Osho Tirth - Kuchwada, Pachmari and return to Delhi

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November 24th

We wend our merry way on through more road challenges, hellish toilets, other times preferring roadside pee breaks accompanied by occasional outbreaks of dancing and then after five or six hours we arrive at Osho Tirth, a beautiful Osho centre run by Swami Satyatirth Bharti who also has a meditation centre in Tokyo. This centre is everything the one in Jabalpur is not and that's ok, both are necessary and exist beyond good and bad. We are received by the Swami in his Japanese style house and it's fair to say that though Indian, Japan seems to live and breathe in him.

After lunch we walk to Osho's birthplace, the house where he spent much of his childhood living with his grandparents. On the approach, children run past calling out 'Osho, Osho!' As we enter the house I am struck by the love that permeates this modest rural home, now uninhabited and kept as a simple shrine. I can only describe it as generous, feminine and totally open-hearted; every curve and cupboard exudes the honesty Heidegger speaks of in a slim volume I pored over and whose title I cannot remember for the life of me.

After soaking up the atmosphere for a while we are taken to meet an elderly lady who allegedly worked in the house as a domestic when Osho was a boy. This is quite an event - she generously invites all twenty of us, plus guides, plus many local children into her humble yard. She talks at length but no-one seems able to translate much though the gist seems to be that as a boy Osho did nothing but drink milk. We all laugh at the good of this indulged grandchild with chubby legs. Her words cause much mirth and she is wholly spontaneous, natural and at ease. Isn't it always a pleasure to be in the company of such a person?

On the morrow we head off or the last destination before we return to the capital - a three day stay at an upmarket resort in the hill station of Pachmari. Five hours on the road and then the lap of luxury. After some of the rooms we've stayed in I am pleased to see the four poster bed and bathtub.

We take a stroll to five Pandav buddhist caves, excavated in sandstone and try out our chanting, though there's a distinct smell of urine ; (. We meet many friendly Indian tourists while walking around the park areas surrounding the caves, something vaguely Imperial endures in Pachmari, you sense it in the neat rows of rosebushes somehow.

My two favourite places we visit in Pachmari:

Chauragarh, sacred to Shiva, situated 1316 metres above sea level, to which we ascend by way of 1250 rustic steps, climbing through dense and beautiful pristine forests, hills and valleys while eagles circle overhead. On top of the mountain pilgrims leave their small or in some cases extremely large tridents as a symbolic offering to Shiva. I leave my wee one beside the great and many in a bid to let go of limited perceptions of a relationship to a significant other. What will Shiva make of it? Anyway it's worth a stab with the trident eh Neptune? The modern Shiva temple, however, cheeky monkey inhabited as are the woods, fails to meet with our approval, being a charmless concrete monstrosity which we dismiss out of hand.

For every ascent there must also be descent right? And so it is we go down to Gupt Mahadev, also sacred to Shiva. Down into the chasm we go and the power of this ancient place is undeniable though I'm mildly irritated that Shiva gets both mountain and cave but what to do? As we descend, perched on a boulder, beside a liquor stall sits boldly and sings continuously with utter conviction and full lung power an awe inspiring yogini. Boom! 'Om namah Shivaya!' resounds through the canyon like a sheer force of nature.


We have rested and eaten of the fat of the land and our two weeks are almost up. All that remains is what will become a nightmarish road trip to Bhopal! It starts out innocuously enough, though I clash with one of the drivers and jump jeeps. After many hours cooped up in the back of that jeep we are in Bhopal but it becomes apparent that our driver has no clue where the airport is. We've been travelling for 6-7 hours driving on crazy polluted roads and as our flight time draws near hysteria begins to rise within. I am now in the front seat. Our driver stops, another gets in and I think perhaps he knows the way but he gets on his phone and talks while driving at a snail's pace. I shout rashly and quite unhelpfully, 'Step on it! Go, go, go!' The driver goes off in one direction, then does a u turn, stopping at least half a dozen times to consult with passers-by. In the car different strategies can be observed - the calm trying to help the more hysterically inclined. And it is precisely at the point when collectively we surrender - what's the worst that can happen after all? that the airport looms into view. Niten appears, we leap out like super heroes to form a crazed melee at the check in desk. Niten has to argue vociferously to have all of us admitted onto the flight. Miraculously and by a hair's breadth we make it onto the plane. Sidika comes round to administer rescue remedy while Niten hands out dhal and rice. Phew!

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