Mountain Girl

My life with Osho

The first time I flew to see Bhagwan/Osho in Bombay I took a KLM flight from Amsterdam, where at the end of '86 I was living.
Amsterdam has therefore a direct link with my life in India. Yesterday at the opening day of the Indian festival in the city, this realization suddenly hit me.

In the years I lived in Poona, in the Ashram (Osho Commune International) I was blessed by so many beautiful events. Somehow I didn't have to go much around, the best Indian musician would come and play for the sannyasin in the beauty of the Buddha Hall. Amongst many celebrities I had the pleasure to enjoy and being entertained by our beloved HariPrasad Chaurasia. He was my favorite. He would come and play with Zakir Hussain whose tabla's rhythm is unique and indisputable to me, the best.
Normally those events would happen in the night, after Osho's discourse when he was still alive or after his video after he left the body. I remember hurrying to grasp something to eat at Mariam canteen or by the Zorba restaurant and then go and find myself a place in Buddha hall. The floor in Buddha hall was made of marble and it the night it could get very cold. Knowing the long preparation before the actual concert I was always keen to have a place where I could stretch my legs and if needed lying down to rest my back. The long tuning was to me a concert in itself. By the time they started the concert the auditorium was sank in profound silence. You could only hear the wind through the bamboo outside the amazingly huge mosquito net. We didn't have walls to protect us from the outside, but I never felt so safe like sitting on that cold marble floor with a tend over us as a roof and the net all around. Amazing place. It is a pity that nowadays who goes to Poona have to meditate in a steel building shaped like a pyramid but still a concrete building. So I am told.
Hariprasad and Zakir Hussain loved to play for us. He used to tell us how grateful he was to be a friend of Osho and therefore to be invited to play for us.
I for sure have sweet memory of those moments.

Hariprasad Charausia

Anyway I was delighted when yesterday evening at the official opening of the Indian festival I saw Hariprasad and Zakir playing together again.
We went to the Concertgebouw to see the Kathakali dance and as a surprise we got the appetizer with my favorite Indian sound. We all became a little older, but his music remains profoundly touching an inner chord that brings who can listen to silent where time can actually stop.
I could enjoy their playfulness, it is one of the most remarkable aspect of these two masters of Indian music, they are not only playing but they communicate with each other with a cheerful nodding and acting together with the sounds of their instruments.
I still have few old tapes of both of them that I bought in M.G Road in Poona.
Now they are on my iTunes so I can hear them whenever I want.

In his long career Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia received many awards. But it was only last night that I ever witnessed such a moment when he was honored by being made officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau.



Kathakali in Amsterdam

What to say about the Kathakali. I think is an experience to enjoy their amazing dances and singing. I wish I could have stayed and watch them all night long, like the performance in Kerala.
This last March when we visited India we missed it, but now I know I want to see more of this spectacular colorful and powerful depiction of the Mahabharata epic one of longest and most revered epic in world literature.
What it makes it so superb is the exquisite variety of facial expression to describe the inner drama of the oldest sacred story on earth. The actors who by the way started to do their
make-up hours before the performance, are not talking, Their costumes weight few kilos however that doesn't prevent their body and faces to dance and move in the most expressive way. The musician and the singers are mostly on the background and they narrate the different scenes in the native language.

As I said it is an experiences to watch them and drink deep within the sweet and spiritual taste
of one of the most loved tradition in India.
I thank the International Center for Kathakali New Dehli who performed last night in Amsterdam for taking me for a short moment in the land I love so much: India.

Labels: Amsterdam, India, Osho