Pankaja
Someone once dubbed the sannyasins who had been around for a looong time ‘golden oldies’! There will be a few ‘golden oldies’ profiled in this column – Pankaja, affectionally know as Panky, is one of them. For me she truly is a remarkable woman.
A successful author of four novels and married with two kids, Pankaja first heard of Osho in 1973 in a month-long group run by ex-Poonam who had just taken sannyas. Family commitments and the need to finish her current novel meant that she didn’t dash off to Poona immediately (as many at that time did) but two years later she took off on a three week visit and took sannyas – in a state of shock, she says – with the mala burning into her neck and her soul.
The next fifteen years were tumultuous ones as she was torn between worldly success and fame, being a wife and mother, and following her inner voice which was demanding she toss it all aside to tread her spiritual path.
Pankaja giving a Colourpuncture session
Once the kids had left school, however, Pankaja felt free to sell the house – which gave them all a bit of money – and devote her life to her own inner growth, which meant living in Poona with Osho again, where she did a lot of groups to, she says, ‘get herself back to herself and recover the glow’. After Osho died she trained in Colourpuncture with its creator, the well-known Peter Mandel, who visited Poona on a number of occasions. She worked in the Healing Arts department in the commune and started going to Japan for a few months each year to give sessions in Colourpuncture, eventually travelling and working in the USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Thailand, the Bahamas, Turkey as well as Japan. She is right now hoping for the confirmation of an invitation to go and work in China. (Such amazing energy – she is in her late 60’s!)
Every year she goes to the Resort in Poona where she meditates and catches up with friends from all over the globe. She also gets up at the crack of dawn each day to do Tai Chi – her passion.
A few weeks ago she returned from Switzerland where she did a seminar with Peter Mandel who is developing new Colourpuncture treatments based on the I Ching.
Her current project is editing a recorded interview with her good friend, another ‘golden oldie’, Dwabha or Prabhavati, who has founded an orphanage in the Himalayas called Ramana’s Garden (see www.sayyesnow.org). Pankaja‘s task is to compose a book from these interviews to accompany a film which is being made of Dwabha’s life story.
Amongst all of this, and many other travels and interests – especially being with her children and grandchildren – Pankaja gives sessions and workshops in the London area and, I presume, relaxes for a few minutes in her beautiful garden flat which has the only green lawn in the area because she waters it with her saved bath water, thus circumventing the current hosing ban and being ecologically-friendly.
For me she fully embodies the spirit of Osho’s sannyasins around the globe.
Pankaja can be contacted at: 0208 245 1625 – 0794 159 5083
Text by Veena - July 2006
