looked like it was going to be something that might happen more often, I took care to stock up on some fabrics and to even dream up some ideas. In hindsight I think that the haste of the first session was a kind of test for me to see if I could knuckle down and come up with something with the odds stacked pretty much against me. As our spiritual journeys continued he was to create many similar ‘devices’ to help his sannyasins to push through boundaries, find strengths they never knew they had, face and overcome hurdles they never thought they could surmount and generally trust in the ego-quashing process necessary for the traveller on the path.
The photo sessions were to be an ongoing event right up to when Osho was too weak from his final illness to sit for them. Many people have asked me why he was so keen on ‘dressing up’. Many thought it rather idiotic. My response is perhaps fourfold. Firstly, Osho genuinely loved fabric. His father had been a cloth merchant and Osho had been brought up surrounded by the colours and textures of the fabric in the shop. Anyone who has been to India knows that buying cloth is a very creative, even sensuous, process. You take your shoes off, sit down on a clean padded surface, select bolts of fabric from the shelves and an assistant unfurls them in front of you until you are almost drowning in a sea of fabric. Merits of weave, colour, texture and pattern are earnestly discussed and at least two cups of tea or a cold drink must be consumed before a final decision is made. Buying is an artistic and social occasion, not merely a business transaction. Osho was especially fascinated when cloth started to come in from around the world. He would often ask for piles to be brought into his room so he could touch the fabric and choose pieces for various robes and photo sessions.
Secondly, I think it was all part of the Master/Disciple process. The master looks at his disciple, sees what his particular talents are – be it sewing, photography, fashion, book design, music, acting, craftsmanship, gardening, martial arts, jewellery making, psychology, law, finance, whatever – and creates situations in which the disciple can both blossom and also learn some hard lessons not taught in a regular school. The master starts where the disciple is and then guides him further... and further... and further...
Thirdly, Osho had an incredible flair for the dramatic and unexpected. He loved to keep us guessing! This was so much part of his character and charm. He was able to make each second of each day full of interest and excitement. He truly did live each moment to the fullest and wanted us to do so as well. Who wants boredom?
So, if there was to be a photograph on the cover of a book, why go for the same old portrait over and over? Why not appear as a Zen calligrapher, a musician, a chess player, a sultan, a sheikh? If there are sannyasins who can sew, take photos, design books, so why not use their talents, be creative and have fun? As an attention-getting device it was also brilliant! When one considers how many thousands of seekers from all over the world were captivated by him and his ‘teachings’, his ability to sustain the interest and love of so many diverse human beings was a pretty awesome feat.
In fact the guise he was shown in was not, in the end, important. What seemed to be important was his face on the cover of each book. Over and over and over again sannyasins were to say that their very first experience of Osho was seeing his face on a book on a shelf in a bookshop. For many this seemed to be an experience of recognition or knowing and it was that book, which they invariably bought, that set them on the path to his presence.
And fourthly, in his own words:
"There are people who want everything clean, clear-cut, logical, so that their mind can figure out what it is. This is an illogical place, irrational, absurd.
You come with your certain ideas and when those ideas are not fulfilled, you feel baffled, you feel angry, offended. This whole place is being created in such a way that it offends many people, because that is my way to screen those people out. Somebody comes in the gate and, seeing a marble gate, he escapes. So good, so kind of him! Because he had come to see an Indian kind of ashram, not a marble gate, his ideas are shattered. He wanted to see people living in poverty, in a kind of spiritual dirtiness. He wanted to see people almost starved, fasting. The marble gate is put there to put these people off. I don’t want them inside.
Small things offend people and they don’t see how small things become barriers.
Arup’s mother, Gita, has written a question: she wants her family to become more interested in me, but the only thing that seems to create trouble is my pictures with fantastic hats. That is creating the trouble. So....good! Now bring more hats for me, because these are the people I would not like to be here. I would not like them to be here because such stupid minds have to be kept out. These minds cannot grow."
Life went on. I continued to edit his books while occasionally acting as wardrobe mistress. He had said I could work in Lao Tzu whenever I felt like it and as the weather got hotter I spent more and more time in the house, on the verandah, because it was much cooler than my room.
One day Priya appeared with a white garment in her hand, got out the old sewing machine and proceeded to try to sew something, cursing softly under her breath. As she really appeared to be struggling I lent over and offered to help. Sticking my nose in as usual. She was trying to fix the elastic on his sleeping garment. He liked the traditional lungi that Indians like to wear, but, as he explained many times, he was a ‘lazy’ man! So, instead of tying the lungi each time, he wanted it pre-secured, with elastic around the top so he could easily get into it!
For me it was quite obvious that the system currently employed was not very effective so after a moment or two I suggested an alternative way of doing things. Priya was never a woman for words so after a few minutes she silently disappeared and came back with Nirvano who asked me to explain my idea. She then said I should make a sample by the afternoon and left. As I had something to copy this wasn’t a very difficult task and I actually had time to give it to our laundress to launder. To ensure the highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene we had a policy of washing everything before it went into his room for him to wear.
Events were gaining momentum. He liked my innovation and I was commissioned to make three more lungis for sleeping in. Then I went back to editing.
Read part 1
Read part 3
Read part 4
Chapter 4 from "A Seam for the Master" – copyright © Veena – 2005-2008 – published with permission
