Personal Terror

Due to some difficulties incorporating Rajneeshpuram as its own city, the Rajneeshies took over the neighboring town of Antelope, bought up most of the properties, installed its children in the houses, took over the one-room schoolhouse effectively forcing the remaining local families to bus their children to further neighboring Madras (My god, it's a carbon-spending global warming nightmare) lest they have to spend their days with pink and red clad hooligan children. Antelope was renamed the City of Rajneesh and all its citizens eventually moved away save the one sannyasin family that had bought a home in the town. How could this plan possibly engender ill will?

The kids moved back to Rajneeshpuram shortly thereafter, though we were bussed to and from Antelope each day for school (45 minutes on windy back roads).

It was at this time that the friendly neighborliness feelings some of the very small towns in Central Oregon had afforded us began to dissipate and be replaced with anger and hostility. Sheela, the head "mom" on the Ranch began to become crazier and crazier, hatching nefarious plots in conspiracy with her cohorts. Things in my world began slowly to go awry. First, the enforced nuclear holocaust fear-instilling madness. Then, the AIDS scare - we were all certain to die in the oncoming plague unless we put alcohol on phones and toilet seats.

Then it got personal.

If we kids ever did anything that was "not on" (against the rules), we would be called into Ramakrishna to get "hosed" or "boned" (in trouble and yelled at). Offenses likely to get you hosed included anything from skipping lecture (videos of previously recorded Rajneesh lectures, remember he was in silence at this time) to skipping work. Or stealing, drinking alcohol, or anything our Moms felt was not on.

I was summoned to Ramakrishna for my attitude. I had been skipping lecture every day to play with my friend Sarjan on a tire swing. I also made out with my boyfriend Jeet during times I was supposed to be doing something else. I often skipped worship in order to play.

I nervously went in to the office. You never know whether a boning would get you sent away or merely a stern talking to. I waited anxiously for Shanti B, the Mom in charge of the kids, to come and give me my boning. She finally arrived, sat down across from me and chatted with me for a while about my attitude. I was about to get up and be done with this and was certainly ready to move on with my life.

"One more thing," she said. "How old are you?"
"Nine." I told her.
"Hm... and how old was your dad when his mom died?"
"Nine months."
"Oh, and how old was he when his dad died?"
"Nine."
"I see. Watch it from now on."

She didn't need to say anything more. I knew what it meant. At least what it meant to me. It was a not-so-thinly veiled threat against my dad. If I didn't shape up, my dad was a goner. I honestly didn't think that she meant she would kill him. In my mind, she meant if i didn't shape up, he would just die as a result of my badness.