Exiled in Antelope

The nearest town to Rajneeshpuram, which was by now an incorporated city in Oregon, was an infinitesimal town in Central Oregon named Antelope. The entire town had a population of 41. They had a little post office, a one-room schoolhouse with a playground and several little houses lining 2 streets that ran the length of the town. On the main drag, there was a café that was owned by the Ranch called Zorba the Buddha. For a while, it served as a welcoming restaurant for people arriving at the Ranch on their way from Portland. Antelope was about 15 miles from the ranch and it took 45 minutes to drive the winding roads from there.

At some point, the Ranch leadership decided it would go about taking over the town of Antelope. It had a public school so they decided that they would send their red-clad kids, all of us, to Antelope to go to school. The people of Antelope freaked out, and bussed all of their kids to the next biggest town, Madras, so that their kids wouldn't have to go to school with us. There was one kid who stayed, but her parents were sannyasins anyway, and they'd moved to Antelope in order to be closer to the Ranch in the first place. So, we took over the school.

Not only were we to be sent to school in Antelope, but we were to take over the town completely. We were not living on the Ranch any more, all the hundred or so kids on the Ranch were living in various houses we'd bought from the townsfolk or trailers we put there. I lived in a little house at the bottom of the hill with three boys (remember I was still under the impression that I was a boy), Pramada, Nicky, and Sanjay. Our house was named Gorky, and it was an adorable little one-bedroom shack where we shared 2 bunkbeds.

The deal was, all the kids lived in communal housing in Antelope, ate in the community kitchen in Antelope and saw our parents on a "babysitting" rotation - they would rotate in once a week or so and have the duty of watching their child's houseful. It was different for me, though. My mom was living in Berkeley with Akul, she'd had attitude problems with authority, I think. And Sarv was working in the legal department as a spy, well, not so much a spy as a researcher, but with the stink of spyhood around it. He would go to Portland once a week or so and dress in blue and take off his mala and pose as Dr. Donald Bluestone, PhD working on some book or other and he would nose around trying to find things out for the "moms", the powers-that-be at the Ranch. In any case, this special situation meant that I rarely saw Sarv, but that I was allowed to go and spend the night at the Ranch in his trailer in lieu of him coming to babysit.

We literally took over that town. I barely ever remember even seeing any of the locals around any more and we purchased most of the real estate there. We gutted the school and remodeled it into a 3 room school house. It was in quite a shambles, I remember going through with a broom and trying to avoid hundreds of wasps' nests hiding in all the ceiling corners. Instead of classes, we spent weeks going through and cleaning windows, sweeping floors, dusting chalkboards, and moving furniture. Finally, we had a school.

We even had bona fide teachers. And a principal. All certified to teach in the State of Oregon. We were a real live public school. The principal was Suraj. He was one of the adults I'd had run-ins with at Geetam when he was in charge of the kitchen. He was a tall, gray-haired and bearded, stern PRINCIPAL. I think he may also have taught the older kids, the teenies. Pranesh, a warm funny loving bearlike man also taught the older kids.

Then there was Nura. She was actually from Oregon and was a teacher by trade - always was and probably still is. She had these weird twin boys - Dave and Gabe, later named Jalesh and Prasana' who adored the Police and had these gorgeous high-pitched voices so they could actually sing the entire Synchronicity album just like Sting. My dad always called them the aliens. Nura taught the middle kids, me and my friends. She taught us about Oregon things like Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce and Lewis and Clark. I also remember her reading us a wonderful novel about kids who end up in Egyptian mythology. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but i had fabulous visions of Nefertiti and an Oracle.

Sambodhi taught the youngest kids. She was a small person (dwarf? midget? I'm not sure what we called them then or even what condition she had but she was very very short). She had one leg significantly shorter than the other as well and had this giant shoe and brace to make up for it. She was a wonderful teacher and person with whom you would not want to fuck. I'm not sure if she was mean or cruel, but you knew, you just knew you didn't want to get on her bad side.

The school was run like this: We were divided into the three groups. The teacher made every attempt at actual lessons, which probably lasted a half an hour or so each day. Then we had free reign to learn about whatever we wanted. We were given math workbooks, novels to read, and journals in which to write. We were all extremely possessive of our journals and all the kids, male and female, wrote in them religiously. I became quickly recognized as the smart one. I was always quite enthusiastic about learning and I loved the workbooks. Many of the kids never did any school work, but when they tried, they would all come to me for help with it. I enjoyed that there, it didn't have any of the stigma attached to it as it later would in the outside world public school.

At 4 each day, we would break for "tea". This meant snacks and playtime outside. There were swings, a rickety jungle gym and an even ricketier mint green merry-go-round which was always the most popular item. One or two kids would climb into the middle of it and push hordes of kids as fast as possible until one of us would ineveitably fly off. After tea, we would go inside and do chores. Cleaning, organizing, etc. It was our job to keep the place tidy since we were no longer on the official ranch with our official jobs.

Then we would all go down to the cafeteria for dinner and gachamis. Every day before breakfast and dinner, everyone on the Ranch and by extension, in Antelope, had to bow down kneeling and do gachamis. "buddham, sharanam, gachami," means "i bow to the feet of the awakened one". It goes on for 3 separate refrains, while bowed down for each. Before gachamis, we had "reminders". These were insipid little things that one person was assigned to announce twice each day. "Beloveds. Please remember that our bodies are temples. Please treat them this way."

"Beloveds. Please remember not to gossip. It hurts all involved and noone is interested anyway."

And on from there. It was intolerable.

None of the kids were particularly spiritual or pious, and we all did this because we had to, not because we were reverent and felt like bowing to the feet of the Awakened One. Well, all of us but one. Mouna, my friend from Poona, would look very meditative and awestruck with each refrain. At the final one, "Dhammmmaaaaaaaam.....Sharanaaaaaaaaammmmm.... Gaaaaaaaaaachaaaaaaaaamiiiiiii....", she would stay bowed on hands and knees until she knew nobody was still down before she raised up and slowly opened her eyes while taking a deep sustained breath.

I always thought she was full of shit.