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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