The Orange Issue

I have written elsewhere about my momentous meeting with Osho, taking sannyas and wearing orange clothes, but then I didn’t go into the issue of orange.

To become a sannyasin (the closest translation in western terms would be ‘disciple’) Osho asked for two commitments: to change one’s name and to wear orange. His explanation for this request was that to undergo the process of transformation of the self needed a strong determination to change and considerable hard work and dedication. If the individual was not willing even to change his name and the colour of his clothes – two very superficial outer changes – he was not ready to make the very arduous inner changes necessary to progress on the path. These changes were, then, an indication that the individual was willing and ready to make a start.

Our names are imbued with conditioning. They are part of our identity, part of our family connections, part of our personal history. Changing our name means making a break with this conditioning, taking a first step toward breaking down the centuries of conditioning we carry which imprisons us and prevents us from being free to be our real selves.

The colour orange is significant in a number of ways. Firstly it is the traditional colour of the Hindu sannyasin – for no better reason than it was easy to disguise the dinginess of white clothes by rinsing them in river water – the brown-orange colour of which adhered to the cloth! Osho got more lyrical by associating the colour with the sunrise, with the dawn. He talked often of his sannyasins being the heralds of a new dawn in the life of mankind, a new beginning free of the crushing weight of the conditionings of civilisation. He said also that it was a joyous lively colour and a great number of people wearing shades of orange had the psychological effect of raising the spirits and imparting great joy to all concerned.

Great aspirations and very inspiring, but to someone with such a fashion-conscious and colour-conscious ego as myself, orange was a huge no-no, and the prospect of having to wear only this colour all the time was a considerable hurdle to overcome!! Name changes and dynamic meditation were no problem, but orange?

Well, I swallowed my objections and in a khadi shop in Bombay obediently bought some kurtas and cotton ‘pyjama’ pants which I had dyed. Exploring the fabric shops with their rainbow arrays of cotton to make matching saree tops I found a more subtle pink-orange fabric, a kind of peach colour. I got a sample and took it back to Osho to ask if this was a permissible shade to wear. He was a bit reluctant – he was after a full-on, in-your-face effect – but finally agreed and I felt a bit happier wearing this colour.

Bombay was an uncomfortable place to be in – dirty, hot, and very humid. I spent a lot of time just hanging out in Woodlands – the rather up-market apartment block in which Osho lived – and meeting the sannyasins who came in and out. Most were Indians but there were a few Westerners. The person who became my closest friend was a reserved, exquisite-looking English woman, Nirvano.

One day Osho called Nirvano and me into his room and told us that soon he would be holding a meditation camp in Mt Abu, a hill station on the borders of Gujarat and Rajasthan. For some reason he wanted us to go up there ahead of time and suggested we leave the next day. We were rather taken aback but, OK, whatever. The train tickets had already been procured for us so the next day we found ourselves on a journey through the dusty Gujarat desert. We arrived in Mt Abu late in the afternoon and set off to find the dharmsala (a kind of ‘guest house’ for pilgrims attached to a temple) in which we were supposedly to stay.

The place was disgusting!! A Jaina monk led us to a cave-like room which was filthy dirty and STANK. Looking out of the makeshift window I saw an open drain with sewage flowing sluggishly past. There was no way we were going to stay here, and I fortunately already had an idea. On the way into the town I had seen a sign labelled ‘Dak Bungalow’ and I knew from my guidebook that it was often possible to rent such a place. Officials of the British Raj had built dak bungalows, which were 2- or 3-roomed houses, all over India so that when they travelled round the country on official business they were sure of cool, clean, comfortable places to stay.

I nudged Nirvano out of the door and we hurriedly left the dharmsala . We were pretty tired by this time but we trudged up a small hill – and found paradise! The dak bungalow turned out to be a lovely small dwelling in a garden of roses, some trees and a LAWN! A little bedraggled but definitely an attempt at an English lawn! A curious Indian servant came out to greet us and when he understood we were interested in staying there, happily showed us inside. The inside was even better! An absolutely huge room with the regulation high ceiling, a bathroom and a kitchen – all spotlessly clean and all for the fantastic sum of 2 rupees each (about 30p). We were ecstatic. The one remaining problem was to find some food but the man had ideas about that too. He spoke some English, I had a smattering of Hindi from my guidebook, and with the addition of expressive hand gestures it was arranged that he would prepare an evening meal for us for another 2 rupees. An hour later a passable feast appeared and we finally went to bed still rather disbelieving in our fortunate discovery.

Then followed beautiful days. Mt Abu was a magical place and each hour brought new delights, not the least of which was the ‘carrot halva’ which we ate in copious amounts. Carrot halva was a sweet made of grated carrots boiled to solidity in milk and sugar with added pistachio nuts.

But by the third day rebellion was stirring in the female ranks. We were both dressed in our orange gear, me in an unflattering khadi kurta and lungi and Nirvano in what she called her ‘straightjacket’ an even more unflattering garment, straight and shapeless and uncomfortable.

There was a shop which we studiously avoided – metaphorically crossing to the other side – because it was filled with glorious bolts of fabric in a thousand different patterns and colours. The Rajasthani women dress differently to women in the rest of India. Rather than sarees, they wear incredibly full skirts cut in two circles so there is a phenomenal amount of material at the bottom of the skirt. They then wear tiny backless tops and a thin, shawl-like covering which they drape over their heads and shoulders. The fullness of the skirts causes them to walk with a gloriously sexy feminine sway. We felt clumsy and ungainly and very unattractive next to them!

Before too long our footsteps first halted at the beckoning shop and finally crossed the threshold. My dressmaker’s eyes were dazzled at the vast potential in front of me. Femininity battled with spirituality and at length we arrived at a kind of compromise: we would get some cloth in shades of the orange spectrum while creating something more sexy and fun to wear. A piece of fabric in swirls of orange, red and yellow with touches of green was without doubt our first choice and I quickly calculated how much material it would take to make a VERY full skirt. The next task was to find a sewing machine. At that time there were very few ready-made clothes and tailors abounded on every street corner, so I managed to bribe one into letting me use his sewing machine for the afternoon. It was an old treadle machine the likes of which I had never used before so it took me some time to get the hang of it, but soon I had the necessary rhythm going and I managed to make us each a very full, tiered skirt by nightfall. Of course the tailor rose to fame in a very short time as we became the entertainment offering for the day and were surrounded continuously by a crowd of interested spectators watching these two strange foreigners and their antics. It must be remembered that this was a time before mass tourism, and the British Raj was a thing of the past, so the locals had most probably never seen a westerner before, especially not two young girls sewing in the street!

So successful were my creations – which we teamed with gorgeous patterned T-shirts from the one tourist shop – that we decided to go in for seconds. This time colour swayed our choices and Nirvano went for a beautiful dusky grey-blue colour and I chose a light turquoise. Again the sewing machine was commissioned and the locals enjoyed the show.

We added silver ankle bracelets and colourful Indian bangles to complete the new outfits.

Reckoning was, of course, to come. After ten days Osho, his entourage, and hundreds of Indian sannyasins arrived for the meditation camp. Nirvano bravely made the first step by wearing the orange coloured skirt. Retribution was swift!!! We were called to face the Master with our pretty clothes and told in no uncertain terms that plain orange was the colour and plain fashions were the order of the day. The twentieth century Master had new and different roles to play with his twentieth century western disciples!

But I know I detected a twitching of the lips behind the beard and a twinkle in the eye as we left the room.

What I didn’t realise was that a seed had been sown and that a few years later in Poona, when a seamstress was needed, my skills would be remembered and I would be given the ultimate job – the Master’s tailor.

Read part 2
Read part 3
Read part 4

Chapter 3 from "A Seam for the Master" – copyright © Veena – 2005-2008 – reproduced with permission