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Osho’s paternal grandfather, Baba
My paternal grandfather loved very much. He was old, very old,
but he remained active to the very last breath. He loved nature
almost too much. He lived in a faraway farm. Once in a while he
would come to the city, but he never liked it. He always liked
the wild world, where he lived.
Once in a while I used to go to him and he always liked somebody
to massage his feet. He was becoming so old and he was working
so hard, so I would massage his feet. But I told him, "Remember,
I am not fulfilling any responsibility. I don't have any responsibility
towards anyone in the world. I love you, and I will massage your
feet but only up to the point where it is not troublesome to me.
So when I stop, never ask me to do a little more. I will not.
I am doing it out of my joy, not because you are my grandfather.
I could have done the same to any beggar, any stranger, just out
of love."
He understood the point. He said, "I never thought that
responsibility and love are two things. But you are right. When
I am working on the field, I always feel I am doing it for my
children and their children, as a duty. It is heavy on my heart.
But I will try to change this attitude of responsibility. I may
be too old to change - it has become a fixation in my mind - but
I will try to change."
I said to him, "There is no need. If you feel it is becoming
a burden on you, you have done enough. You rest. There is no need
to continue working, unless you enjoy the open sky and the green
field and love these trees and the birds. If you are doing it
out of joy and you love your children and you want to do something
for them, only then continue. Otherwise stop."
Although he was old, something synchronized between me and him.
That never happened with any other member of my family. We were
great friends. I was the youngest in the family and he was the
oldest, just two polarities. And everybody in the house laughed,
"What kind of friendship is this? You laugh together, you
joke with each other, you play with each other, you run after
each other. And he is so old and you are so young. And you don't
communicate the same way with anybody else, nor does he communicate
the same way with anybody else."
I said, "Something has happened between us. He loves me and
I love him. Now it is no more a question of any relationship;
neither am I his grandchild nor is he my grandfather. We are just
two friends: one is old, one is young." chit30
My grandfather was not a religious man, not at all. He was closer
to Zorba the Greek: eat, drink and be merry; there is no other
world, it is all nonsense. My father was a very religious man;
perhaps it was because of my grandfather - the reaction, the generation
gap. But it was just upside down in my family: my grandfather
was an atheist and perhaps because of his atheism my father turned
out to be a theist. And whenever my father would go to the temple,
my grandfather would laugh and he would say, "Again! Go on,
waste your life in front of those stupid statues!"
I love Zorba for many reasons; one of the reasons was that in
Zorba I found my grandfather again. He loved food so much that
he used to not trust anybody; he would prepare it himself. In
my life I have been a guest in thousands of families in India,
but I have never tasted anything so delicious as my grandfather's
cooking. And he loved it so much that every week it was a feast
for all his friends - and he would prepare the whole day.
My mother and my aunts and the servants and cooks - everybody
was thrown out of the kitchen. When my grandfather was cooking,
nobody was to disturb him. But he was very friendly to me; he
allowed me to watch and he said, "Learn, don't depend on
other people. Only you know your taste. Who else can know it?"
I said, "That is beyond me; I am too lazy, but I can watch.
The whole day cooking? - l cannot do it." So I have not learned
anything, but just watching was a joy - the way he worked, almost
like a sculptor or a musician or a painter. Cooking was not just
cooking, it was art to him. And if anything went just a little
below his standard, he would throw it away immediately. He would
cook it again, and I would say, "It is perfectly okay."
He would say, "You know it is not perfectly okay, it is just
okay; but I am a perfectionist. Until it comes up to my standard,
I am not going to offer it to anybody. I love my food."
He used to make many kinds of drinks...and whatsoever he did
the whole family was against him: they said that he was just a
nuisance. He wouldn't allow anybody in the kitchen, and in the
evening he gathered all the atheists of the town. And just to
defy Jainism, he would wait till the sun set. He would not eat
before because Jainism says: eat before sunset; after sunset eating
is not allowed. He used to send me again and again to see whether
the sun had set or not.
He annoyed the whole family. And they could not be angry with
him - he was the head of the family, the oldest man - but they
were angry at me. That was easier. They said, "Why do you
go on coming again and again to see whether the sun has set or
not? That old man is getting you also lost, utterly lost."
I was very sad because I only came across the book Zorba the
Greek, when my grandfather was dying*. The only thing that I felt
at his funeral pyre was that he would have loved it if I had translated
it for him and read it for him. I had read many books to him.
He was uneducated. He could only write his signature, that was
all. He could neither read nor write - but he was very proud of
it.
He used to say, "It is good that my father did not force
me to go to school, otherwise he would have spoiled me. These
books spoil people so much." He would say to me, "Remember,
your father is spoiled, your uncles are spoiled; they are continually
reading religious books, scriptures, and it is all rubbish. While
they are reading, I am living; and it is good to know through
living."
He used to tell me, "They will send you to the university
- they won't listen to me. And I cannot be much help, because
if your father and your mother insist, they will send you to the
university. But beware: don't get lost in books."
He enjoyed small things. I asked him, "Everybody believes
in God, why don't you believe, baba?" I called him baba;
that is the word for (paternal) grandfather in India.
He said, "Because I am not afraid."
A very simple answer: "Why should I be afraid? There is no
need to be afraid; I have not done any wrong, I have not harmed
anybody. I have just lived my life joyously. If there is any God,
and I meet Him sometime, He cannot be angry at me. I will be angry
at Him:'Why have You created this world? - this kind of world?'
I am not afraid." ignor16
*Note: grandfather dies after Osho became a professor, see Part
V
Look at the East: in the villages still, a businessman is not
just a profit maker, and the customer has not come just to purchase
something. They enjoy it. I remember my old grandfather. He was
a cloth merchant, and I and my whole family were puzzled because
he enjoyed it so much. For hours together it was a game with the
customers. If something was worth ten rupees, he would ask fifty
rupees for it - and he knew this was absurd, and his customers
knew it too. They knew that it must be worth nearabout ten rupees,
and they would start from two rupees. Then a long haggling would
follow - hours together. My father and my uncles would get angry.
"What is going on? Why don't you simply say what the price
is?" But he had his own customers. When they came, they would
ask, "Where is Dada, where is grandfather? because with him
it is a game, a play. Whether we lose one rupee or two, whether
it is more or less, that is not the point!"
They enjoyed it. The very activity in itself was something worth
pursuing. Two persons were communicating through it. Two persons
were playing a game and both knew it was a game - because of course
a fixed price was possible.
In the West now they have fixed prices, because people are more
calculating and more profit-motivated. They cannot conceive of
wasting time. Why waste time? The thing can be settled within
minutes. There is no need. You can just write the exact price.
Why fight for hours together? But then the game is lost and the
whole thing becomes a routine. Even machines can do it. The businessman
is not needed; the customer is not needed....
Even now in villages in India the haggling goes on. It is a game
and worth enjoying. You are playing. It is a match between two
intelligences, and two persons come in deep contact. But it is
not time-saving. Games can never be time-saving. And in games
you don't worry about the time. You are carefree, and whatsoever
is going on, you enjoy it right in that moment.
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