How would apple blossoms sound?

Yatro writes: "Neera left her body not long after dawn on Sunday 12th April. She had spent the night, surrounded by her partner Dinraj, family and friends – with music, silence, laughter, love, being held. She left very peacefully, her breath simply stopped. And she looked radiant." Her Death Celebration will be held on Friday 17th April 2009 7pm in Scorriton. Details...

A friend told me over lunch at the ‘Vegi’ in Zurich one November day that I should rush back to Pune and leave my temporary money-making job in Switzerland because he suspected that Osho would not be much longer in his body. He also told me of the incredible music which accompanied Osho’s entry to the meditation hall to greet us all before the White Robe Meditation.

On the first evening I heard the samba beats – the low huge drum beats and the mosquito-like high-pitched scattered sounds of tambourines and agogos. Astonishingly, where one would expect a solo by an electric guitar or a flute, there was a soprano voice. I was not sure at the beginning if I liked it – was it not too high? But the purity of the sound which reminded me of the voices in a children’s choir made the hair on the back of my neck stand up – and this was what the music was meant to do. (You can hear what I mean on the first track of the video below.)

Video compiled by Anand Viru, a fellow musician, one of Neera’s many friends in Japan.

After a few months I took the courage to appear with my bag of small percussion instruments and to start playing with the big boys – and this was when I met Neera. I was welcomed by her in the musician’s room, which still daunted me, and she gave me some good advice after I had been rejected to play with one of the groups. (It is interesting to see how feeling inferior (as a musician) made me loose my perspective and interactive skills!)

"Punya, just play with those who enjoy your company and invite you. There is no need to force yourself onto others. There are plenty of opportunities." Such wise words from this girl! They became my constant reminder and they still come back to me in my everyday work life.

I mentioned the word ‘girl’ as, close to her, I never felt much older than fourteen. So much giggling, but there was silence as well. Once we sat on the marble wall of the porch outside the musician’s room, resting back to back. Slowly, slowly I had a feeling of pink rose petals penetrating my back and then filling my whole body. I looked back in astonishment and saw Neera still resting against me. "Of course," I said out loud, "I should have known that such a beautiful voice can only come out of a beautiful person!"

Neera in the spotlight...

Neera returned from Japan where she was busking on the streets of Tokyo and was then ‘discovered’ by a film producer. She told me the man was impressed that they could leave the recording studio after such a short time: "one take was enough." It had never happened to him in his career! "You cannot improve on perfection!" I would have told him.

Now my percussion instruments rest in banana boxes in my cellar here in Glasgow from where I regularly update this site and Neera is in Devon in the south of the UK. It is not the music which in the past had taken her to India, Japan and the rest of the world which brought her here this time but, sadly, her ill health. A year ago she was diagnosed with cancer and she moved back to her homeland with her partner of seven years, Dinraj, to stay closer to her friends and family and to hopefully find the best care.

Reading through these notes I realise that I have almost portrayed her as a saint. But I know – and all her friends know – that sometimes she can have a terrible character indeed! And she herself agrees with that!

Yatro, who lives close-by to her and visits her regularly, asked her recently if we could publish Dinraj’s letter we had received and Neera started telling her story with music. Read Rashid’s words about Neera’s send-off on 17th April 2009.

Neera’s albums:

The Thread Runs Through It is available for download on Apple itunes and Amazon
Baul Essentials available from Dinraj (pay through paypal button below) – £11.99 including shipping in the UK, £13.99 outside the UK
Lotus Paradise is an album with Milarepa and is available on oneskymusic.com

Neera on YouTube:

text by Punya – March 2009