Osho
And the Blankets...
One morning the samurai who was guarding Osho's door suddenly appeared in the library. This was very unusual as the samurai's NEVER left their post. He asked us to quickly call Astha and Shiva. Shiva, as well as being the boss samurai was a chiropractor by trade. Surprised, we did as asked and as no further explanation was forthcoming we went back to work, curiosity unsatisfied.
Later in the afternoon, Nirvano materialised at my side. She had such an aura of silence surrounding her and moved so quietly that you never knew she was around until she spoke or entered your field of vision. She sat down a little gingerly and told me that when she was setting out Osho's blankets for his nap she had put her back out. Hence the call for Shiva who was able to 'click' her spine into place again. She asked me if there was anything I could do about the blankets. As I had no idea what the situation was, she explained that the only blankets Osho was comfortable with were cotton khadi blankets that he had been carrying around for years (a bit like Peanuts!). There were about 11 of them, nearly all different, and he liked to use them in a certain combination which necessitated her spreading them over the bed twice a day (for his midday nap and at night). The constant movement had finally put her back out. She wondered if I could somehow put them together in a way that they could easily be undone again for washing. Obviously a solid mass could neither be washed nor dried easily. It was a little difficult for me to visualise what was needed so the next afternoon, when Laxmi was in with him doing Ashram business (she saw him twice a day, in the afternoon and after darshan; incidentally, if a sannyasin had written a letter to him with a question, this is when he read and answered it) Nirvano brought the blankets out for me to have a look. They were rather tatty with frayed edges and a few holes, but this, apparently, was what suited him. I thought a bit and then suggested that I make a wide border of satin-cotton on the biggest blankets and insert the others inside, held with some large tacking stitches which could be fairly quickly undone for laundering and then secured again. The border would be sewn by machine onto one blanket and hand-hemmed onto the other. Two of these blanket combos had to be made so that he could use one while the other was being laundered, because it wouldn't be easy to get them dry quickly, especially in monsoon time. Rather laborious, but it would work... except there was a problem! With Osho there was ALWAYS a problem! The problem was that it was essential for the combination of blankets to be a certain weight. It seemed then, that I would have to weigh them and try to put the 11 pieces together in order to make each blanket combo the same weight. This would not be easy as the blankets were all different sizes, different thicknesses and made of different fibres! How could I weigh such a big mass of fabric?! It took me a day or two to come up with something but, shopping down MG Road two mornings later, I suddenly had a brainwave. I told the rickshaw to take me to a nice bakery I had been to on occasion. Was my memory correct? Had I seen a large scale there for weighing out large quantities of flour? Yes, there it was. I thought it would do the job admirably. The owner of the shop thought otherwise. He was shocked! Oh no, this scale was in constant use. No way could he spare it for a few days. My pleadings were to no avail so quickly I turned to the non-verbal argument - I put two one-hundred rupee notes on the counter. The protestations paused for a brief second but quickly continued. Fortunately, I had a few more notes in my purse so I put down two more. In the thoughtful silence that followed I suggested that he could maybe weigh out the amounts he needed for an extra day and store them temporarily in a bag or something. The rupees were to compensate him for his trouble. And I swore I would have his scale back in 24 hours. He blustered a bit more but when no more notes were forthcoming he quite quickly decided an arrangement could be made! I arranged to pick up the scale early the next morning! I was up at the crack of dawn and arrived at the bakery wondering if the plan was going to work. Surprisingly he had actually got things together quite efficiently and had already weighed out his needs for the next day. I put the scale in the rickshaw and took it back to the ashram. I inveigled Astha, whose eagle eyes detected specks where I saw nothing, into checking my cleaning job. We didn't want his blankets covered in flour! After his nap, the blankets were all brought out. The acceptable combination was weighed and the weight noted. The weight of the other blankets together, however, was very different. What to do? Nirvano decided that perhaps the best thing to do was to try to even out the weights till they were almost the same. That involved considerable juggling into various combinations and we finally arrived at a balance where one was only 300 grams heavier than the other. Three hundred grams is about a handful of sugar and I thought that such a small difference, considering it was spread out over a fairly large area, wouldn't make much difference. I was wrong. Until the end he never liked that blanket! Said it was too heavy! This just one more an indication of how incredibly sensitive Osho was and how intricate a task it was to take care of him. I got the feeling that he was never really interested in the body - he had gone way beyond it - and was just trusting to those around him to take care of the physical body, leaving him free to do his real work which was taking care of the spiritual growth of his sannyasins. His sense of smell was acute so anything with an intense smell - from sweaty bodies to fabric to chemicals to flowers - had to be removed. He was allergic to dust so everything around him had to be spotlessly clean and he had diabetes so his food had to be very carefully controlled. He didn't complain but we were well aware of how any small thing could affect his well-being and we of course tried our best to be as careful as possible. Our efforts affected us as well. In the process of taking care of him our own awareness and sensitivities were heightened and, since the end result of the path we had chosen was awareness, working around him, although intense, was a priceless gift! The other blanket met with total approval so we tried to arrange that the offending blanket would be sparingly used. A blanket-washing day (about once a month) was always a huge occasion for the person in the laundry and me, and later the other people in the sewing room. We would all arrive at 6 am when the blanket came off the bed and quickly undo it into its separate parts. Then the laundress washed, dried and ironed it. For his midday nap the other blanket would have to be used. As soon as the laundress had the blankets dried and ironed, usually not until late afternoon, sometimes evening, the race would begin to get the parts sewn together again in time for the night's sleep. It was often pretty intense getting it done in time - especially if you pricked your finger and dropped a few drops of blood on the white fabric!! This happened a number of times. We used distilled water, Q-tips and a hairdryer to rectify the problem. These two blanket combos were carried around the world because, despite a few attempts at change, nothing ever suited him as well as they did. He must have had those same blankets for 30 years or more! Says much for the quality of khadi products!Chapter 6 from "A Seam for the Master" – copyright © Veena – 2005-2008 – published with permission
Read part 1
Read part 2
Read part 3
